mindset of health.

[bosunyum]

The following sentences are from the story " the mindset of health", which is about the state of mind and its influence on health. And i find the following sentences very confusing to me, which needs explaniton. Please help me!!!!

This mindful exercise helped the patients get by with fewer pain relivers... .And the results seems to indicate more than a simple, temporary distraction of the mind, because once the stimulus-the source of pain-has been reinterpreted so that the person has a choice of context, one painful , one not, the mind is unlikely to return to the original interpretation.

1. what is the meaning of exercise here?
2. what does it mean exactly a simple, temporary distraction of mind?
3. what does the sentence(the mind is unlikely to return to the original interpretaion)?

if possible, can you rephrase this sentece so that i can understnd it more clearly?

[Tdol]

1 Excercise- a mental activity can be exercise in the same way as physical ones.
2 If you distract someone, they stop feeling pain, or so much pain, like giving a crying child a toy.
3 After the exercise, the person does not return to the starting point, but has made some progress in the battle against pain, while once a distraction has gone, the pain returns as it was before.