It is estimated that around three out of 10 people experience chronic pain. If you fall into that category, you will be well aware of how much of a major inconvenience it is. Whilst a lot of other short-term pain heals, chronic conditions can last a long time and are very frustrating, as they frequently get in the way of daily activities.
They can be caused by multiple different factors, including injuries, illnesses, and prolonged physical and emotional stress. Essentially, chronic pain is when your brain decides you’re in pain.
No, this doesn’t mean chronic pain is in your head, it means that your brain has read a signal sent from your body and is sending signals back that label them as pain. Oftentimes, the longer you suffer from chronic pain, the more difficult the pain can become to handle.
Everyone’s pain manifests itself in different ways. For some, it is a lot more intense. It is feelings such as depression, anger, anxiety, stress, or fear that can create such signals in the body. Due to how much of a massive inconvenience these feelings of pain can be, it’s often a good idea to try and manage it as best as possible, which is where chronic pain management comes into play.
The end goal of chronic pain management is to help you have the best function and quality of life as possible, making the chronic pain you feel a minor factor rather than a major one. Due to the subjectivity of chronic pain, people find some methods more helpful than others. This article will go into detail about the best ways that you can manage chronic pain, and how you might be able to regain control.
Reach Out to Professionals
You are going to increase your chances of getting on top of your chronic pain if you are working with people who are experts in pain management. There are a lot of organizations out there who are desperate to help, such as ChartSpan, a Chronic Care Management company.A company like this can act as an extension of a care coordination team, which means that those who live with chronic pain will have access to a clinician 24/7.
Learn Deep Breathing Techniques and Meditation to Help You Relax
There are a lot of different deep breathing and meditation techniques out there that will help your body relax and which, as a result, can be effective methods for reducing pain. The pain you feel can be the result of tension and tightness in your body, so relaxing is a really good way for trying to alleviate that tension and tightness.
There are a lot of different ways to meditate, and the best method tends to vary from person to person. You can download meditation apps that are really helpful for guiding you through it if you’re new. Generally speaking, the soothing power of repetition is at the center of most forms of meditation, which means if you focus on taking deep breaths and try to clear your mind, you have the best chance of encouraging your body to relax.
Another reason why this could be beneficial is that, as previously stated, chronic pain can be the result of stress and depression. Meditation has been linked to the reduction of stress and depression as you turn your thoughts inward and overcome potential internal barriers in the process.
Boost Chronic Pain Relief Using the Natural Endorphins from Exercise
Simply put, endorphins are brain chemicals in the body that are predominantly linked to improving your mood, and also blocking out pain signals. Exercise is great for releasing endorphins and blocking out those pain signals. Exercise can also help with the prevention of pain due to the fact it strengthens muscles and assists with preventing any kind of further injury.
Of course, depending on the level of pain that you are experiencing, exercising could be a lot easier said than done. You should sit down with your doctor and discuss what you feel you can and can’t do, upon which you will be able to work out a feasible exercise plan that will work for someone with your condition. You’ll be surprised at just how effective engaging with regular exercise can be. Even if it’s not necessarily to alleviate pain, it will put you in a better frame of mind to be able to deal with it.
Cut Back on Alcohol as This Can Make Sleeping Really Tricky
You want to make sure that you are getting as much sleep as possible when you suffer from chronic pain so that you can be rested for the day ahead. This is hard to do because pain makes getting to sleep really difficult. As such, you should try to cut back on aspects of your life that will make sleep even harder to come by. Alcohol is a major one of these components. If you cut back on the amount you drink, or stop drinking altogether, you can improve your overall quality of life massively.
Track Your Pain Levels and Activities Every Day
As mentioned earlier, the nature of chronic pain is incredibly subjective, so the above are methods that have been proven to work in the past, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to be right for you. You may find that going about your day-to-day life, you stumble upon an activity or habit that massively improves the amount of pain you feel. As such, you should keep some kind of diary of the amount of pain you have felt on a specific day and what you did that day. If you do this, when you have a day that you feel particularly good, you can look back at what you’ve done and isolate the cause of that relief.
Chronic pain is an issue that affects millions of people all over the world.
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