Meditation-Based Treatment Yielding Immediate Relief for Meditation-Naïve Migraineurs
Open accessAbstract
Meditation is gaining popularity as an effective means of managing and attenuating pain and has been particularly effective for migraines. Meditation additionally addresses the negative emotional states known to exist with migraines. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of meditation as an immediate intervention for reducing migraine pain as well as alleviating emotional tension, examined herein as a negative affect hypothesized to be correlated with pain. Twenty-seven migraineurs, with two to ten migraines per month, reported migraine-related pain and emotional tension ratings on a Likert scale (ranging from 0 to 10) before and after exposure to a brief meditation-based treatment. All participants were meditation- naïve, and attended one 20-minute guided meditation session based on the Buddhist "loving kindness" approach. After the session, participants reported a 33% decrease in pain and a 43% decrease in emotional tension. The data suggest that a single exposure to a brief meditative technique can significantly reduce pain and tension, as well as offer several clinical implications. It can be concluded that single exposure to a meditative technique can significantly reduce pain and tension. The effectiveness and immediacy of this intervention offers several implications for nurses.
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Participants described mindfulness skills as helping them notice their stress response sooner and use MBSR techniques to reduce stress reactivity, a commonly identified migraine trigger.
“Participants described mindfulness skills as allowing them to become aware of their stress response sooner and using MBSR techniques to decrease their stress reactivity, a commonly identified migraine trigger.41”
From Mechanisms of mindfulness in patients with migraine: Results of a qualitative study. (2023) · cites this paper as [41]
The Results report reduced emotional tension after meditation, and the Discussion says negative affect can precede a migraine attack. But the Method describes a single Buddhist loving-kindness meditation session with before-and-after ratings, not MBSR or participant accounts of noticing stress responses sooner and using techniques to change their reactivity. No page numbers were available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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- Authors
- Tonelli, M. E., & Wachholtz, A. B.
- Affiliations
- University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wachholtz, Amy B.
- ORCID
- Wachholtz, Amy B.
- Venue
- Pain Management Nursing
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-03
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 36-40
- ISSN
- 1524-9042 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4109722
- OpenAlex
- W2032198969
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 0.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Pain Management Nursing (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network (American Medical Association) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (K23DA030397)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Migraine and Headache Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Complementary and alternative medicine › Acupuncture Treatment Research Studies
- Keywords
- meditation, migraine, migraine pain, emotional tension, negative affect, loving-kindness meditation, guided meditation, analgesia, brief intervention
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Buddhism, Emotions, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Migraine Disorders, Stress, Psychological, Holistic Nursing, Meditation
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