Can Mental Tricks Manage Pain? Day 4

Controlled breathing You don’t have to be an expert meditator to reap the benefits of breathing. Practicing deep, diaphragmatic breathing (that’s breathing from the belly rather than shallow inhaling and exhaling from the chest) can be very helpful, says Singles, who is a distinguished psychologist in orthopedics and rehabilitation at the University of Wisconsin. “This helps harness the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the quieting response, as opposed to the symptoms of arousal that happen with the pain signals themselves,” she explains. Women have been using the breathing techniques of Lamaze to help manage childbirth pain for decades.