Slow Breathing May Soothe Pain

From Fox News today, some details of a recent study published in the journal Pain, supporting the idea that yoga-style breathing exercises and meditation can help ease chronic pain.

It has been found in a recent study that the simple practice of slow breathing may help people deal with the physical and emotional reactions to moderate pain. The study gauged pain responses among 27 women with the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia and 25 healthy women the same age.

It found that slow breathing may help bring a better balance to the activities of the sympathetic (what activates the fight flight response during times of stress) and parasympathetic nervous system (which acts like a brake to that response). "It is not 'all in your head," Dr Alex Zautra, a psychology professor at Arizona State University noted, "but it may be in your brain". 

{you can read the article here}