I'm still in constant pain. But meditation makes the pain more bearable. It's taught me how to live with it and to find ways to better manage it.

The raisin exercise makes you aware of sights, sounds, scents and tastes. Now I relax, slow down, and take time to appreciate things around me -- a bird or a cricket, the wind in the trees. Meditation makes my life a little more peaceful. It's made me a better me.

It's just wonderful. No matter how stressed you feel before, afterward you feel relaxed, calm and filled with energy.

It changed my life. I've learned to relax and be more in control of my body, instead of having my body controlling me.

Long-term bodily changes occur. Pain becomes less bothersome, and if stress is exacerbating the pain, then this approach can work in the long term and can relieve the pain entirely.

Stress does not cause pain, but it can exacerbate it and make it worse. Much of chronic pain is 'remembered' pain. It's the constant firing of brain cells leading to a memory of pain that lasts, even though the bodily symptoms causing the pain are no longer there. The pain is residing because of the neurological connections in the brain itself.