• Posted May 2, 2025

Mindfulness Meditation Counters Opioid Cravings

Mindfulness meditation can help rewire the brain to reduce opioid cravings in people addicted to narcotics, a new study says.

People assigned to mindfulness training had 50% less opioid cravings than others who received supportive group therapy, researchers reported April 30 in JAMA Psychiatry.

“Opioid addiction decreases the brain’s ability to experience natural healthy pleasure, driving increased cravings for the drug,” said lead researcher Eric Garland, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine.

“Our research shows that (mindfulness training) helps restore this capacity, reducing cravings and potentially preventing opioid misuse,” he said in a news release.

For the study, researchers recruited 160 people suffering from chronic pain who had been using opioids for nearly a decade on average. Of those patients, 61% had developed an opioid use disorder.

Researchers randomly assigned half of the patients to spend eight weeks in a program called Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement, or MORE. 

The program combined mindfulness training, cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology to address addiction, emotional distress and chronic pain.

Mindfulness meditation involves taking time to focus on what is happening in the present, accepting those feelings and sensations, and then letting them go, according to the American Psychological Association (APA).

Opioid addicts initially showed difficulty embracing positive emotions, as seen in weakened responses to images like smiling babies, puppies or a beautiful sunset, researchers report.

This blunting of positive emotions was directly linked to higher levels of opioid craving, results show.

However, the MORE program helped increase brain responses to positive images and thoughts, which in turn reduced people’s cravings, researchers said.

Overall, the results indicate that MORE could help opioid addicts regain control over their emotions and cravings, the study said.

These results jibe with an earlier MORE clinical trial which found that the program decreased opioid misuse by 45% within 9 months, nearly tripling the effect of standard group therapy, researchers noted. That study appeared in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2022.

Research has also shown that for every dollar spent on MORE therapy, there’s nearly $800 in cost savings on the prevention of fatal overdoses, reduced health care costs, fewer criminal charges and increased labor productivity, Garland said.

“This study is a crucial step, but we need more large-scale and long-term research to fully understand how treatments like MORE can help heal the brain to enhance recovery from opioid addiction,” he said.

“Multiple rigorous, well-controlled clinical trials have demonstrated the efficacy of the MORE therapy,” Garland said. “It is now the right moment to partner with policymakers, healthcare organizations and administrators of the opioid legal settlement to disseminate this evidence-based treatment nationwide to help alleviate the opioid crisis.”

More information

The American Psychological Association has more on mindfulness meditation.

SOURCE: University of California-San Diego, news release, April 29, 2025