The National Institute of Health defines chronic pain as pain lasting at least 3 to 6 months. About 20% of US adults suffer from chronic pain so you’re not alone. What can you do to take back control of your chronic pain?
Think of pain as your body speaking to you. It’s trying to get your attention with a message that you are out of balance. Shutting down the pain with pain medication is not the answer. The relief is temporary and all medication poses risks.
For example:
- Acetaminophen / Tylenol can cause liver and kidney damage and is the leading cause of acute liver failure.
- Ibuprofen / Advil can cause ulcers, heart attacks, and strokes
- Prescription pain meds can cause addiction
Here’s a related post: The Roadmap to Overcoming Chronic Pain and Fatigue.
How the Body Works
I don’t think we pause often enough and consider how amazing the human body is. Medicine takes a very different approach and treats the body a bit like a machine that can be fixed with surgery or medications. Sometimes that is necessary and the results can be amazing.
But, medicine comes with its risks. A Study in the British Medical Journal by Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins found that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. If that’s not enough reason to approach medicine as a last resort I’m not sure what is.
Here are some basic tenets of how the body works that we can use to guide us in taking control of chronic pain.
- Self-Monitoring: the human body is continually monitoring the status of thousands upon thousands of functions – enzymes, hormones, oxygen, glucose, breathing, heart rate, digestion, blood pressure, infection, etc.
- Self-Regulating: the body is making adjustments to all those functions every second of every day without your conscious awareness. This is all done in an attempt to maintain homeostasis or balance.
- Self-Healing: the body is in a continual state of repair, renewal and healing. Cells and tissues get damaged and need to be repaired or replaced. The lining of your stomach is replaced every few days. Your body has healed from numerous cuts and sprains, maybe even fractures, but certainly a number of bacterial and viral infections.
Chronic pain along with any other chronic condition is an indication that something is interfering with your body’s ability to bring you back to balance and heal. Sometimes injuries cause permanent damage but even then it is possible to achieve greater balance that can not only greatly reduce chronic pain but also slow the process of degeneration.
5 Critical Things to Take Control of Chronic Pain
Critical Thing #1: Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) Balance. Your ANS is the part of your nervous system tasked with both immediate and long term survival. Long term it runs your organs in a way that maintains homeostasis and healing. However many aspects of current life activate the immediate survival portion. This is the “Fight-or-Flight” division. When this system gets activated long term you run into problems such as:
- Increased muscle tension and pain
- Elevation of stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline
- Increased inflammation and pain
- Poor sleep quality affecting recovery and healing
- Digestion issues
- Fatigue over the long term
The first step in achieving ANS balance is to remove any sources of pressure and irritation that is perpetuating this imbalance.
Critical Thing #2: Structural Balance. Structural balance is key to every other type of balance. When your structure is imbalanced it causes a chain reaction…
- Joint wear and tear leading to degenerative arthritis
- Muscle spasm and tension causing pain
- Nervous System irritation causing more imbalance and pain
- Brainstem tension leading to more ANS imbalance
When you put new tires on a car you want the front end aligned and the wheels balanced to get the greatest mileage from those tires. Your structural balance is a little like that. Greater balance means less stress and interference to your joints, muscles, and nervous system.
Critical Thing #3: Proper Joint Balance and Mobility. Joints are there for one reason, to allow for and provide movement. When any joint starts to lose its proper motion it sets off a chain reaction of soft tissue scar tissue formation, nerve pressure, joint degeneration, and…pain!
Restoring healthy movement and balance to the joints of your hips, pelvis, and spine is essential to helping the nervous system reduce chronic pain.
Critical Thing #4: Movement and Posture Correction. Modern life with its prolonged sitting and repetitive movements causes imbalances in how we move and the positions we adopt. Often in an attempt to relieve pain we start sitting, standing, and moving in ways that temporarily give us some relief. Most of these strategies actually increase our pain in the long term.
It’s important to learn simple strategies that help encourage balance and ease and take stress off of inflamed joints and soft tissues. It is also critical to learn how to activate and use the muscles of posture that hold us up against gravity.
Critical Thing #5: Activate the Vagus Nerve. The Vagus Nerve is part of the ANS. When that “Fight-or-Flight” system gets chronically activated it turns down the Vagus Nerve. This nerve is critical to control chronic pain as well as support all aspects of health. Here are a few of its functions:
- Promotes muscle relaxation and pain reduction
- Reduces inflammation and pain
- Lowers heart rate and blood pressure
- Healthy digestion
- Quality sleep
- Healthy immune system response
- Supports rest and recovery
Simply removing ANS irritation is not enough with chronic pain. We must activate the Vagus Nerve. This is a simple process but it will take some time to bring the Vagus Nerve back to a healthy activity level.
There are 3 categories of strategies for Vagus Nerve activation:
- Environmental: getting out in nature is a powerful environmental strategy. Nature is full of repeating patterns called fractals that have a calming effect on the nervous system.
- Relational: this refers to our relationship with both yourself and others. You have people in your life that have a consistent effect of making you feel safe and calm.
- Embodied: this involves your body. It can be touch from yourself or others that brings safety and ease. It can be fluid movements like dance, tai chi, or yoga. In my practice I use conscious breathwork to activate the Vagus Nerve because it is simple and can be done anywhere.
Chronic pain is a sign of imbalance that your body is unable to correct. It might have started with trauma, significant long term stress, or a combination of those. The key is to support your body in returning to a state of as much balance as possible.
Balance in the 5 ways I’ve discussed helps reduce tension and irritation to the nervous system that is causing the chronic pain. By restoring more balance you will experience a reduction or even resolution of your pain and get back to doing those things in life you are missing.
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