Can meditation reduce chronic back pain?

Chronic low back pain presents a difficult clinical challenge.

Symptoms can persist for months or years, affecting sleep, mobility, work, relationships and emotional wellbeing. For some patients, conventional treatments provide only partial relief, prompting interest in approaches that address the interaction between pain, attention, stress and the nervous system.

Meditation has attracted growing research interest in this area. Mindfulness-based stress reduction, loving-kindness meditation and newer pain-specific mindfulness programs have all been investigated in people with persistent low back pain.