Living with chronic pain can be exceedingly difficult because it affects your physical and mental wellness, and interferes with your daily life activities, even the simpler ones like sleep. However, some techniques can help you relieve your pain and improve your quality of life. Learn what factors can enhance pain and 7 ways to find relief from chronic pain right now in this article. Visit the best Pain Management Clinic in Brooklyn at Doral Health & Wellness or log on to www.doralhw.org.
Factors that can magnify pain
Certain factors can magnify your pain experience, including:
- Stressful life experiences.
- Mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and social isolation.
- Lowered ability to enjoy doing things you like.
- Overexertion or tiredness.
While no diagnostic test can measure the amount of pain you experience, it can vary based on your experience and tolerance level. You can rate your pain on a scale based on the level you feel between 0 to 10 to help you evaluate your symptoms.
7 Ways to Find Relief from Chronic Pain Right Now
These 7 ways can help you relieve your chronic pain instantly:
- Deep breathing or meditation:
Deep breathing and meditation are immensely popular techniques that help your body to relax and ease your pain. Generally, tension and tightness in muscles cause pain and when they get relaxed it reduces the pain. Although there are many ways to meditate, some forms of meditation, especially the ones that focus on the soothing power of repetition, are very effective for your pain.
Focusing on the breath, ignoring passing thoughts, or repeating a word, phrase, or mantra can help your body relax. Deep breathing is a very common relaxation technique. To perform deep breathing, find a quiet location, sit in a comfortable position, and block out all distracting thoughts. Then, imagine a spot just below the navel and breathe into that spot to fill your abdomen with air. Let the air fill your abdomen and then let it out like deflating a balloon.
- Reduce stress:
Negative thoughts and feelings that cause depression, anxiety, stress, and anger can amplify the pain. So, you need to control these sources of stress, to relieve your chronic pain. Several techniques can help you lower stress and promote relaxation. It includes – listening to soothing, calming music to improve your mood. Mental imagery relaxation techniques can be helpful because they help you use your imagination to create calming, peaceful images in your mind to relax your mind and help you focus. Progressive muscle relaxation is another technique that promotes relaxation by making a muscle tense for some seconds and then releasing it to relax. You can perform this technique on your feet, neck, head, arms muscles.
- Perform some gentle exercises:
Simple, everyday exercises such as walking, swimming, gardening, and dancing can help you ease pain by blocking pain signals to your brain. It also helps to reduce pain by stretching stiff and tense muscles, ligaments, and joints. It’s okay if you are hesitant that exercise may cause pain and that makes you worried about doing more damage. However, if you start small and become more active gradually, it won’t cause any damage or harm. The pain you feel at the beginning of the exercise occurs because your muscles and joints are trying to adapt to them and get settled. In the long term, its benefits far outweigh any increase in pain.
- Join a support group and share your story of pain with others:
When you have someone to talk to or share your chronic pain experiences with; others who can understand what you’re going through, it will help you feel less alone and guide you on how to manage pain. For this, you can consult with your healthcare provider to find a support group that you can join; online, through call, or direct face-to-face to help you manage your long-term pain. This way not only does your loneliness go away but you’re able to cope better with the negative thoughts that make your pain worse.
- Eat a healthy balanced diet:
Eating a healthy balanced diet not only provides energy to your body to be physically active but also helps your body to promote healing factors that help you cope with pain. It also helps you prevent conditions that make your pain worse like digestive issues, lower heart disease risk, diabetes, etc. so, always choose the right foods to eat in the right quantity. It includes fresh fruits and vegetables, cooked dried beans and peas, whole-grain breads and cereals, low-fat cheese, milk, yogurt, or lean meats. Avoid unhealthy fats and processed foods.
- Get a good night’s sleep:
Many people with chronic pain struggle to sleep at night. However, you must sleep on time and get enough sleep because during sleep the body heals the damaged organs and muscle tissues. So, if you don’t sleep enough or don’t sleep at all, it makes your pain worse. So, make sure you sleep on time and get up at the same time to maintain a sleep schedule. If you struggle to sleep, you can see your GP.
- Track your pain level and activity every day:
To effectively manage your pain, you need to tell your doctor how your pain makes you feel. Keep a log or journal of your daily pain level to help you track your pain. Also, note how long it lasts, what activities aggravate it, and what time of the day it’s usually the worst. These logs help your doctor to have a good understanding of how you’re living with chronic pain and what your current physical functioning level is to make adjustments in your pain management plan.
Living with chronic pain can be very difficult. However, using the above-mentioned ways can help relieve your pain right now. So, add them to your routine to notice an improvement in your pain, and get a better quality of life.
For a better chronic pain management plan, visit our pain management clinic in Brownville to get professional medical help. Call us to book your appointment now and improve your life quality with better pain management!!!! Our location at 1797 Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11212 is well-served by public transportation, including many bus routes, and the subway line. Visit our website at https://doralhw.org/department/pain-management/ or contact us on +1-718-367-2555 for additional details.
