Loving-kindness meditation fails to beat muscle relaxation for pain or social well-being in online trial
Loving-kindness meditation is meant to foster warmth toward others, but in a four-week online trial, it did not boost social support or ease pain any more than a simple muscle relaxation routine.
A study comparing loving-kindness meditation to muscle relaxation for pain relief and social well-being found no significant difference between the two practices. The randomized controlled trial, conducted online during the COVID-19 pandemic, involved 69 healthy adults who were randomly assigned to either a four-week loving-kindness meditation group or a progressive muscle relaxation group.
Surprisingly, the muscle relaxation group reported a slight increase in perceived social support (from 28.4 to 29.2 on a 36-point scale) compared to the loving-kindness group (from 28.5 to 27.4). Despite this difference, neither practice led to improved pain tolerance or reduced subjective pain. The findings suggest that while social support may play a role in pain management, loving-kindness meditation may not be more effective than muscle relaxation for this purpose.
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