For people suffering from chronic pain, there may be a simple and cost effective way to help manage their discomfort. Recent findings have revealed that slow, yoga-style breathing and meditation helped to control pain in healthy women. The data represents the first time that scientists have investigated the relationship between a person’s breathing rate and their physical and emotional response to pain.

In the study in question, published in the journal Pain, researchers were literally “putting meditation to the test” by subjecting two groups of women to varying levels of pain. The women were divided into two groups: one that suffered from chronic pain as a result of fibromyalgia, and a healthy group that did not. Pain was administered by way of a heat source to the palms of their hands.

After they received their dose of pain, the participants were then asked to describe the experience in relation to three parameters: the intensity of the pain, their emotional response to it, and how unpleasant the sensation was for them. The subjects were also asked to pace their breathing to a moving image on a computer screen, thus allowing for greater control of this variable in relation to the pain received.

What the researchers found was that breathing at a slower pace reduced the reported levels of all three parameters. This greatest effect was seen in the healthy women. While not all of the women who suffered from fibromyalgia experienced a reduction a similar reduction in pain, the women who benefited most from the slow-breathing were the ones who were best able to nurture healthy and positive emotions in their lives.

The basis for this pain relieving phenomenon is thought to be based in the fact that breathing techniques are believed to positively affect the regions of the brain that are involved with stress by counteracting the anxiety and nervous tension that are the body’s sympathetic reaction to pain.

According to the authors, slow and controlled breathing induces calm and allows the mind to open up and focus on emotions other than the pain response. This leads to a broader perspective, which entails a reduction in the influence of the survival response that often accompanies pain. This, in turn, allows for better control of one’s emotions as well as a shift away from feelings of helplessness and towards empowerment.

Unfortunately, for the patients who needed it the most (i.e., those suffering from fibromyalgia), the effects were not as pronounced. In these instances, researchers believed that certain interventions were necessary to help boost positive emotions in order to encourage positive thinking in the fact of adversity.

The findings are particularly relevant in light of the fact that in many instances, medication alone does not always do the trick. By some estimates, modern medicines are only about 35% effective in ameliorating pain. With this in mind, many pain experts feel that physical therapy in conjunction with mind body techniques might be helpful in developing pain therapies.