The Relaxation Remedy for Epilepsy

More than two million Americans have epilepsy—and while medications can be effective, a third of patients on antiseizure drugs still have seizures.

Now researchers have a powerful new way to help them. Practicing techniques that relax the body and mind, according to the new evidence, can prevent seizures—even when drugs alone cannot.

The Stress Connection

Of all the factors that people with epilepsy report as seizure triggers, stress ranks number one. Yet up to now there has been little clinical evidence that stress-reduction practices can make a difference.

New study: Researchers recruited 64 adults with medication-resistant epilepsy. Even on medication, these patients averaged one seizure per week.

Half of the participants were taught a technique called progressive muscle relaxation, which involves deep breathing while tensing and relaxing your muscles from head to toe.

The remaining participants were trained in focused attention, which doesn’t include muscle tensing/relaxing but helps quiet the mind by increasing awareness of daily stressors—by keeping a journal, for example.

Both groups received training from a psychologist and practiced twice each day for 12 weeks. Everyone in both groups remained on his or her current antiseizure medication throughout the study. They all were instructed to keep diaries to track their moods, stress levels, symptoms and seizure activity.

Results: Both approaches were dramatically effective. After three months, patients who practiced progressive muscle relaxation were having 29% fewer seizures compared with the months beforehand. Those in the focused attention group were having 25% fewer seizures. (The difference between 29% and 25% wasn’t statistically meaningful.)

One possibility, of course, is that these benefits were caused solely by the placebo effect—when the belief that you are being helped creates actual helpful effects. But that’s highly unlikely for two reasons. First, the sheer magnitude of the effect of each intervention was quite large, similar to what proven medications can do. Second, seizure frequency continued to decline over time long after the study ended…not what generally happens with a placebo effect.

A MYSTERIOUS EFFECTIVENESS

The fact that both types of interventions worked about equally well surprised the researchers. They went into the study believing that progressive muscle relaxation would be more effective because it reduces stress and improves relaxation.

Focused attention was expected to be much less effective, rather than just a little less effective, because it doesn’t include the breathing and muscle-relaxation training that are known to lead to physical relaxation and stress relief. But focused attention helped patients pay attention to what was stressing them—so it may have helped reduce stress as well. One therapeutic component behind the surprising effectiveness of focused attention may have been mindfulness, the ability to focus on the present moment without judgment. In fact, mindfulness may have played a role in the effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation as well. The study authors plan to do further research on mindfulness as a potential seizure-prevention tactic.

Bottom line: Regardless of the precise mechanism, these two simple, safe, drug-free techniques led to a sizable benefit for epilepsy patients experiencing frequent seizures. They’re easy to learn, free to practice and have no side effects. For more ways to handle epilepsy, see the Managing Epilepsy Well Network.