Meditation for Older Adults With Chronic Low Back Pain

Experimental: The MBM is designed to be applied for 20 minutes per session daily for two weeks. The recording will instruct participants to close their eyes, connect to the openness of one’s minds, and mindfully maintain and deepen the connection through breathing with more openness and awareness. The MBM intervention will include three recordings that gradually take the participant into a more profound meditation practice. Participants will be instructed to listen to Meditation 1 for the first three days of the intervention, then switch to Meditation 2 for days 4-6 and Meditation 3 for the remainder of the 2-week intervention. The participants will be asked to practice meditation for eight weeks (6 weeks after the initial two weeks of MBM practice). Sham Comparator: The sham MBM intervention was also recorded. The sham recording will instruct participants to relax and take deep breaths every 3 minutes without the specific mindfulness-based instructions (e.g., practicing mindful attention to the breath in a non-evaluative manner). All other aspects of the sham MBM intervention (e.g., body position, time spent listening to instructions, eyes closed) will match the active MBM.