Living with pain on a daily basis can be physically and emotionally exhausting, not just leaving you in severe discomfort but also influencing your mood and overall sense of wellbeing. There is an overwhelming amount of information out there on what to do, or not do, and so much advice that it can be hard to know where to start, so we’ve offering some help. This is the first part of ways of coping.
THE FIRST SKILL: Understanding
There are other resources with this handout which help to explain chronic pain and
why it exists (ask your therapist for more details). Knowing how and why you have pain and how pain reacts with you and your environment is a vital skill in coping.
THE SECOND SKILL: Acceptance
Being able to realise the complex nature
of your pain will help in acceptance. Acceptance is hard and by accepting
you are not admitting defeat but rather embracing what is, what can and can’t be changed and from that, being able to see a way forward.
THE THIRD SKILL: Calming
As discussed in our leaflet “Understanding Chronic Pain”, your emotions can influence your pain experience. If you are constantly stressed and anxious about your pain, that heightened response in your body actually makes the pain seem worse. Ongoing high stress levels are also bad for your general health. An essential skill to develop is calming your body and mind. A sense of relaxation, lowers your stress levels which in turn can reduce your pain intensity.
Calming skills include:
- Deep breathing
- Meditation
- Mindfulness
- Yoga
- Tai Chi
The Putney Clinic offers a range of yoga and tai chi classes as well as mindfulness workshops which can help you develop calming skills. Take a look at our class and workshop schedule and find out more about how we can help.
