Pain, to put it plainly, hurts. And it hurts for a reason. Our bodies use the experience of pain to tell us that something's inherently wrong-and needs to be fixed.

So, it may shock you to learn that pain can be a source of transcendent experience just as much as it can be a source of great suffering. The secret lies in mindfulness meditation, which has been scientifically proven to change the impact of pain on our consciousness.

Fadel Zeidan, director of the University of California, San Diego, Brain Mechanisms of Pain and Health Laboratory, is an expert on the neural mechanisms that support mindfulness- and meditation-based pain relief. In his Audible Original, Mindfulness for Pain Relief, he shows you how mindfulness meditation-even for short periods of time-can bring your experience of pain under control. You'll explore the nature of mindfulness from the teachings of the Buddha to the present day; how meditation can help us battle the chronic pain epidemic; what a brain looks like during the experience of meditation; and even a guided mindfulness meditation exercise designed to help increase your well-being.