Making certain lifestyle changes can help manage your pain, reducing it, and eventually eliminating it. There’s many different types of pain and typically stems from more than what’s seen or felt on the surface. Pain can start out as some minor discomforts and grow into debilitating sensations. Managing your pain through medications can be a great starting point however getting to the root of the problem and learning what has brought on your specific discomfort can help get rid of it for good! If you don’t want to have to “manage” your pain for the rest of your life then you may need to reflect on what lifestyle changes need to be made.

Pain can stem from an old injury, your current physical activities or lack of activities, it could be stress related, trapped emotions, what foods you’re eating, and the list goes on. Reflect on your daily habits, reflect on your diet, your sleeping habits. When do you typically start to feel the pain? What emotions do you feel rise up within you when the pain onsets?

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Pain is a source of stress. And when you feel stress, you may react in ways — such as tensing your muscles and gritting your teeth — that increase your pain. You can prevent this cycle by better managing your stress. Write down the things that cause your stress, considering each part of your life, including work, relationships, home, poor health habits, and perfectionism or negative thinking. Then take a hard look at the list and think about ways you can minimize or even eliminate some triggers. If you’re stressed because you have too many obligations on your schedule, decide which ones you can remove. Learn to say no.

Adding more physical activity will increase the metabolism, aid in weight loss, increase range of motion, improve overall functionality and fight that terrible stiffness and tension that many of us suffer from. Simply standing up for part of the day, walking around often, and performing normal physical tasks, will considerably improve metabolic rate and respiratory capacity.

Sleeping better will allow the body to heal and reset each night. Meanwhile, poor or disturbed sleep is known to aggravate all types of illness and pain. Sleep patterns can be improved by making sure that your mattress and pillow suits your needs. The sleep environment should be quiet and dark. You should go to sleep on a regular time schedule, since changes can prevent falling asleep or staying asleep. It is not advised to eat or drink within several hours of going to bed at night. It is advised to spend some quiet time before actually attempting to sleep, in order to calm the mind, relax the body and remove stresses from conscious thought patterns. Meditation before bed is a perfect solution for many sleep-time concerns.

These are a few ways of lifestyle changes to reduce your pain. Reach out to our physicians today at Lifestream Health Center and let us help you achieve long lasting results.