Kelly McGonigal, PhD, a yoga teacher, health psychologist at Stanford University, editor in chief of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy, once suffered from debilitating headaches that made her wonder what it would be like to live one day without pain. Now, as the author of the new book, Yoga for Pain Relief, McGonigal is sharing her tips for dealing with chronic pain through yoga and meditation. The following interview with McGonigal tells about her struggles and how yoga helped her.

Tell us a little bit about how you became interested in using yoga for chronic pain. How has yoga helped you cope with pain?

I do live with pain, but it is a pale shadow of what it used to be. For many years I had daily headaches, often debilitating. My doorway into relief came first through mindfulness meditation. I took a class for people with chronic pain and learned a whole to new way to relate to sensation. It was something no one had ever said in any of the yoga asana classes I had taken. I learned how to focus on my breath and feel sensations without resisting them. I remember the first time I tried breath mindfulness during a bad pain episode, and it helped. I went back to the next class so excited to explain to everyone how the pain had been so intense, and yet I had the experience at the same time that it was OK, that I was OK, and I could handle it. What a revelation!

I started applying mindfulness acceptance of sensations to my yoga practice. Practicing mindful yoga extremely useful, because the poses created so many intense sensations! It was a perfect way to learn a new way of relating to discomfort.

Now, my pain is extremely mild and not daily. I only get a few debilitating headaches a year. The pain isn't gone, it's just a completely different experience. It has no hold on me, my emotions, and what I am able to do. And I almost never have to take pain medication, whereas I used to take it daily. But it's actually kind of a miracle.

Paying attention to my body in yoga also helped by making me more aware of how other things, like food and sleep, influence my pain. It's given me more mindful awareness of cause and effect in my body and mind. This lets me make better choices about how I take care of myself. People with pain often feel betrayed by their body, and this was certainly true for me. Yoga can help you restore trust in your body, and learn how to listen to your body.

Why is yoga a good idea for people who have chronic pain as opposed to other treatment options?

Yoga is so helpful because chronic pain doesn't play by the same rules as acute pain from a recent injury or illness. It is more strongly influenced by stress, thoughts, and emotions. And the pain doesn't necessarily reflect a single identifiable "problem" in the body, like a compressed disc or an infection. It usually reflects a systemic change in how you experience pain that may involve your muscles, nerves, hormones, and brain. So chronic pain is rarely "fixed" with a single medical intervention like surgery. It is usually a more gradual process that requires a holistic approach, including medicine, social support, and mind-body or psychological approaches.

How is the approach in yoga for chronic pain different from approaching any other kind of pain?

The biggest difference is you're not looking to fix some part of the body. It's not a "stretch your back to get rid of your back pain" approach. It involves every possible tool of yoga, including breathing, relaxation, movement, meditation, philosophy, and self-reflection. It's recognizing that yoga's healing power comes from it's ability to change the way your breathe and move, yes, but also how you feel, think, and relate to yourself and to pain. It's being open to the possibility that meditation or breathing has a good a chance of reducing your back pain as a stretch!

How can you use meditation as a tool to help? Can you share an example of a meditation you might advise a chronic pain patient to use?

One of my personal favorites is mantra meditation--repeating a healing phrase in your mind. It gives you something to focus on, which shuts down the usual cascade of thoughts that make pain worse. It provides a rhythm for the breath. This makes it easier to slow down and deepen your breath, which can calm the stress response and make the body and brain less reactive to pain. It gives you a sense of quiet control, the exact opposite experience that typically goes with pain or stress. I also like the idea that the mantra itself has a healing power. I use a Buddhist mantra that resonates with me, and it is believed that the sounds of the mantra spontaneously awaken the heart and mind. When I work with students who have pain, I help them choose an English phrase or a yogic mantra that feels meaningful to them.

For more information about how yoga can help people with pain, visit http://yogaforpainrelief.com.