3 free guided mindfulness meditations you can try today
Back pain often gets worse with stress and anxiety. These easy guided meditations will help ease stress, relieve back pain and other aches and pains in just a few minutes a day.
Never tried meditation? Think it’s a load of hippie-dippy nonsense? You are not alone. Most people do – before they try it. Before you try these simple techniques, it’s easy to dismiss them but once you give them a go, you will be amazed and wonder why you haven’t tried mindfulness meditation before.
Follow these steps to start the Sundial mindfulness meditation for back pain
- Choose how long you want to do the mindfulness meditation
- Choose a comfortable position
- Click to listen to the guided mindfulness meditation
5 Minute Breathing Space Meditation
Quick and easy to do during a busy day.
15 minute Body Scan Meditation
Great for easing aches and pains.
30 minute Mindfulness Meditation
Complete relaxation and awareness.
Mindfulness is about increased awareness – awareness of our environment, our body and ourselves. Even a little awareness every day can improve our mental wellbeing and physical health. Having more awareness in the present moment enables us to reduce and manage stress, decreasing physical symptoms such as pain, high blood pressure and increased heart rates.
It sounds simple, almost too simple to have the profound effects claimed. But people who do regular mindfulness meditation for back pain notice lots of other benefits besides back pain relief as well.
Benefits of mindfulness meditation
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Decreased stress, anxiety and depression from mindfulness meditation
Research has found that a Mindful approach to difficult situations can alter the way our brain works, suggesting that Mindful meditation allows people to regulate and process emotions differently. Further research reports lesser anxiety, depressive symptoms, stress and fatigue in those exposed to mindfulness.
Mindfulness reduces pain
Mindfulness based therapy is beneficial for people with chronic back pain. The effects were longer lasting than other treatment methods like CBT or usual medical care, suggesting that mindfulness can offer longer-lasting skills in pain management.
Mindfulness enhances wellbeing
In hand with reducing stress and anxiety, there’s evidence that mindfulness training can cultivate emotional intelligence and social connectedness while further studies report improvements in focus, self-regulation and immune function, overall offering participants an enhanced sense of wellbeing.
How does mindfulness meditation work to relieve back pain?
We may sometimes find that we’re rushing through one activity to move straight on to the next, often in an automatic mindset, without really thinking about what we’re doing in the moment. When we do stop, our brain can still be buzzing, remembering things we’d meant to do or are yet to do. Often our focus is in the past or future, not in the present.
This over-stimulation can lead to stress, anxiety and depression. Our bodies may become tense. We can find ourselves emotionally charged or experiencing mood swings.
Through mindfulness and meditation practise, we learn to re-connect with our mind and body. With practice, we become familiar with and understand what is happening, which then enables us to encourage positive mind and body states. This can help to reduce and manage stress, increase a state of relaxation which in turn reduces physical symptoms of stress and unease.
Practise these techniques to re-connect with the body, bring awareness to mental states and bring a wholesome awareness to daily activities. This course is experiential so every journey is unique and dependent on your practise. This is your guide through the skills to elicit relaxation, recognise and manage stress and introduce mindful awareness into your lifestyle.
Practising daily brings the best results. Even five minutes a day of mindfulness meditation can relieve back pain and other aches and pains like neck pain and headaches.
Download the audio programmes and give it a try today.
About the narrator
Thanks to our very own Hayley Johnson for this mindfulness programme. Hayley is a trained mindfulness therapist and has a gentle touch and a deep understanding of mindfulness. This combined with her experience of working with people with back pain and other aches and pains give her profound insight into the frustrations and distress that these problems cause.
References and further reading
Study finds mindfulness meditation offer relief low back pain
Mindfulness for Health: A practical guide to relieving pain, reducing stress and restoring wellbeing