Name: Mindfulness therapy for fibromyalgia: does it work?
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Mindfulness therapy for fibromyalgia: does it work?

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You are here: Mindfulness Therapy for Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and IBS Sharing is caring!Welcome! It looks like you might be new here, so I wanted to take a moment to tell you a little about me and my blog. My name is Julie Ryan and I live with Fibromyalgia. I've chosen to live positively, to fight back with diet and lifestyle changes and it's made a huge difference for me. The difference between living all my days in bed, and actually LIVING. I hope you'll keep reading andsubscribe to my Newsletter to make sure you don't miss a post. Thanks for visiting! *BTW, just a heads up that the post below may have affiliate links (some of my posts do).Welcome back! I'm so glad that you are here again. If you've not already, be sure to subscribe to my Newsletter and I'll update you each time I post (and occasionally I'll send you something special). Just a heads up that the post below may have affiliate links.Over 50% of Americans have trouble falling or staying asleep, and that number is even higher for those of us living with Fibromyalgia or CFS.There are a lot of little tricks people suggest for help with falling asleep. I’ve tried quite a few of them with typically little success. Melatonin helps me fall asleep but it leaves me extremely vivid (and often stressful dreams). CBD oil works much better for helping me get regular quality sleep. But, even with that sometimes my mind races and falling asleep can be an issue. Guided meditation, or mindfulness therapy, is often just the trick I need to quiet to mind so that I can relax and fall asleep.Not only does regular mindfulness therapy help me fall asleep easier, it can also help reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, which are also common with Fibromyalgia. When I find that my brain just won’t stop repeating anxious thoughts the best thing I can do listen to a guided meditation recording focused on releasing anxiety.In 2017, I took a 9 week mindfulness-based stress reduction course and found the effects lasted far beyond the end of the course (or even beyond when I stopped meditating regularly). Lately, I’ve been feeling the effects of not meditating. I don’t stay focused as well, I feel more anxious, more worried, my thoughts flitter from one thing to the next. So, I’ve returned to that regular meditation practice with the goal of calming my mind once again.The point of mindfulness therapy is learning to accept moment by moment how you are feeling (both physically and mentally) without judging those feelings. Basically, you feel it and you let it go.Studies have shown that it can be very helpful with sleep issues at a variety of levels. But a 2013 study examined whether mindfulness based therapies (MBT) can be helpful in somatasized disorders (including Fibromyalgia, CFS, &amp; IBS). Somatasized disorders are those that involve chronic treatment resistant, medically unexplainable symptoms.Researchers Lakhan and Schofield performed a meta-analysis of past studies on mindfulness therapy for Fibromyalgia, CFS, and IBS. Their meta-analysis showed conflicting results for MBT on Fibromyalgia. However, the conflicting results may well have been the result of the different ways that the earlier studies were completed (some did not include true control groups which may have resulted in control groups receiving a therapy that was as good as MBT). The results for CFS were better with MBT consistently showing improvement to anxiety, fatigue, depression, and quality of life. MBT also showed sustained improvement for those with IBS.The key to remember is that MBT is based on acceptance. It’s not so much that the symptoms change but that you do, you learn to accept them, and you learn how to remove your focus from them, thus decreasing the anxiety and depression (and potentially the sleep issues and fatigue) that come as a result.Overall, this analysis showed that MBT significantly improved symptom severity, pain levels, quality of life, anxiety, and depression in those suffering from somatasized disorders.The symptoms that improved varied depending on the disorder. For those with Fibromyalgia the primary improvement was in symptom severity. Those with IBS saw improvement in symptom severity, pain, and quality of life. Whereas, those with CFS saw improvements in symptom severity, depression, and anxiety. Symptom severity may be a bit subjective unless the study clearly identified which symptoms were improving or whether the reference was to symptoms overall.Overall, it seems that mindfulness based therapies may be beneficial to those of us living with Fibromyalgia, CFS, or IBS (or a combination of the three) as well as other somatasized disorders that are not well explained. Personally, I think a large part of why we feel worse than some more explained disorders and diseases is the lack of understanding of our illness, which leads to a lack of acceptance. MBT may help with the lack of acceptance and help lower symptoms overall.I have fibromyalgia depression anxiety PTSD I’ve also got 2 sleeping disorders I’ve got stomach issues as well 2 different type of arthritis carpal tunnel and a brain injury I got short-term and long-term memory loss I’ve got a hard time coping with everything meds don’t work on me at all I can’t smoke the medical weed I’m allergic to it anything that involves weed I can’t doReplyThis was spot on. It is better to surrender and be at ease with this dilemma instead of fighting it. For years, I took sleep meds that made me feel fuzzier than I already was and took many hours to bounce back from residual side effects. I know that our bodies do repair cells when we are able to sleep deeply. Or at least that is the hope. Getting rest and being at peace, though, is better than losing hope and being in a constant battle over this. I want to get better and be all that I can be. Not many answers–yet.ReplyThis site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.Spoonie. Fibro Warrior. E-health advocate.Julie Ryan was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2010 and endometriosis in 2012. She's lived with chronic migraine most of her life. In 2019 she was diagnosed with inter-cranial hypertension.Julie has a degree in Psychology, and works as a freelance writer and marketer. Freelance work allows her to work when she can and not be tied to a desk or a schedule. Julie believes in living an inspired life despite chronic illness."I have chronic illness, it doesn't have me."More about JulieBlog title inspired by The Spoon Theory, by Christine Miserandino, an excellent explanation of what it's like to live with invisible illness. Read More…I am not a doctor. I do not claim to be a doctor. I do not play a doctor on TV or the internet. I simply share my experiences and what has worked for me. We are all different and before you try any new treatment, exercise, supplement, etc you should talk with your doctor (the real one, not the one on TV). All content copyright CountingMySpoonsAny content reblogged from this site must adhere to the terms of © Copyright and TOS That page states in part:"A brief excerpt of content that does not exceed 75 words may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog and authorship is properly attributed."&nbsp;&nbsp;Counting My Spoons respects your privacy. Your information will never be provided to any third party unless you provide explicit permission to do so (something I'm not likely to ever ask you to do). Read full privacy policy Help spread the word. You're awesome for doing it!

You are here: Mindfulness Therapy for Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and IBS Sharing is caring!Welcome! It looks like you might be new here, so I wanted to take a moment to tell you a little about me and my blog. My name is Julie Ryan and I live with Fibromyalgia. I've chosen to live positively, to fight back with diet and lifestyle changes and it's made a huge difference for me. The difference between living all my days in bed, and actually LIVING. I hope you'll keep reading andsubscribe to my Newsletter to make sure you don't miss a post. Thanks for visiting! *BTW, just a heads up...

Mindfulness therapy for fibromyalgia: does it work?

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