Did you know that experts believe mind-body techniques are significantly effective for chronic pain? Because it connects your brain to your body and gives power to one to control the other. In this way, you can manage your pain effectively. Learn how mind-body techniques work on pain and 5 mind-body techniques to deal with your pain in this article. Visit the best Pain Management Clinic in Brooklyn at Doral Health & Wellness or log on to www.doralhw.org.
How does the mind-body technique work on your pain?
The mind-body technique works on your pain because research tells us that our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs affect our body, abilities, and even pain. Mind-body practices allow our body to be interconnected and give power to one to affect the other. This technique treats the whole person, not your physical body.
Any intervention that changes your mental or emotional state such as listening to music, meditation, or cognitive behavioral therapy will make corresponding changes in your body making the mind-body connection. Additionally, therapies such as yoga or tai chi also utilize physical movements that relax your mind and improve muscle response. These approaches can be helpful in managing chronic pain as a solo treatment and can be used with other therapy options.
This approach can reduce the risk of drug dependence or addiction. So, combining this approach with medication can produce long-term benefits for the patient.
Here is some evidence of the effectiveness of mind-body approaches for various conditions linked with chronic pain. It includes:
- Psychosocial intervention approaches can reduce pain severity in cancer patients.
- Specific mind-body practices can reduce pain and boost physical function in adults who are suffering from osteoarthritis of the knee.
- Mind-body techniques are especially useful in treating fibromyalgia pain.
- In rheumatoid arthritis, statistics show mind-body approaches can significantly improve pain, functional disability, psychological status, coping abilities, self-efficacy, and joint involvement with the greatest improvements in patients who have a history of depression.
- Psychological treatments can show clinically relevant improvement in around 70% of pediatric patients with headaches.
5 Mind-body techniques to deal with pain
Here are some of the mind-body techniques to deal with pain:
- Relaxation breathing:
This technique is also known as diaphragmatic breathing (The diaphragm is a tiny muscle located at the base of the lungs). This breathing technique can reduce stress response which makes the breath shallow (breathing from the chest). To practice this relaxation breathing, you need to breathe slowly through your nose and allow your chest and belly to expand as you fill your lungs. Now exhale slowly through your mouth. Practice it several times to see its effects on the body.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT):
This talk therapy allows people to redirect their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in response to chronic pain. Many people benefit from this therapy for chronic pain conditions including chronic back pain and fibromyalgia (which may make you miss your work due to pain-related disability). It is similarly beneficial for pain in children and adolescents.
- Hypnosis:
This approach can create a mind-body connection to reduce pain efficiently. This method shows very positive results in children and adolescents with functional abdominal pain. This approach can alter your perception and cognitive patterns towards pain. It also improves pain associated with irritable bowel syndrome.
- Gentle movement:
This approach may seem counter-intuitive to you because you are already in pain. But when you do the opposite, rest and protect the painful area rather than stress it, you can create fear in the body that the pain may get worse, which makes the body try to fix the pain faster. This approach is particularly useful for acute pain such as a broken arm or a sprained ankle. However, some compelling evidence shows this approach is also effective for chronic pain as well.
It reduces your pain by releasing stress, brain chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, etc. to make you feel good, and loosening muscle tension and reducing the pain connected with it.
To do this, you can perform some gentle stretching and work your way up to activities such as swimming and walking. Start slowly from a 5 to 10-minute period for 1 or 2 days a week and work up to 5 days a week. Research proves that being consistent with this approach is important. With chronic pain, it may go up and down day by day. So, give yourself the temptation that this approach can lead to a pain-free day. You can even pay yourself for the next few days. It’s best to pace yourself a little each day to build up gradually.
- Yoga:
Yoga indeed involves many physical postures; however, it also builds mind-body intervention due to its emphasis on acceptance, training attention, meditation, and relaxation. 8 out of 9 RCTs (randomized controlled trials) showed that yoga can significantly reduce pain compared to control intervention techniques such as standard care, self-care, therapeutic exercises, manipulation, and no intervention.
Mind-body techniques for chronic pain are an amazingly effective approach to managing your pain and improving certain body functions. You can add them to your current treatment without worries about any side effects and better results in pain management even with severe chronic pain conditions.
If you need help with your pain, visit our pain management clinic in Brooklyn. Our pain management specialists can treat you with the best treatment approach to give guaranteed results and give you free tips on how to manage pain naturally. Call us to make an appointment and visit the specialist without wasting your precious time.
Visit Doral Health & Wellness Pain Relief Department in Brooklyn, to get professional help and guidance on how to manage your problem. Call us on + 1-718-367-2555 to get a consultation. If you need help learning coping methods, register your information and make direct contact with our doctors at https://yuz88hfiyh7.typeform.com/Doralintake. Log on to www.doralhw.org. Or visit us at 1797 Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11212.
