Mindfulness for Pain, Discomfort and Weight Management

Mindfulness training and meditation is not designed as a cure for any ailments or diseases or a replacement for any medical treatments someone may have. But it can be used as an aid alongside them and may help the efficacy of some treatments.

We generally want to get rid of any kind of pain, disease or other life-limiting discomfort and feel that it is unfair or that we have been afflicted with it. Unfortunately, that type of attitude can often make the situation worse. We are, in effect, complaining about the reality of the situation we find ourselves in.

Complaining about reality is never going to make the situation better. But we could look instead at finding more helpful ways of dealing with it, and this is where mindfulness can be of use. One of the fundamental principles behind mindfulness is that seeing clearly helps lead to understanding, from which can follow better outcomes. So mindfulness might not get rid of a chronic problem, but it can make it feel like less of an issue so that it doesn’t distress us so much.

It can also allow us to feel into our bodies more and understand what is happening, which can make any treatment we are receiving more effective as we work with it to help it. Athletes often say that ‘you have to listen to your body’ and this is what mindfulness creates for us – the ability to listen to our body. When we listen, we can act. But without listening we don’t really know what is happening so are perhaps not getting the most effective treatment we need.

Mindfulness can also assist with weight management too, such as weight loss. By being able to feel how our bodies react to different inputs, we can see the effects that different foods have on us and thus be able to make choices that work for us, rather than against us.