Meditation Better Than Pain-Killers

KEY

Question 1
a. False. “…. a technique called “focused attention,” which is a form of meditation where people focus their thoughts only on their breathing.”
b. False. “…only a little over an hour of meditation training can dramatically reduce both the experience of pain ………..about a 40 per cent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 per cent reduction in pain.
c. False. “The study involved a group of volunteers who had never meditated before.”
d. True. “Before and after the meditation training, the researchers examined the participants’ brain activity using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). The MRI scans showed that after the meditation training, pain felt by every volunteer decreased from between 11 to 93 per cent.“

Question 2
a. The investigation took place in the USA. They used an approach known as “focused attention“, where people concentrate exclusively on their breathing while they meditate.
b. They gave people with no previous expreience of meditating four classes to show them how to meditate focusing on their breath. The activity in these people’s brains was tested before and after the experiment and during the experiment, they made them feel some pain by putting heat on their legs.

Question 3
a. unpleasantness b. intensity c. placed/place

Question 4
a. Dr. Zeidan said that that was the first study to show/that showed that only a little meditation could reduce the experience of pain.
b. The participants’ brain activity was examined by the researchers.
c. If they didn’t use the “ focused attention“ technique, they would feel more pain.