7 Amazing Mental Tricks to Fight Chronic Pain
Dr. Raj Raval is a Fellowship trained Interventional Pain & Musculoskeletal Medicine Specialist. Dr. Raval completed a General surgery internship at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, followed by residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and further specialized in Interventional... more
Your mind is a great player. It has a surprising ability to deceive you. But, guess what? You can also use it to your advantage. The pain that you feel is produced by your brain which is then processed to the body. Since pain affects both the mind and the body, certain mind-body therapies can help lower stress hormone levels in the body, allowing the immune system to fight pain more effectively.
Your genetic composition, emotions, attitude, and lifestyle all impact how you perceive pain. Since the brain rewires itself to receive pain signals even when the impulses are no longer supplied, even previous experiences can induce pain. Whatever the cause, you can use the following 7 pain management tricks to trick your brain and relieve chronic pain.
1. Controlled breathing
To receive the advantages of breathing, you don't have to be an expert meditator. Deep, diaphragmatic breathing can be quite beneficial. This aids in the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the relaxing reaction, as opposed to the arousal caused by the pain signals themselves. For decades, women have relied on Lamaze breathing methods to help them cope with the pain during childbirth.
2. Meditation
Meditation is undoubtedly one of the most effective pain relievers. Mindfulness meditation, which focuses on the breath, is shown to lower pain intensity by 11% to 70% and pain unpleasantness by 20% to 9%. When it comes to pain relief, the more meditation hours you have, the better. Meditation affects the parts of your brain that are responsible for pain perception, thus relieving its intensity.
3. Visualization
If you visualize your pain as a throbbing, red mass, try to gradually diminish or soften it. Alternatively, visualize yourself on a beach, watching your problems fade away. Knowing what kind of activities calm you and visualizing them might be beneficial. Arthritis patients might benefit from visualization to relieve joint discomfort.
Imagine yourself in a warm bath with your hands floating in the water. Imagine your toes, ankles, knees, hip joint, lower back, middle back, and shoulders relaxed and painless. Consider how warm and calm your joints are. This can help you relieve pain and reduce stress.
4. Food fantasies
Food fantasies have been shown to help relieve pain from menstrual cramps, migraines, and other painful conditions. Some of the discomfort linked with certain health concerns can be alleviated by fantasizing about a favorite dish. Chocolate is probably the favorite food fantasy, preferred by 32% of people, followed by a roast dinner (31%), pasta (14%), pizza (14%), and fruit (4%).
5. Music
Music might be a nice distraction, but it also has a lot more to give people with chronic pain. Over the course of a week, listening to music for an hour reduced pain, sadness, and disability while improving feelings of strength. Music has a profound pain-relieving impact on a variety of people, including those in hospitals. In persons who also have anxiety, the effect may be even greater.
6. Distraction
Pain is a survival mechanism of your body meant to catch your attention, but it may become an emotional issue when it comes to chronic pain. It continues to annoy you and demand your attention.
When you're focusing on something else, the pain isn't taking up all of your attention. This may be as simple as concentrating on different regions of the body at a time to produce gradual relaxation, or it could be something more involved like reading or watching a movie. Positive distractions are quite beneficial since the more you concentrate on the pain, the worse it will seem.
7. Positive thinking
Patients with chronic pain, predictably, tend to have repeating, negative thinking, which can exacerbate the pain. Avoid catastrophizing or imagining the worst-case scenario and try switching to more optimistic thinking.
Your thoughts are extremely strong and crucial in the treatment of pain. Patients with chronic pain, weakness, and dizziness benefited from cognitive-behavioral therapy, which focuses on modifying thought patterns.
