Health Free your mind mindfulness is a great way to help manage pain and live well heres how to getstarted words: Dr DaviD Walton M indfulness has become an important tool for living well with arthritis and has clinically significant effects. Practising mindfulness increases awareness of whats happening not only within you, but also around you. Meditation is being more frequently offered as part ofpain-management programmes. The mindful way to think about pain is to accept it, but detach yourself from the emotional reaction itcauses. No longer reinforced by emotion, your painbecomes weaker. You still know it is there, but your brain prevents it from becoming the sole focus ofyourthinking. Many people attending mindfulness training find that the anticipation of pain as well as the pain itself diminishes. Research has shown that around 65 per cent of patients who havent responded to conventional medical treatments are less troubled by pain after learning mindfulness. Neuroscience research also shows that mindfulness creates physical changes in areas of the brain that process and regulate pain, emotion and depression. how to get started Keep in mind that you are training yourself to recognise your feelings without being caught up in them stopping autopilot reactions to reduce anxiety, and increasing resilience to fatigue and pain. Its about becoming a detached observer of your own thoughts and feelings, so you can manage them better. Its also about valuing the good things around you, which sometimes get overlooked. People try mindfulness for lots of reasons: health concerns; happiness and wellbeing; stress; increasing skills; and many more. You can do mindful exercises whenever you feel it would help, such as on a bus, walking to work or while shopping. Start by doing just a couple of minutes, eventually aiming for 20-30 minutes each day. At first, you might find it hard to focus, but this improves with time. what can i do at home? Our brains are built to generate and cope with many thoughts, which come and go all the time. If you find you are distracted, be aware, but try not to dwell on it. Return to the focus of the exercise and let the intruding thought just drift away. mindFuLness heLped me accept things Find out more a simple five minute meditation n For more info on mindfulness and how to find a teacher, visit bemindful.co.uk Its about becoming a detached observer of your own thoughts and feelings, so you can manage them better exercise: creating a focus n Sit down at a table in a quiet space, with a small object in front of you (a jar of marmalade, a cup, a spoon anything will do). Place your hands palm-down on the table and sit comfortably. n Look closely at your object for a couple of minutes without touching or moving it noting everything about it you can see. Dont judge its usefulness or beauty, just think about what it looks like. n Remain still and close your eyes. n Think about what physical sensations you are experiencing as you sit there the feel of your hands on the table, the places where your clothes touch your body, the feeling of the chair, where you feel pressure. n Take a minute or two to savour what you can smell and hear. It might just be the sound of your breath entering and leaving your body, or a clock ticking. Maybe you can hear an animal in the distance, or anaeroplane flying overhead. Or maybe you spend a minute or two hearing silence. n Now open your eyes and look back on what you have just experienced. By focusing on an object initially, then on sensations and sounds, you have given yourself abreak from the things that usually pre-occupy us. These are important aspects of mindfulness and by focusing on what we experience now, in this moment it can be mentally refreshing and help us to value things we dont always notice. There are many other aspects and benefits to mindfulness. You might like to click here or Google Scholar, where you can read clinical research on mindfulness, get links to useful reading and discover tips on how to practise. mindfulness helped me accept things Christine Franklin shares her story I was diagnosed with RA and osteoarthritis six years ago, after I went to hospital with pain in my knees while training for a half marathon. Once I was diagnosed, I was given Sulphasalazine and then Leflunomide, but both drugs affected my liver so I had to stop taking them. As Im not taking medication, Ive had to find other ways to manage my symptoms. I took a couple of courses in mindfulness. It has helped me to detach from the pain and Im able to put all my negative feelings to one side, so theyre not part of me. I used to be a halfmarathon runner, but I had to give that up, which upset me. Mindfulness has helped me to accept things.