Painiac: The Podcast On Living Well Even When Life Hurts

Join Shelly in a conversation with Mindfulness­based Stress Reduction (MBSR) facilitator and fellow painiac Cecily McGaw. M BSR and its curriculum integrates both seated and walking meditation, gentle movement, and simple body­awareness practices. T he MBSR program started in the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in 1979 and is now offered in hundreds of hospitals and clinics around the world. MBSR is an inspiring tool for pain management because it emphasizes the need for a patient, practitioner partnership in healthcare. This approach allows the patient to tap into their own deepest inner resources for learning, growing, healing, and transformation, which ultimately can significantly empower people living with pain. Mindfulness has a hugely powerful impact on pain reduction. Researchers have found that mindfulness meditation reduces pain by activating the orbital frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, and these brain areas are associated with the self­-