Chronic pain is a blazing or burning sensation when you accidentally touche the stove or it is like a sharp prick in the back while lifting any heavy object from the ground suddenly. It is pain warning you that something is not really right; either you should see a doctor or start taking medicines. Pain makes you unproductive, hampering your well-being and can make you suffer form extensive illness for a long period of time. It is a complicated perception prevailing differently in individual patients, even with the ones having identical illnesses and injuries. You take our health for granted neglecting pains in day to day life thinking it to be normal. When pain is experienced, you feel terrible. Hardly have you known that it is symptom of a serious disease. Chronic pain is something which persists over a longer period of time and is defiant to most of the medical treatments.
Coping with Chronic Pain
So, let’s find out how pain can be managed through 10 best practices:
1. Exercise Keeps You Fit
Most of you feel exercise as wastage of time, difficult to perform and boring, so you keep yourselves to do that. But without exercise, you tend to loose out on muscles and strength making your pains worse. Even mild exercise, if done daily, helps by releasing endorphins (brain chemicals) knowing for lifting up mood and easing pain. Consult your doctor for type of exercise is suitable to boost your stamina and help in relieving the pain.
2. Practicing Yoga, Breathing, Meditation and Biofeedback
In today’s hustling and mundane lifestyle, it really becomes inevitable to calm our minds. Yoga, deep breathing exercises, biofeedback and meditation have been known for years as best stress management techniques all around the world. These methods help you to relax, ease pain, and attain overall fitness as well.
3. Keep Away from Alcohol
Alcohol is not a solution to relieve you of pain. Though it can make you fall asleep, but if consumed over longer period of time, becomes the reason for shallow sleep and may wake you even in the middle of the sleep. You need sound sleep to soothe out your pains and drain out excess stress.
4. Quit Smoking
You not realize that you are falling prey to the addiction of smoking when find out smoking as an easiest way for temporary relief from stress and pain. Hardly have you realized that it is the reason to the declination of your health. It slows healing, disturbs flow of blood, and elevates the chances of the degenerative disc problems. Ask your doctor to get rid of this bad habit and quit it ultimately. All you need is a will power.
5. Healthy Eating
Eating healthy comprising of a well-balanced diet is a new mantra to stay fit and strong, which can actually help the body to fight against all odds. Eating right regulates blood sugar levels, helps in weight management, reduces heart disease risk, and aids digestion. Consume lot of legumes, proteins, vitamins, minerals and low-carb foods.
6. Maintaining Journal: Help Your Doctor, Help yourself
Maintaining a journal listing out instances of pain, its types and other minute details is a great way to help your doctor to diagnose your pain easily and effectively treating you. Also note down the activities you have done that day and discuss your findings with the doctor.
7. Acupuncture and Acupressure
These are one of the ancient methods help in pain management. It is basically applying points on your hands or feet with fingers tips and needles. Each point represents a body part. Once pain is experienced, and no one knows the real reason, then these practices help to find out which portion of the body is defective.
8. Scheduling Relaxation and to Set Limits
You can be actually tiring to increase your illness and sickness, if not set a limit. Proper care should be taken of your emotional and physical state as to keep you going. Understand your body when it needs rest and emotional state when you need to schedule a get together with your friends to boost your spirits.
9. Distract Yourself
Thinking about pain all the time can worsen your condition making you panicky. It is better to keep your mind off the pain by being busy in your favorite activities, like attending cookery classes, joining a garden club, or simply going out and playing with kids or pets. Either pain will control you or you should start controlling it for the rest of your life.
10. Know Your Medicines and Share Your Knowledge
Educate yourself with the medicines you are taking, their benefits and the probable side effects. This will make you aware of your actual condition and help finding other probable treatments available. If the current medications do not work to make you lead a normal life, then change them with the consultation with your doctor. You need to be proactive, question and seek the appropriate answers. You should mingle with people often and share your experiences related to your pain and illness and encourage them to do so as well. That will help a large mass in general who can take necessary precautions to avoid such problems and can lead a normal active life.
