Ongoing opioid use for chronic pain reduces pleasure from naturally rewarding experiences and can increase cravings. Mindfulness practices cultivate present-centered, nonjudgmental awareness of internal and external experience, whether painful or pleasurable. Meditation, yoga, tai chi, and qi gong train attention and voluntary control over habitual autopilot processes. Mindfulness decreases anxiety, depression, chronic pain intensity, trauma symptoms, and emotional reactivity while promoting psychological flexibility, sustained attention, calmness, clarity, and resilience. By regulating emotions and reducing negative thought patterns, mindfulness lowers stress and anxiety and can rewire brain responses to healthy pleasure, making it promising for opioid addiction treatment.
Ongoing opioid use for chronic pain decreases the pleasure found in naturally rewarding experiences. Mindfulness practice can reduce stress and anxiety, and help people better manage their chronic pain. Mindfulness-oriented treatment can help rewire the brain's response to healthy pleasure and reduce cravings. Research suggests that this could be an especially promising approach in the treatment of opioid addiction. Mindfulness is an approach to living with greater conscious attention, intention, and skill based on specific practices that facilitate this experience.
These practices help people cultivate present-centered awareness of their internal and external experience-whether painful or pleasurable-with acceptance, and without judgment. Mindfulness practices have been shown to reduce anxiety, depression, chronic pain intensity, trauma symptoms, and emotional reactivity, as well as to promote enhanced psychological flexibility, the ability to direct and maintain attention, and resilience.[1] By helping to regulate emotions, mindfulness practice reduces the impact of negative thoughts and thought patterns, leading to decreased stress and anxiety levels.
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