By JAMES DRAPER
Reading has long been known for its entertainment value.
But researchers now believe that it could also help to treat chronic pain for millions of people.
Regularly consuming literature has similar effects to the brain as the popular cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), scientists claim.
By triggering older, happier memories, books can help those plagued by discomfort to forget the pain they are currently in.
A new chapter in chronic pain care? The neurological effects of processing characters and storylines has similar effects to cognitive behavioural therapy, experts say
Researchers from the University of Liverpool assessed the impact of reading on various groups.
They compared those who enjoyed literature as part of a group – known as shared reading – to those undergoing CBT.
hey found that shared reading allowed those to recall positive memories from their time before suffering from pain.
This is because it encourages the brain to send new, pain-free messages back to the body, according to the study published in the BMJ Journal for Medical Humanities.
While CBT allowed participants to exchange personal histories of living with chronic pain, allowing them some form of relief.
Study author Dr Josie Billington said: ‘Our study indicated that shared reading could potentially be an alternative to CBT in bringing into conscious awareness areas of emotional pain otherwise passively suffered by chronic pain patients.
‘The encouragement of greater confrontation and tolerance of emotional difficulty that sharing reading provides makes it valuable as a longer-term follow-up or adjunct to CBT’s concentration on short-term management of emotion.’
The analysis comes shortly after it was revealed that people are more likely to suffer chronic pain if they haven’t got a university degree.
Researchers from the University of Buffalo studied more than 19,000 participants over the age of 51.
In addition to their initial findings, they discovered that increasing numbers of people are showing pain symptoms than ever before.
They also found that people with the least education are 80 per cent more likely to experience chronic pain than people with the most.
Source: Mail Online
