Mindfulness-Based Intervention has positive impact on women suffering from endometriosis-related pain

Endometriosis is a rising concern as causes severe pain in the pelvis, especially during menstrual periods. The cause of endometriosis is unknown. There is not much known to prevent endometriosis. There is no cure, but yet efforts to treat symptoms with medicines or, in some cases, surgery is practiced.

Despite the complexity of factors influencing women's improvement, most interventions till date investigated just the peripheral nociceptive sources of endometriosis-related pain.

A new study in The Journal of Pain, suggests mindfulness-induced self-regulation improvement can benefit affective pain and potentially multiple psychophysiological processes relevant to endometriosis. The positive impact of a brief Mindfulness-Based Intervention on attention and parasympathetic regulation in women suffering from endometriosis-related pain.

The present study examines the effect of a brief Mindfulness-Based Intervention (bMBI) on attention and ANS regulation in women with endometriosis-related pain. Also, explore the interaction between these self-regulation domains and the affective pain dimension. An exploratory analysis of the secondary outcomes of a pilot RCT was performed. The vagally-mediated Heart Rate Variability (vmHRV) at rest, cognitive stress, and recovery, was employed to measure autonomic regulation. The Flanker and Stroop tasks were used to estimate the attention domains.

The study found that

• A total of 26 participants showed that bMBI (n= 26) significantly improved Flanker accuracy and Flanker and Stroop reaction time compared to the control group (n= 28).

• bMBI significantly increased vmHRV at rest and recovery after cognitive stress. Attention mediated the bMBI effect on affective pain improvement but was associated with vmHRV reduction.

• This last effect was driven by women in the control group that increased attention performance with an associated decrease in parasympathetic tone, unlike those in the mindfulness group that increased attention efficiency under a higher parasympathetic tone.

• Results suggest that bMBI improves self-regulation domains with the potential to develop a broad biopsychosocial benefit in the endometriosis context.

Researchers ended that “This article demonstrates the positive impact of a brief Mindfulness-Based Intervention on attention and parasympathetic regulation in women suffering from endometriosis-related pain. This mindfulness-induced self-regulation improvement can benefit affective pain and potentially multiple psychophysiological processes relevant to endometriosis.”

Reference: Marcelo França Moreira, MD, Olga Lucia Gamboa, PhD, Marco Aurelio Pinho Oliveira, PhD; Mindfulness-Based Intervention effect on the psychophysiological marker of self-regulation in women with endometriosis-related chronic pain. July 29, 2023DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2023.07.026.