OT: Pain, Pain go away...Positive Thinking at Work
 

Positive thinking a pain reliever

BBC News
Last Updated: Monday, 5 September 2005, 23:31 GMT 00:31 UK

US experts say they have strong scientific proof that mind over matter works for relieving pain.

Positive thinking was as powerful as a shot of morphine for relieving pain and reduced activity in parts of the brain that process pain information.

The Wake Forest University researchers say their findings show that by merely expecting pain to be less it will be less.

Their work is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Positive thinking

Dr Robert Coghill and his team studied 10 normal, healthy volunteers who had a heat simulator applied to their legs while their brains were being scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The heat simulator was used to produce pain and fMRI was used to map brain activity.

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