Posted on 14 Jul, 2010 -
Anyone suffer from pain?
9 ideas to help you cope with pain better and escape from negative cycles
Pain is normally a good warning mechanism - but sometimes it can go wrong
How the state of our mind affects the pain we experience
At least one out of every ten people in this country are affected by chronic pain. Most of us will be affected by at least temporary bouts of pain at some time in our lives.
Whether it’s pain following an injury or surgery… pain from arthritis or fibromyalgia… repetitive strain injury… headaches… back pain or other, living with pain can seriously decrease the quality of your life.
Living with pain can also become a vicious circle in which the stress of coping with the pain makes the pain worse and so on and so on until a point where the pain can even continue on its own even after the original cause of the pain should no longer be causing pain.
How our state of mind has a big impact on our experience of pain
The idea that our minds have a huge influence over the amount of pain we suffer is a relatively new view but is already accepted by the NHS. They do, in fact, offer some very effective pain management programmes if you’re lucky - or pushy - enough to get yourself on one.
There are also many professionals including Oxford Professor Irene Tracey who believe that pain should actually be seen as sometimes being a disease or condition itself rather than just a symptom. There are indeed many many people who suffer agony even when no source can be found for their pain.
It has also been proven beyond any doubt that our experience of pain is greatly influenced by our perception of pain, by our stress levels, by our beliefs, and by our learned experiences of pain:
In one experiment carried out by Professor Tracey, for example, they told patients that they had stopped giving them the strong opoid drugs they’d been taking. Despite the fact that they were actually still giving them the drugs, patients suddenly started reporting that their pain levels were going up.
People whose parents suffered a lot from pain are more likely to suffer from pain themselves.
Stress not only worsens our experience of any pain we have, it can also cause a lot of pain. The way it makes us tense the muscles in our backs, our shoulders and our neck, for example, creates muscle pains that can become excruciating.
When we are trying to cope with pain, the more anxious, depressed, angry or frightened we feel about the pain, the worse it will feel and become.
If we believe that our pain is going to be bad, it is much more likely to be so.
So yes, to an extent, pain is a question of mind over matter.
The American Academy of Pain Medicine defines pain as “An unpleasant sensation and emotional response to that sensation”.
Another definition given by Margo McCaffrey in 1968 which is most useful for doctors, defines pain as “whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does.”
Nobody is saying that pain - or the conditions that cause it - are not real. Only that the involvement of the mind in the experience can make things more complicated…
But why exactly do we have pain in the first place?
Everybody understands why it’s a good idea for our finger to hurt if we put it in a fire. It’s less easy to understand why we should need to suffer pain on an ongoing basis when we’re suffering from a condition like arthritis.
Pain is generally accepted as a useful warning mechanism that tells us something is wrong so that we can do something about it. Unfortunately, however, the system can sometimes go wrong.
According to The British Pain Society says:
“Pain signals use the spinal cord and specialised nerve fibres to travel to our brain. This involves our whole body. It is more than just a network of wires. These fibres also work to process the pain signals. All together they work like a very powerful computer.
Sometimes this computer system can go wrong. The messages get confused and the brain cannot understand the signals properly. It can lead to chronic or persistent pain, which can be very hard to repair. Unfortunately, we cannot just re-boot the system.”
So what can we do to try and cope with pain better - and even get rid of it?
Back to The British Pain Society again, this explanation of what happens when pain signals are sent to the brain could be very useful:
“The way a pain signal jumps along the system is by the release of a chemical. These are called Neurotransmitters, and over one hundred types have been discovered. The amount of chemical released is extremely small.
There are good neurotransmitters and there are bad neurotransmitters. The bad ones make the pain worse; the good ones can help block the pain.”
So what can we do to strengthen our ‘good’ neurotransmitters and lessen our pain? Here are some powerful helpers you can try:
Having fun and being happily busy goes a long way towards getting those good neurotransmitters working for us. Sitting around worrying or feeling down, however, kicks the bad neurotransmitters into action and makes the pain worse.
Pain killers and other drugs can also strengthen these ‘good’ neurotransmitters. People who avoid taking the painkillers they’re given could end up making things spiral into a worse situation and end up being more heavily dependent on heavier drugs.
Exercise is known to be very effective in dealing with pain. It pumps the body full of pain-relieving endorphins, decreases stress and strengthens the muscles that can help take the weight from other parts.
Stress management and relief of any kind can be enormously helpful. Biofeedback and meditation have been found to be particularly helpful.
Once you understand to what extent your attitude towards and perception of pain can impact on your experience of it, there’s a lot you can do yourself to work on your attitude and try to think more positively about the situation. Keeping a pain diary, for example, may be a good way of trying out attitudes and understanding how your moods affect your pain.
If you can get yourself on one of the different kinds of pain training courses it could be life-changing. Courses using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Biofeedback are good. I’ve also heard great things about the three-day course in “Lightning Process” although it isn’t cheap.
3 different techniques you can try at home to decrease your experience of pain
While these are obviously techniques that are better taught on a course over a longer period, here are three of the kind of techniques these courses teach for you to try at home:
1. Use visualisation techniques (seeing in your mind’s eye) to change your state of mind and bring relief to your body.
Sit or lie somewhere comfortably and close your eyes and relax for a few minutes, breathing consciously and from the belly. Breathe in for the count of three… hold the breath for the count of three… breathe out for the count of three and repeat.
Slowly direct your mind at each part of your body one by one and feel it flushed with a warm relaxing liquid - or imagine there is a warming heat lamp directed on it. Alternatively, imagine yourself lying somewhere warm and beautiful - a caribean beach or a sunny meadow, for example.
2. Use visualisation techniques to change the experience of the pain. Start by trying to describe your pain in physical and graphic terms. It might be, for example, a string of barbed wire running through your joints… a spiked ball twisting into your back… or a tight cap tightening into your head.
Next, start using the relaxation techniques above until your mind is in an open state. Once you are relaxed and open, try thinking of and visualising things that could lessen or eliminate the pain. A healing liquid, for example, might come and dissolve the unkind metal - or a angel might come down and turn the punishing cap into silk. Whatever works will be totally personal to you. You may be surprised by the vivid solution your mind comes up with!
3. Use CBT techniques to change your thinking about your pain.
Listen into the things you tell yourself about your pain and question whether they are useful or might potentially be making your pain worse. Any thoughts which increase your anxiety, your fear or anger or make you feel down about your pain will make the experience of pain worse.
When you spot a pattern to your negative thoughts, try to think up positive statements to oppose those thoughts and repeat them whenever you can. Simple statements like ‘I am powerful’ or ‘I can cope with this pain’ can go a long way.
You might also try: ‘Pain and tension are floating out of my body’… ‘Everyday my body is getting stronger’… ‘As I relax and feel emotionally stronger and more at peace, the pain in my body starts to go’… ‘I trust life and feel safe and secure’.
And, to end on a slightly different note, two touching quotations for you about the human condition and pain (perhaps of a different sort):
“Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.”
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
“How vast was a human being’s capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn’t a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.”
Janet Fitch, White Oleander
