Mindfulness for Pain Relief

By: Fadel Zeidan, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Fadel Zeidan

Pain, to put it plainly, hurts. And it hurts for a reason. Our bodies use the experience of pain to tell us that something’s inherently wrong—and needs to be fixed.

So, it may shock you to learn that pain can be a source of transcendent experience just as much as it can be a source of great suffering. The secret lies in mindfulness meditation, which has been scientifically proven to change the impact of pain on our consciousness.

Fadel Zeidan, director of the University of California, San Diego, Brain Mechanisms of Pain and Health Laboratory, is an expert on the neural mechanisms that support mindfulness- and meditation-based pain relief. In his Audible Original, Mindfulness for Pain Relief, he shows you how mindfulness meditation—even for short periods of time—can bring your experience of pain under control. You’ll explore the nature of mindfulness from the teachings of the Buddha to the present day; how meditation can help us battle the chronic pain epidemic; what a brain looks like during the experience of meditation; and even a guided mindfulness meditation exercise designed to help increase your well-being.

©2023 Audible Originals LLC (P)2023 Audible Originals LLC

Learning is Power

There was a lot of interesting information in the first five chapters. But chapter 6 was far the best of the best.

Meditation through mindfulness and how to deal with pain.

This is all about mindfulness based stress reduction or mbsr. There is an exercise at the end that introduces how to do a mindfulness meditation. The premise of the book is simple: mindfulness meditation is an excellent technique for dealing with pain. Many tests are quoted that prove the point that it really works. Some people are in pain regardless of how many painkillers taken and this is very useful to them. It's the ancient idea that you can have two types of pain, the first is the biological response that would make you remove your hand from something hot unconsciously and the other type is the pain that comes after the initial pain. Typically the throbbing pain can be accepted to some extent and that's what this book is all about.

A lot of good science-based info ...

... on the effects of mindfulness meditation on chronic pain. The delivery could have been a little better though, as it sounds like the narrator was just reading off a pre-written lecture. The last chapter is a guided meditation, which is helpful for first-timers but doesn't cover any new ground for those who are more experienced.

Useful, But Technical

Doesn’t depend on new age gush and backs up mindfulness with science. However, the audiobook is, at times, too technical. There’s a longer meditation session at the end, but I feel like spreading it out or having additional meditations earlier would’ve served the listener better.

interesting concept

The book contained a lot of research and study results that backed up or explained why mindfulness is good. the last chapter put the technique into practice.
I understand some people need to be convinced of the benefits, but although I listened to the whole book - the last chapter is what I found most beneficial.
I don't need to be convinced - I would be open to try it without the research evidence.

Worthwhile even for the non-techie

Up to the last chapter it is a technical description of how it is proved that meditation reduces chronic pain. Nice to know that it is a fact and not a "somebody said". The last chapter is an actual guided meditation session.

Disappointing

The book was free. What did free get me? ….Endless nerdy detail followed by a crumb of practical instruction. I liked the reader but the content was almost useless.

this is more for Doctors. Too much medical jargon.

I was hoping for something useful. But to get the weeks of training is almost impossible in a small town without driving hours even if you could somewhere that had the program. A huge disappointment on content and a waste of 2 hours.