Why is relaxation important for people living with chronic pain? (transcript)
Why is relaxation important for people with chronic pain?
At a simple level, feeling stressed will cause physical reactions that can increase pain. For example, increased muscle tension around an area that is already sore is likely to make it even more painful.
Stress also produces changes in the body’s hormonal systems. These changes are thought to affect the pain system, making it more sensitive. These are fairly direct effects, but your body is just one part of a living being made up of four systems: body, thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Since these four systems affect each other, a change in one system will cause a chain reaction of effects in the other three systems.
For example, feeling anxious might cause you to worry that you’re doing too much. That’s thought, which in turn might make you become more cautious, with the result that you do less, and that’s behaviour.
There are a number of relaxation exercises available. Here are two of them: diaphragmatic breathing and progressive muscular relaxation. Based, by consultant clinical psychologist Dr Martin Dunbar, on an original Pain Concern leaflet: ‘Stress, Pain and Relaxation’ by Dr Dunbar and Dr Elizabeth Dewey.
Practice is important. People usually report that they find these techniques more effective when they’ve been using them for a while. It’s helpful to start practicing these techniques at those times when you’re not feeling highly stressed, as people don’t tend to learn very well when distracted by high levels of anxiety.
