Living With Healthy Hunger Health Blog
Nearly 40% of Americans complain of chronic pain. The majority want to avoid analgesics and anti-inflammatories. There are “soft” therapies that help tame and mitigate chronic pain. I am going to be highlighting 6 of such, so prepare to get relief for your chronic pain without any medication.
#1: Make The Physical Exercise Adapted and Progressive
Sport replaces painful tiredness with good fatigue linked to physical exertion. We’re afraid of hurting ourselves by moving, but it’s actually the reduction in physical activity that leads to abnormal positions and contributes to increased pain. In addition, during sport, the brain secretes endorphins, anti-inflammatories, which act on pain and improve sleep, mood, emotions and intellectual abilities.
It’s a question of doing very gradual, incremental exercises, starting with 5 to 10 minutes every day. It is also necessary to warm up, to massage the painful zones, even to take paracetamol 30 minutes before the physical exercise, then do some stretching at the end of the session. The chosen activity must provide pleasure in order to practice it sustainably. Finally, we must not wait to not have pain to restart physical activity.
#2: Learning To Relax And Breathe
Another great method whose main ingredients are: to settle comfortably in a quiet room, poorly lit and eyes closed; practice 5 breaths and 5 deep breaths of 5 seconds each; contract-relax fists, arms, toes and feet; or pay attention to each part of the body to feel the relaxation of all muscles.
#3: Making A Balance-Evaluation Of Complex Pains
The role of pain centers (there are 252) is to evaluate, then organize or treat complex chronic pain patients with a multidisciplinary team (doctors, psychologists, nurses …). A combination of various treatments is generally proposed.
#4: Believe In The Power Of The Placebo Effect
This effect is based on cognitive mechanisms (the anticipation of relief by the patient and the suggestion of efficacy by the prescriber), the reduction of anxiety and the activation of opioid systems. The effect of placebo is associated with a release of substances like endogenous opioids. The imaging techniques of the brain have shown that a placebo can affect the functioning of the brain in exactly the same way as a conventional treatment. It is the perfect example of the capacity of our brain to reduce pain by using its own resources.
#5: Go To Tai-Chi
This Chinese martial art, one of the most studied approaches in a large number of painful diseases (backache, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia), is “adapted as physical activity at all ages because it is a technique slow that is based on breathing, concentration, meditation.
You can start or practice at any age. Qigong and yoga, because they tend to increase muscle strength, balance, flexibility, body control and, psychologically, reduce stress and anxiety, improve sleep and the quality of life in a broad sense, are also recommended to control chronic pain.
#6: Consult A Hypnotherapist
This complementary medicine is particularly useful during pain related to migraines or back pain. The hypnotherapist is seeking, through verbal suggestions, to change your perceptions for a therapeutic purpose. The effects of a hypnosis session on pain may persist for a few hours (sometimes a little longer) after the session. To treat chronic pain, this type of session should be repeated every day or so. You can schedule a session with a professional Hypnotherapist at UnionMD private clinic.
