How Chronic Pain Affects Your Life

Chronic pain is pain that doesn’t go away. It may vary in intensity, but it tends to stay around and becomes long-term pain. It can cause addiction to painkillers and other drugs. It’s effects on a person go beyond just the pain as it can affect a person’s decision-making abilities, the person getting involved in riskier ventures and even making unhealthy food choices. 

Chronic pain affects one in four adults and costs the US $635 billion in healthcare costs and lost

productivity each year. Surveys of professional athletes and members of the military are even worse. Among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 80% suffer persistent pain caused by traumatic brain injuries. One cannot even imagine the long-term effects that the war in Ukraine will have on all the people involved.

Here's some of the research that’s been done on chronic pain.

One study looked at a person’s gambling decision-making. In the study, people without chronic pain tended to learn to stick with safer cards. The chronic pain people gambled larger sums and accrued greater debt. The researchers found that chronic pain sufferers were missing identifying subtle body changes like a racing heart, sweaty palms and churning stomachs that the non-suffers experienced and used to make a decision to play it safer.

The chronic pain suffers were less sensitive to these internal signals and made riskier decisions.

In a study published in the journal Pain, the researchers found that people experiencing lower back pain obtained less pleasure from eating high-fat foods. Those who suffered from backaches often continued to eat despite a lack of satisfaction and already feeling full. This   resulted in the person putting on weight.

 Another study found structural changes in the nucleus accumbens which is a brain region involved in motivation and reward. In rodents, they found that over-stimulating this brain region drove them to overeat even when they weren’t hunger. This absence of hunger resulted in a person becoming obese.

Chronic pain’s effects can even be seen in brain scans. People with persistent backaches had less grey matter in the prefrontal cortex, which is an area of the brain involved in pain perception, decision making and cognitive flexibility. 

One of the therapy’s that is being used to treat chronic pain is cognitive behavioral therapy. I’d suggest someone in chronic pain also explore acupuncture, physical therapy, meditation, tai chi and yoga.

So…the expression that it’s all in your mind needs to be expanded to include the brain and the body because chronic pain effects it all – it’s not just in your mind!
(Reported Discover Magazine, Chronic Pain Makes You Think Differently, March 28, 2022)

HOW LONG DO YOU HAVE TO STRETCH A MUSCLE?

Would you believe only 60 seconds? That's what researchers found. This study had people around 85 years old stretch their hamstring muscles for 15, 30, or 60 seconds. The 60-second group's flexibility went up nearly twice the other groups. This also results in better mobility, greater ease in bending over, and less back pain. This notion of stretching and holding the stretch is actually about 5,000 years old and is one of the principles of Hatha Yoga. In all of the Yoga positions, you hold the stretch while you keep breathing into the tension in the muscle.

I love it when a 5000-year-old system gets validated from modern research. My only question is how did they figure these things out 5000 years ago? 

Using Yoga And Tai Chi To Reduce The Effects Of Fibromyalgia

A study from the Comprehensive Pain Center at Oregon Health and Science University found that women with fibromyalgia who attended a 2-hour weekly yoga program and practiced the poses at home for 20 to 40 minutes a day experienced a 31% drop in symptoms, including pain and fatigue.
This study shows the importance of doing yoga both in class and also at home.
With Tai Chi, Tufts University researchers found that doing Tai Chi improved the ability of women with fibromyalgia to sleep better and reduced the pain and depression from the disease.
In both studies the researchers think that it’s both the controlled breathing and movements that are interrupting the pain cycle.
My thought is it could also be the attitude of the mind that develops when you do these two approaches.

Tibetan Buddhist Monks Can Raise Their Body Temperature Dramatically

Dr.  Alexander Levitov has conducted some fascinating research in Tibet.
He found that Buddhist monks who have trained for years are able to sit cross-legged, naked or nearly naked on icy mountains or in glacial waterfalls while meditating.
The practice is called tumo and these monks can do it for hours. Some can even be wrapped in a cold wet sheet while in a cold room and raise their body temperature enough to dry the sheet!
Dr. Levitov measured the monk’s body reactions when they began to meditate in the cold. Once the monks were in deep meditation, he found that their heart function improved, blood vessels dilated and brain activity increased.
A control group of volunteers just got colder.
Levitov said that the monk’s skin were actually hot to the touch.
So…since there are all kinds of benefits from meditating beyond meditating in the cold, you might want to experience it for yourself.
If you’ve never meditated or felt that it didn’t work for you, you can learn all about how anyone can meditate by reading my book Managing Your Stress in Difficult Times. You can click here to learn more.

(Reported The Virginian Pilot by Elizabeth Simpson, 4.21.13)

Using Yoga To Increase Your Happiness

A study done by Boston University School of Medicine found that yoga reduced stress, eased aches and boosted energy levels. The end result was the participants were happier and healthier.
 
To get these results the researchers had participants doing yoga for an hour 3 times a week for 3 months.

The yoga folks had higher levels of mood boosting brain chemicals as compared with people who walked for the same amount of time. So…yoga anyone?

(Reported Prevention, December 2012)