PAIN RELIEF. Starts here.

Published: Wed, 08/26/15

Good day earth-travelers!

In the last two love letters I’ve talked about importance and benefits of daily movement.

Well, what if you’ve got pain?

What if your pain is so severe that you can’t do much? What if it is so bad that it drains all of your internal resources, muddles up your sleep, your moods, and even creeps into your relationships, alienating you from your loved ones and the things that bring your joy? And what if you’ve been to all the specialists, and all physiotherapists and what have you, got nowhere fast, and now losing hope by bucketfuls every day?

I know how you feel. I am intimately familiar with a personal hell that is chronic pain. I’ve been there; and on some days I am there. What I am about to share with you has made a real, profound, and incredible difference in my own life, and for many of my students.

I found a lot of this information COUNTERINTUITIVE, yet very, very PROMISING. Here is what pain science (and the study of neuroplasticity) tells us:

The purpose of pain is PROTECTION. The main job of pain is not to tell you where it is, what it is, and how bad it is, but to stop you or change your behavior. This mechanism is incredibly complex, highly adaptable, and always changing in response to your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, diet, social situation and so forth. Pain is not linear; pain is vast and all encompassing.

Pain is NOT an accurate indicator of tissue health. Yes, a shocker – I know! Abnormal posture or alignment (scoliosis for example), presence of scar tissue, ruptured spinal disks, or worn out joints are NOT sufficient for creating pain. In fact, chronic pain happens just as often when the injury is small as when it is large; it is possible to have pain in parts of the body where there’s nothing wrong. Some people feel pain in their prosthetic (plastic) limbs, while others live with extensive tissue injury and no pain. This isn’t to say that tissue injury has no role in pain mechanism, nor that we should discount that role. This is about choosing to view pain from a much, much, much broader perspective.

Pain control is not on/off control switch. Pain control is about learning how to turn it down. Then turn it down some more.

Understanding pain mechanism reduces pain: several studies have used fMRI to prove that just 30 minutes of pain education can significantly reduce pain levels even in people with intractable pain.

Your body has the ability to dampen pain much more effectively than any medication currently available on the market. Stress diminishes the effectiveness of your on-board pain reduction system and can potentially turn it off completely. So do some medications.

Did you know that American Pain Society now recommends yoga for pain? For millennia yogis employed numerous techniques to balance nervous system and reduce occurrences and severity of pain. Yogic tools – such as deep, rhythmic breathing, for example – have recently been lab-tested and proven to be as efficient as many medications.

Most worthwhile journeys start with a dream of what is possible and a solid plan of how to get there.

Imagine what it would be like to perform your most favorite activity pain-free. You are probably wondering why I didn’t ask you to imagine your life being pain-free? The truth is, for many folks living with a lot of pain, imagining their whole life pain-free can actually be overwhelming. AND, to make use of neuroplasticity, we need to be as particular as we can.

So, step one: visualize performing your very favorite activity pain-free. Picture this in as much detail as possible; pay particular attention to the emotional undertone of this visualization (is it different from the usual, pain-altered emotional state?)

Create a solid plan: find a way to exert your influence on your physiology, your way to challenge the edge of the pain and the edge of your ability, your way to stay motivated to persist with this often-tedious work, and your way to be more fearless (mindfully, rather than recklessly).

Here is how:

Write down 5 ways to escape pain – these are your distractions: what takes your mind off pain?

Write down 5 ways to calm your nervous system – this can be yoga or meditation, a walk along the river or mindful breathing (breathing is an especially powerful practice for pain management.)

Write down 5 ways to challenge yourself: pain often causes fear of movement and mistrust in your body’s ability (more on fear in the next love letter). Pain Care Yoga class is an excellent way to become more fearless in a mindful way.

Create a daily + weekly plan on how many* ESCAPES, CALMS, and CHALLENGES you need.

*Insider tip: most likely, you will need more escapes and calms in the beginning of your journey. Stick to your plan, yet be flexible: listen to your body (join a yoga class to learn how to do that) and adjust accordingly. Be diligent and expect your first improvements within 3 – 6 weeks. I would highly, highly recommend starting with a several private appointments – students who do that get results so much faster!

Start meditating. Not tomorrow, not when "the timing is right,". Start now. I will write about why meditation is crucial for those who live with persistent pain (and, really, for anyone of us) in the next few weeks; but don't wait for the explanation. Start meditating now.