Adam Hanley, a licensed psychologist and associate professor at Florida State University’s College of Nursing, has focused his research on using mindfulness to help patients manage chronic pain and reduce opioid use. Hanley’s interest in the field was shaped by personal experience after injuries ended his professional basketball career in 2012.
“That’s when the mindfulness practice became more of a practical direction for me,” Hanley said about the end of his playing career. “It was a way of dealing with some of the physical discomfort as well as some of the confusion about what comes next.”
After retiring from sports, Hanley enrolled in Florida State University’s Counseling Psychology Program, where he studied under Eric Garland, an expert in mindfulness therapy. This guidance led him to develop a career teaching mindfulness practices to people living with chronic pain.
Hanley is part of a research team investigating Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), a therapeutic technique designed to help patients focus on healthy rewards and reduce cravings for opioids. He has been studying this approach for ten years and has created an eight-week program that encourages patients to use meditation techniques before medical appointments.
“We’re doing this in surgical settings, for cancer treatment, just anywhere where folks are in the medical system and idle,” Hanley said of MORE. “We’re trying to help treat the mind while their bodies get taken care of by conventional medicine.”
According to Hanley, patients participating in these mindfulness programs have reported significant reductions in pain—by about 30 percent—which he notes is comparable to taking five milligrams of oxycodone. Emotional improvements such as reduced anxiety have also been observed.
Hanley’s research indicates that participation in MORE can lead to decreased opioid use and misuse up to nine months after treatment ends.
“We see pretty dramatic decreases in the dose of opioids that folks are taking as that treatment ends,” Hanley said. “We also see that treatment fundamentally changing the way some of the brain works.”
In studies using Electroencephalogram (EEG) devices, participants practicing mindfulness showed increased theta wave activity—a sign of deep relaxation—which may predict lower opioid use.
“We’re changing the person’s relationship with their pain medication as well as their physiology,” Hanley added. “That helps them feel better and use less pain medication months into the future.”
Hanley recently published findings suggesting that MORE can help combat opioid cravings—a significant issue given that over 80,000 people died from opioid overdoses in the United States in 2024. The study shows MORE teaches skills for regulating cravings, relieving pain, and finding pleasure and meaning without relying on drugs.
The approach is particularly useful for patients who cannot take certain medications due to health reasons.
“Expanding their toolbox of treatments is a really gratifying thing,” Hanley said. “It’s heartening that we can offer techniques that help people feel better.”
Some patients report experiencing an altered state during meditation sessions—what Hanley describes as a feeling of “self-dissolving”—which he believes leads to better clinical outcomes.
“My shorthand for this is ‘no self, no pain,’” he said. “There’s no house or body to instantiate that pain. We’re looking to exist in this space of openness and possibility where there’s not a lot of discomfort.”
For Hanley, hearing positive feedback from patients remains one of the most rewarding aspects of his work.
“Getting to hear from a patient that ‘My pain decreased’ or ‘This thing I’ve been living with for years feels manageable now’ — that’s a wonderful way for me to leave the office each day,” Hanley said.
