Are you looking for meditation techniques for knee pain? Pain in the knees is the #1 problem doctors treat for muscle-bone problems.
Important: always check with your doctor before using meditation techniques for knee pain (or any other kind of pain). Meditation does relieve knee pain, and it’s important that you and your doctor understand the causes of pain in your knees. Using one of our guided meditation techniques for knee pain could hide the underlying cause of your pain — and that is not good.
We suggest using meditation to relieve chronic knee pain (after checking with your doctor) and not for acute knee pain resulting from an immediate injury.
Here’s what Web Md suggests –
Home Treatment Techniques For Knee Pain
Home Care for Knee Pain
Learn this simple meditation to relieve pain in your knees, ankles, feet and back.
Inflammation is the body’s physiologic response to an injury. In treating many types of knee pain, a common goal is to break the inflammatory cycle. The inflammatory cycle starts with an injury. After an injury, substances that cause inflammation invade the knee, which causes further injury, which leads to further inflammation, and so on. This cycle of inflammation leads to continued or progressive knee pain. The cycle can be broken by controlling the substances that cause inflammation, and by limiting further injury to tissue.
Some common home care techniques for knee pain that control inflammation and help to break the inflammatory cycle are protection, rest, ice, compression, and elevation. This regimen is summarized by the memory device PRICE.
- PROTECT the knee from further trauma.
- This can be done with knee padding or splinting.
- A pad over the kneecap, for example, helps to control the symptoms of some knee injuries (an example is a form of bursitis sometimes called housemaid’s knee) by preventing further repetitive injury to the prepatellar bursae.
- REST the knee.
- Rest reduces the repetitive strain placed on the knee by activity.
- Rest both gives the knee time to heal and helps to prevent further injury.
- ICE the knee.
- Icing the knee reduces swelling and can be used for both acute and chronic knee injuries.
- Most authorities recommend icing the knee two to three times a day for 20-30 minutes each time.
- Use an ice bag or a bag of frozen vegetables placed on the knee.
- COMPRESS the knee with a knee brace or wrap.
- Compression helps accomplish two goals:
- First, compression is another way to reduce swelling.
- Second, in some knee injuries, compression can be used to keep the patella aligned and to keep joint mechanics intact.
- ELEVATE the knee.
- Elevation also helps reduce swelling.
- Elevation works with gravity to help fluid that would otherwise accumulate in the knee flow back to the central circulation.
- Prop your leg up when you are sitting, or use a recliner, which naturally elevates the legs. Elevation works best when the knee — or any other injured body part — is higher than the level of the heart.
Meditation Techniques For Knee Pain
Here is a simple process for mindful breathing that Jon Kabat-Zinn teaches to many people looking to relieve and reduce knee pain through meditation.
Mindful Breathing To Relieve Pain
The primary goal of mindful breathing is simply a calm, non-judging awareness, allowing thoughts and feelings to come and go without getting caught up in them.
- Sit comfortably, with your eyes closed and your spine reasonably straight.
- Bring your attention to your breathing.
- Imagine that you have a balloon in your tummy. Every time you breathe in, the balloon inflates. Each time you breathe out, the balloon deflates. Notice the sensations in your abdomen as the balloon inflates and deflates. Your abdomen rising with the in-breath, and falling with the out-breath.
- Thoughts will come into your mind, and that’s okay, because that’s just what the human mind does. Simply notice those thoughts, then bring your attention back to your breathing.
- Likewise, you can notice sounds, physical feelings, and emotions, and again, just bring your attention back to your breathing.
- You don’t have to follow those thoughts or feelings, don’t judge yourself for having them, or analyse them in any way. It’s okay for the thoughts to be there. Just notice those thoughts, and let them drift on by, bringing your attention back to your breathing.
Whenever you notice that your attention has drifted off and is becoming caught up in thoughts or feelings, simply note that the attention has drifted, and then gently bring the attention back to your breathing.
It’s okay and natural for thoughts to enter into your awareness, and for your attention to follow them. No matter how many times this happens, just keep bringing your attention back to your breathing.
Working with chronic pain is a real challenge.
The meditation given above will work wonders, but many people find it difficult to concentrate while their knees are aching.
If you would like some guided meditation techniques for knee pain, please leave a comment below, telling us a little about your situation, and what specifically you would like help with.
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