Ease Lower Back Pain Instantly With This Science-Backed Wellness Hack

Whether you consider yourself older, younger, or somewhere in between, lower back pain can be a potentially invasive part of almost anyone’s life. While common solutions might include physical therapy, low-impact exercise, and even over-the-counter or prescription medications, a new study found that eight weeks of mindfulness or cognitive behavioral therapy (aka, CBT, a type of psychological treatment commonly known as talk therapy, focused on adjusting negative thought patterns) can significantly improve chronic lower back pain. The study, led by researchers from Penn State’s College of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, conducted a clinical trial to see if improved thinking can treat physical pain over time—and the benefits lasted up to a year.

“These therapies aren’t a total cure, but they teach people how to develop the inner resources they need to cope with chronic pain and to live a better life,” says Eric Garland, senior author of the study. “Mindfulness is a self-regulated tool that comes from within, unlike surgery or medication where something is being done to you from the outside. By learning these techniques, patients continue to experience lasting benefit[s].”

The Link Between Mindfulness and Improved Back Pain

Behavioral therapy has played a large role in how we feel about and treat chronic pain, especially when our relationship to physical ailments is mostly negative. For example, a 2017 study found that mindfulness meditation can help people process and deal with pain; however, these studies “were generally small in size and evaluated benefits over the short-term,” the recent study notes. To curate the first large-scale, long-term clinical study, researchers enrolled a randomized set of 770 adults who were experiencing moderate to severe back pain and had been treated with opioid medications for at least three months.

Then, participants were assigned to mindfulness-focused group therapy (or CBT) for two hours a day, lasting eight weeks. In their sessions, participants learned how to redirect negative thought patterns, practice mindfulness at home, and perform daily body scans to assess pain levels. By the end of the study, participants found that their pain had significantly reduced, along with consumption of opioids.

“The goal of pain management is to improve quality of life, increase function, and reduce the sense of suffering,” says Penney Cowan, co-author of the study and founder of the American Chronic Pain Association. “The study’s interventions likely helped reduce the participants’ sense of suffering, which probably allowed them to function a whole lot better. People can live with pain, but they need to know how to do it. This study provides a sense of hope. It says you can do this and help yourself to a better quality of life.”

How to Practice Mindfulness at Home

Researchers found that helping participants assemble an emotional toolkit benefitted their chronic pain management, with multiple self-care and coping mechanisms playing a primary role in dealing with pain—plus, these tools can be accessed any time, anywhere. “Mindfulness and CBT are other tools that you can add to your toolbox to increase your capacity to cope and live a meaningful life,” says Christin Veasley, co-author of the study and founder of the Chronic Pain Research Alliance. “What’s important about the types of therapies, like the ones evaluated in this study, is that they can be used broadly across all pain conditions and all pain severities.” For example, participants were encouraged to take mindful breaths before opting for medication.

While there is no right or wrong way to practice mindfulness, you might consider some of our resources to help you reap the many benefits of mindfulness and CBT. And although chronic pain treatment should be a conversation between you and your healthcare provider, nothing bad can happen from adding a little mindfulness to your routine.