Breaking Barriers #3: Emotional impact of chronic pain
Pain can involve a lot of loss – of friendships, work or plans for the future. The emotional impact of these losses as well as of the pain itself often hits people hard.
People with long term pain can find themselves struggling with low mood, depression, anxiety and isolation – this can in turn make the pain worse. It’s important to tackle these emotional impacts of pain as well as treating the pain. This doesn’t mean that the pain is ‘all in the mind’.
Top tip: learn more about pain. Many people find that, like Carmen and Diane, understanding more about their pain makes them less anxious and can help them to start becoming more active.
Find out more: improve your understanding of pain by listening to Pain Concern’s interview with Lorimer Mosley, one of the authors of Explain Pain.
Click here for the main Breaking Barriers research project page.
