even suffer from chronic insomnia. The ability to rest effectively is crucial to allowing the body and brain time to recover, and, without this, pain is compounded. This is a perfect example of a vicious circle: in pain, can’t sleep, more pain (because you’re tired), can’t sleep.
Even the youngest or toughest person can quickly become fatigued when living with pain, and this presents many challenges to going about your daily life. Unfortunately, the solution is simple yet difficult: you have to put your rest first. First, no exceptions. No excuses. If what you need to rest effectively is to take a nap every afternoon, then that’s what you have to do. I don’t care if you’re twenty-five or seventy-five. You need sleep and rest, whatever this looks like for you, whatever anyone else thinks. Rest is one of the single most important tools in pain management. If it means a special soft bed, then great. If it means sleeping with a prop, go for it. If it means going to bed at eight o’clock and not getting to bar-hop with friends, then this is the decision you have to make. If you do not prioritize your body’s need to rest, you are not prioritizing your health. Fatigue is potentially deadly, so be proactive and don’t let it get on top of you.
Exercise: Seeing Through Age and Gender
Compassion toward yourself takes practice. Start trying to exercise compassion toward others. If someone is walking slowly on the street, don’t just hurry past them. Think to yourself: maybe that’s as fast as they can walk. Ignore their age or the way they look. If someone can’t lift a bag of groceries at the market, don’t think “They’re weak” or “They should exercise more.” Think: maybe they’re experiencing muscular difficulty today. Maybe their joints have seized up.
Being in pain can feel like being on an island alone, and this fosters an everyone else mentality. It seems like everyone else can cope fine, has no issues, has their good health. But pain is invisible; just as they don’t know yours, you don’t know theirs. Stop presuming about others’ bodies and pain, and it will become easier to stand up for your own.
The room is full of oddly shaped, baffling apparatus with shelves and seats and levers and switches and buttons and ropes and pedals and weights and platforms and oh my God, what are you supposed to do with that bar?
Gyms are intimidating—sometimes by design. A lot of people learn how to use a piece of exercise equipment by surreptitiously watching someone else use it. A lot, more simply, join a sports team, or cycle or run by themselves, or find a class, or simply don’t bother.
We all know that exercise is good for us and that most doctors recommend a minimum of thirty minutes a day, three times a week. That sounds like a lot. Being physically active is a vital component of pain management because, in addition to all the usual health benefits it offers, for chronic pain sufferers it can also:
•Increase strength
•Increase pain thresholds
•Decrease rebound time
•Encourage and speed healing
•Teach you your body’s limits
•Make more routine activities easier
•Encourage healthy sleep
•Release hormones that assist in mental wellness
Starting a new exercise regime can be overwhelming—there is just so much information out there—and adapting an existing one can be scary. What if you make things worse? What if you embarrass yourself? What if you create a new problem?
We are not going to set out any specific exercise routines here; for one thing, it would need to be different for every person. Every single person has to modify their physical activity according to their abilities, their goals, and their time. But knowing your abilities is important, as is setting reasonable goals.
Types of Exercise
Here are some really simple categories of exercise, all of which are recommended for everyone, but in differing ratios depending on your health and abilities.
Stretching
This is always beneficial, and knowing how to stretch properly is very important; it increases mobility, range of motion and flexibility, decreases pain, and softens the impact of more rigorous exercise.
Strengthening
Strengthening exercises are not just about lifting weights; they come in a wide variety of forms, and the simplest often involve using just your own body weight to exercise and tone specific muscles.
Cardiovascular
CV exercise is the type that gets your heart racing and has enormous long-term health benefits. It is often the hardest for those with chronic pain, but, remember, not all CV exercise is equal. There are low-impact options for those who must adjust their practices to their body’s needs that will still provide the important benefits you are looking for.
Safe Options for Exercise
There are several types of exercise that are widely considered “the safest” for those seeking to increase their physical activity in the face of existing physical problems:
•Stretching
•Yoga
•Walking
•Pilates
•Strength training
•Aquafit or swimming
And all exercise regimes, regardless of what type they are, should consist of four basic components:
1.Warm-up
2.Exercise
3.Stretch
4.Hydrate
There is almost infinite room within these basic guidelines to create and adapt a variety of possible workouts that will give you all the benefits of exercise without causing harm or triggering your pain disorder.
Know the Difference Between Good Pain and Bad Pain
Exercise hurts. Most of the time, for most people, just a little. You are not really working your muscles or pushing yourself if there isn’t some strain, some extra effort that can tire muscles and leave you achy and spent. That’s basically why so many people dislike it—it’s time-consuming and difficult and do I really have to?!
It’s important to know which pains you feel when exercising are normal and which are not. Muscle pain, strain or ache is normal after a heavy workout. It means you actually did something, so in many ways this can be considered good pain: you tired the muscle out, but that work will make it stronger. Some joint discomfort can also be expected if you have been working on a problem area, but again, this might be a good thing: moving and lubricating problem joints increases their mobility. If you have nerve damage, then
