How do I get rid of chronic pain? Is the pain real, or is my head just confused? If you ever think about these questions, you are not alone. Pain has been in research for decades. Over the years, methods have been developed for treating illnesses, injuries, and diseases.
Pain is real and not just your imagination. It is multifunctional and complex. If we understand it well, we can learn to manage it, be in control and eventually overcome it. This blog aims to shed some light on pain and some of the three simple methods to help deal with it better.
What is pain?
“Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that is or is associated with actual or potential tissue damage.”
Pain is a response to the threat of detecting whether the original tissue is damaged or not.
When pain is prolonged, our body becomes more sensitive to various stimuli and increases the sensation of pain. This creates a situation where severe pain can be achieved even with the most common triggers. For example, suppose you injure your back while bending forward to lift a heavy object. Even after your back has healed, your body will respond with pain when you bend forward. Prolonged pain also irritates the central systems of the body, which can cause aches and pains in other parts of the body.
Causes of Pain:
- Injury
- Overload of work
- Stress & emotional vulnerability
How should we manage pain?
The concept of pain management revolves around our ability to transform these ‘threatening’ negative experiences into ‘safe’ positive experiences. Increasing our body’s ability and endurance to stimulate activities can also help manage pain. Doing more without increasing the pain or your body recovering faster is an improvement. You do not have to deal with all the issues to feel without pain. We can work on some of these factors and better set up to manage pain.
- Manage pain with exercise
Exercise does not mean running 5 kilometers every day. Everyone’s definition of exercise is different, but a general definition is any activity that increases the heart rate continuously. It is very easy to do a simple routine like walking in the park, repeatedly sitting at your desk, or stretching.
- Manage pain with graded exposure
The body responds to the stimulus increase by creating more lanes along the way. There will be more excitement and congestion with very little enthusiasm and no encouragement to do more lanes in the body. Finding the right amount of stimuli, where the lanes are built, is commensurate with the size of the cars moving in the car lane, allowing us to gradually increase our activity and performance without triggering traumatic responses. Permission granted.
There are 2 general rules for safely back-grading an activity or movement:
- 1-3 / 10. Stay within the middle discomfort level
- Get enough rest in between, so do not start any activity when you are already in pain.
If walking hurts, you can walk until you experience levels 1-3 of discomfort. You should note that the duration or distance you can walk gradually increases.
- Manage pain by creating a ‘safe’ environment
Getting stuck in a traffic can cause an unpleasant feeling. But it would be better if we were listening to our favourite music in the car; being around friends or family; driving along a familiar road. Creating a ‘safe’ environment while performing a painful movement reduces the risk, thus reducing the pain response. If walking in the park is a painful experience, try walking with friends or listening to your favourite music. You will notice a difference in how the body feels when running.
Final Word of Advice
Relieve pain; Relieve life!
Get help managing pain effectively
Pain is multifactorial and not very frequent; there is no definite way to relieve pain. However, with increasing awareness and ways to manage pain, you will gradually see improvement.
If you are experiencing chronic pain that affects your daily life – make an appointment on AI Phyt Health to talk to a physiotherapist. India’s first AI-Assisted Digital Physiotherapy and offering Online physiotherapy Treatment to help you lead and live a Pain-free life from the comfort of your home. They can help you manage your pain effectively with constant guidance.
They can help you resolve your all kinds of body pains and aches by providing the best Online physiotherapy Treatment in India and a personalized plan by top Physiotherapists so that you can experience life to the fullest.
Book your appointment now and get help managing pain effectively from India’s leading Online physiotherapy Treatment “AI PHYT HEALTH”!
