November 11, 2025
4 min read
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Key takeaways:
Mindfulness needs to be both practical and adaptable.
The goal of mindfulness is learning how to ease pain and live better.
Early evidence suggests mindfulness may be helpful for movement disorders.
Drug-related deaths among United States military veterans increased by more than 50% between 2010 and 2019, according to a study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence in 2022.
These data underscore an urgent need to develop valid non-opioid, non-pharmacological solutions to issues such as chronic pain and mental health for veterans, according to experts.
Healio spoke with Adam Hanley, PhD, licensed psychologist and associate professor at the Brain Science and Symptom Management Center in the College of Nursing at Florida State University, who says that intentional, well-planned mindfulness and breath control tailored to this population may be a novel solution.
Healio: What experiences or prior research led you to consider breath control and mindfulness as a therapeutic path?
Hanley: I’ve always been fascinated by the mind’s ability to shape our experience. As a child, Roald Dahl’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” captured my imagination. It tells the story of a man who, through meditation training, learns to see without his eyes. That story sparked my curiosity about the potential of the mind in ways that have stayed with me ever since.
Years later, while playing professional basketball in Finland, mindfulness became a practical tool for me. Initially, I approached it as a performance strategy. If Phil Jackson had the Jordan-era Bulls meditating, I figured it was worth trying. But mindfulness took on a deeper role when an injury ended my career in my third season. Suddenly, I was turning to mindfulness not for focus on the court, but for pain relief. Those experiences helped me see mindfulness not just as a performance enhancer, but as a therapeutic tool.
Healio: How do you believe you can apply these techniques for civilians?
Hanley: The challenge is that not everyone has the time or motivation to attend a formal class or sit quietly in meditation. That’s why my research focuses on finding creative ways to weave mindfulness into daily life. Mindfulness isn’t just about sitting quietly in a dimly lit room. It’s a mindset you can bring to anything you do.
My first mindfulness study was on mindful dishwashing. The goal was to see if we could transform an ordinary chore into a meditative moment. After just 6 minutes at the sink, participants felt more mindful, more inspired and, less nervous.
More recently, my team has been embedding mindfulness directly into existing gaps in routine medical care, like in a clinic waiting room, during surgical prep, or during radiation therapy. The idea is simple: every treatment for the body should also support the mind. In as little as 5 minutes, we’ve been able to decrease pain and anxiety.
We also just completed a study where we taught adults with chronic pain a 30-second mindful pain management technique during a single 15-minute training session. We asked them to use it whenever pain flared. Six weeks later, participants reported a 30% reduction in pain on average, which is more relief than most common pain medications provide. These findings suggest that even small doses of mindfulness, integrated into everyday life, can have a powerful therapeutic impact.
Healio: How can you adapt these techniques to veterans, a population that endures a greater amount and longer course of chronic pain than most civilians?
Hanley: We’ve found Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) to be effective for veterans. In a large clinical trial, veterans with chronic pain who completed MORE reported less pain, used fewer opioids, and felt better emotionally. These benefits lasted at least 8 months after the MORE program ended.
At the same time, I believe mindful movement practices may be especially powerful for veterans. The discipline of physical training makes movement a familiar pathway into mindfulness. It’s an easy analogy: workouts build the body, mindfulness builds the mind.
Our research shows that bringing mindfulness into movement can transform exercise into a therapeutic experience. For instance, in one study, simply walking mindfully on a treadmill before an exercise session boosted wellbeing and treatment satisfaction.
Building on this, we recently completed an NIH-funded trial testing the best ways to integrate mindfulness directly into physical therapy sessions, so that body and mind can be strengthened together.
We are also beginning to see that where mindfulness is practiced can matter. Early evidence suggests that outdoor, nature-based settings may enhance the benefits. In one study, a group mindfulness program for veterans with PTSD yielded greater improvements when held outdoors compared to the same program delivered indoors at the VA.
Healio: What insights from treating veterans might you employ to improve pain outcomes in civilians?
Hanley: Working with veterans has made it clear that mindfulness needs to be both practical and adaptable. Veterans tend to be less receptive to the flowery language or vague ‘feel better’ framing that often surrounds mindfulness. Instead, we’ve had to be very intentional about how we introduce these practices: keeping the language clear, the purpose concrete, and ensuring the mindfulness techniques we are introducing deliver noticeable benefits quickly.
The same principle applies to civilians. People are busy, stressed and often lack the time or motivation for lengthy mindfulness programs. By applying what we’ve learned from working with veterans, we can make mindfulness more accessible to everyone by weaving it into everyday moments rather than treating it as a separate activity. For veterans and civilians alike, the goal is really the same: learning how to use mindfulness to ease pain and live better wherever you are.
Healio: Do you envision these as monotherapy or adjunctive therapy, particularly given mental health issues unique to military service?Hanley: I see mindfulness less as an either/or treatment and more as a mindset that can strengthen every other form of care. The VA’s Whole Health initiative illustrates this well (https://www.va.gov/wholehealth/), showing mindfulness not just as a stand-alone therapy, which it can be, but also as a tool that enhances engagement with broader treatment and lifestyle changes.
On its own, mindfulness can be effective for reducing pain, stress and symptoms of mental health conditions. And it can change the way people approach care and daily life. It can reshape how you relate to others, improve communication and relationships, influence what and how you eat, sharpen your focus on what’s meaningful and even shift your spiritual outlook.
In that sense, mindfulness is both a treatment in itself and a versatile tool that can be applied across contexts to support health and healing.
Healio: Could these techniques be adapted to other medical issues, such as movement-related neurological conditions?
Hanley: Yes, there is some early evidence suggesting that mindfulness may be helpful for movement disorders. Some of the most promising data come from a study of tai chi that improved balance, reduced fall risk and enhanced functional mobility in people with mild to moderate Parkinson’s disease compared with resistance or stretching exercises.
More research is needed in this space.
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Healio Interviews
Reference:
Begley MR, et al. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2022;doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2022.109296.
Garland EL, et al. Am J Psychiatry. 2024;doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.20230272.
Garland EL, et al. JAMA Intern Med. 2022;doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2022.0033.
Hanley AW, et al. J Behav Med. 2025;doi:10.1007/s10865-024-00548-5.
Hanley AW, et al. J Integr Complement Med. 2024;doi:10.10.1089/jicm.2024.0020.
Hanley AW, et al. Mindfulness. 2015;doi:10.1007/s12671-014-0360-9.
Hanley AW, et al. Mindfulness. 2023:doi:10.1007/s12671-023-02112-9.
Hanley AW, et al. Mindfulness. 2023;doi:10.1007/s12671-023-02181-w.
Hanley AW, et al. Pain. 2021;doi:10.1097/j.pain.0000000000002195.
Herrmann T, et al. Psychol Serv. 2025;doi:10.1037/ser0000976.
Kraemer KM, et al. Semin Neurol. 2022;doi:10.1055/s-0042-1742287.
Li F, et al. N Engl J Med. 2012;doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1107911.
Magel JS, et al. BMJ Open. 2023;doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2023-082611.
Disclosures:
Hanley reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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