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Vipassana Meditation for Chronic Daily Headache (Migraine): Clinical Trial Recruiting Participants
By Kerrie | April 22, 2008
Meditation is highly regarded yet little-studied for managing chronic daily headache and migraine. Intensive Meditation and Migraines: Effects on Health and Well Being is a clinical trial of Vipassana meditation and chronic daily headache (the migraine sort). The year-long study includes a 12-day retreat to learn the technique. Researchers describe the study as:
Participants completing training in intensive meditation and continuing frequent practice for one year would experience reduced frequency, duration and severity of headaches along with improved awareness of the triggers of their symptoms, improved quality of life and mental health, improved heart rate variability, and reduced inflammation.
For more information on the study, see the recruiting page on ClinicalTrials.gov. Learn more about Vipassana meditation from Wikipedia’s excellent external links list.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Kerrie,
Is this the type of meditation you have been doing? It looks very interesting. And helpful!
April 25th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I’m practicing mindfulness meditation. It is based on Buddhist meditation, but easily adapted to daily life. In fact, it is essentially about becoming aware in daily life. I’ve concentrated on the techniques used in a medical context — so it isn’t “airy fairy!”
I have some CDs and books that I really like. I’m slowly putting together a post on them. You can learn more here: http://www.umassmed.edu/Content.aspx?id=41252
-Kerrie