Keeping stress, frustration, disappointments and other mind draining, mentally debilatating events and occurrence can help in the body's ability to manage and tolerate chronic pain as well as recover quicker from chronic pain flareups. Do not underestimate the power of meditation and the strength of a positive support structure including spouses, children, extended family, friends and even co-workers when it comes to tolerating chronic pains.
Our mind is one of the most important and impactful tools in the fight against chronic pains. So much of what doctors do for us relates to medication and that medications effect on the pain receptors in our body. Initially not a lot of emphasis was spent on our mind and how it was affected by and affecting the pains that we live with. As pain management became better thru trials and feedback, the minds place in toleration of pain became more prominent.
A strong mind is perhaps the one tool that we as chronic pain sufferers have in our direct control of treatment. We can read, listen to audio books, watch movies and meditate to engage our minds and keep up with current events. We can feed our mind with books that tell us how to tolerate pains better. We can visit websites, like this one, and get our fill of information, tips, products, tools and other peoples experiences in dealing with chronic pains to comfort our minds in knowing that we aren't in the struggle alone.
Keeping our mind involved and above the strains that getting past the pain flareups puts on us should be an integral part of any pain management technique we utilize. Our mind, under our control, ever ready to deliver us from the grips of pain and pain flareups is a most powerful tool. We have to remember to keep that tool sharp.
So, to me, including access to books, tapes, videos, music and more is just as important to our tolerating pain as the medicines and other products we use.
If you're like me, you never imagined that you would be dealing with the disabling effects of chronic pains such as fibromyalgia, sciatica, arthritis, migraines, neuropathy, RSD, chronic neck, back and lumbar pains or any of the other pains that have many of us battling each day for the lives we once knew. We still want to be a part of the mainstream. We still have a lot to offer and bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to the table. We find ourselves sitting on the fringes and losing our productivity agonizingly and painfully slow.
We don't want to let pain take away everything from us but we spend so much time fighting thru the flareups and the doctor visits and therapy that we have little time left to keep our minds as sharp and bright as they once were. We have to make a fully focused effort to avoid losing the gains we have made and the knowledge we have acquired. Reading is one sure way to help avoid any loses in our intellectual prowess.
The benefits of reading have been touted for hundreds of years. You can live vicariously in another town, country and even time. You can learn about cultures, climates and scientific discoveries. Business acumen, teaching skills, painting skills and writing skills can be studied from reading in books. The power that a book has to engage our minds is awesome.
Books also have the power to help us temporarily tolerate our pains better as well. We when get immersed in a book full of the experience that we are seeking, the body benefits. Our mind gets a chance to do something other than work on receiving the millions of pain signals that flood it daily. Our minds relish the moments that we are engaged in pleasant, non painful activities and reading is one that we can easily take advantage of. Good books are easy to find.
3 A.M. And The Pain..... From The Chronic Pain Hero Blog
Three O'clock in the morning. Aren't most sane people asleep if they aren't one of the midnight oil burners who are at work? Anybody else up at three a.m. just because they want to be? Or are you like me and you're up because your body is fighting thru the pain flareup and you can't get to sleep? Whatever the reason you're up doesn't really matter because in the end, WE'RE FLIPPIN AWAKE AT THREE A.M.!!! Go figure eh?
Now don't get me wrong, you can accomplish a whole heck of a lot at three in the morning. Many of us remember our younger days when three in the morning meant we were just coming in from the club. Or maybe we were just up cramming for the final Professor Gluma-Glum was giving in the morning. How about it's the weekend and your roommate went home and you have the dorm room all to yourself; maximize the moment baby!! Yeah, being awake at three a.m. isn't always as bad as it could be but this morning it is.
So, I'm sitting here trying to fill my head with pictures of things that I enjoy, as a heterosexual man, looking at....
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