Meditation is a relaxation method that can be used to reduce pain symptoms and pain perception in clinical and experimental situations. In this study, a standardized mindfulness meditation session of 20 minutes will be used to induce a relaxation and an analgesic effect in participants. Mindfulness meditation is a practice intended to increase mindfulness and awareness of the self and the environment by techniques of controlled breathing, focus on neutral elements, and observation of one's thoughts and emotions without judgment.

Conditioned pain modulation (CPM) is a pain inhibition mechanism that is used to assess endogenous analgesia capacity. The method to evaluate CPM in healthy individuals and patients with pain includes both a conditioning stimulus (a noxious stimulus that induces CPM) and a test stimulus (a noxious stimulus used to evaluate the analgesic response to the conditioning stimulus). In this study, the conditioning stimulus will be a cold pressor test (two-minutes immersion of one hand in ice water) and the test stimulus will be a two-minutes thermal noxious stimulus delivered by a contact thermode.

A placebo is a substance (or treatment) with no active therapeutic effect. The placebo effect (analgesia) in this study will be induced by the oral administration of one inert tablet (sugar pill). The tablet is a round, hard, white, flat-faced tablet with no active ingredient. The participant is told that the tablet is an active drug, more specifically an analgesic or a painkiller, that is used to achieve analgesia, relief from pain. This placebo condition is used to induce a diffuse analgesic effect in participants.

Quantitative aspect of pain, or pain intensity, will be measured and averaged for the entire duration (two minutes) of the pain tests on a Computerized Visual Analog Scale (CoVAS). This CoVAS scale ranges from 0% to 100%. Higher values on this scale represent more intense pain.

This outcome will be measured by heart rate variability

DNA polymorphisms potentially associated with analgesia, endocannabinoids, opioids or norepinephrine

This outcome will be measured by the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS). The PCS inquire participants to reflect on past painful experiences, and to indicate the degree to which they experienced each of 13 thoughts or feelings when experiencing pain. Each item of the PCS is scored on a 5-point scale where 0 = not at all and 4 = all the time. PCS yields three subscale scores assessing rumination, magnification and helplessness. The PCS total score is computed by summing responses to all 13 items. The PCS yields a total score ranging from 0 to 52. Higher values on this scale represent a greater tendency of the subject to perceive pain negatively and to foresee the consequences of pain in a more catastrophic way.

This outcome will be measured by the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale: Form A (SHSS:A). This scale was developed to measure susceptibility to hypnosis with items increasing in difficulty. Following a standardized hypnotic induction, the hypnotized individual is given 12 suggestions. Each suggestion is scored on 1 (0 if failed and 1 if passed). SHSS:A yields a total score between 0 and 12. The higher the total score (on 12), the more responsive to hypnosis the subject is.

This outcome will be measured by the Long Stanford Scale. Each item (i.e., hypnotic suggestion) is scored on 10 where 0 = wide awake, 1 = borderline, 2 = light, 5 = deep, 10 = very deep. Higher scores suggest greater hypnotic depth for the item (hypnotic suggestion).