5 Tips for Chronic Pain at Work
5 Tips for Chronic Pain at Work
When you have persistent pain, work can feel harder than ever. Not only do you have work to deal with, but you also have to deal with it in pain. It can feel a never-ending cycle of pain - work - more pain.
Irrespective of what you believe to be the underlying cause of your pain, your behaviours can contribute to the persistence of it, without you even realising it.
Here are 5 tips that can help reverse the persistent pain cycle.
1. Identify the triggers
2. Make a plan
3. Set boundaries and stick to them
4. Make the intervention tiny
5. Reward yourself and repeat
Identify the triggers
When someone has a really sensitive neural pathway which triggers pain, the threshold for it can lower to the point that the physical pain is triggered by a non-damaging physical stimulus or even non-physical elements such as emotions.
There are physical and psychological aspects of all pain and being open and aware of all the things that affect you is the first part in reversing that persistent pain mechanism.
You’re going to look for the things or times at work when you become aware that a physical movement, position or activity relates to your pain.
You’re also going to look for those times and start to look for how you are feeling emotionally around those times you get the pain or perhaps just before the pain comes on.
Physical triggers
Quite often with a physical pain we only look for the physical aspects of our life as triggers of it. Many people understand that stress can contribute to pain and work can be a big driver of those stresses in our life.
That doesn’t mean we have to dislike the work. Stress can be created by overdoing something you actually love, and that in itself is actually pleasurable at the beginning.
It’s easy to understand why pain can be exacerbated with physical position or activity so if you have those triggers then you have an easy aspect to target.
Often the physical activity itself isn’t damaging and that could be sitting, standing, lifting, or any number of physical things. The trick is to recognise the sense of overload that comes before pain increases.
That’s a skill that very often, people in persistent pain have lost confidence in themselves as being able to do it.
Relearning that skill can be a liberating experience when you see having a positive effect on the pain you may have experienced for a long time.
Emotional triggers
What may be a little trickier to understand can be pain that arises at work out of nowhere!. When you’re not actually physically overloading yourself. What’s possibly happening here is that your body and brain are recognising cues that are stressful and doing whatever they can to get you to get out off the situation or change the way you feel about it.
If you follow this logic then different people, situations, times, and places can have a very powerful effect on whether you feel pain or not.
If you are able to start noticing these kinds of cues as triggers for when your pain comes on or increases then you are getting really strong clues as to the things that influence your pain and how you feel.
As an example, you may notice your pain is influenced when you start to do a task for someone, or because you feel you have to. Doing too much or doing something you feel resistance from is stressful.
You may start to notice your pain is influenced by the anticipation of having to do it, or at the end of enduring the task you’ve put yourself through repeatedly whilst feeling stressed.
You may feel compelled to do what is expected of you despite you know it’s going to bring on or exacerbate your pain.
But believing your pain is only and totally related to a physical structure means you potentially miss the true reason why your pain persists.
This is common and although the physical element is totally relevant because that’s where you feel it. That belief that your pain only represents ongoing damage to that area, is often the driver for all the emotions which are actually the real drivers of that pain. So noticing all these potential triggers is key.
Make a plan
Look at the times when you know when your pain is worse and you may have already responded to your triggers. Look at the daily rituals that you go through with your work. See if there are any opportunities where you could see some way where you could integrate something that represents you looking after you, before the pain comes on or increases.
Is there something else you could possibly do to delay the onset or that trigger and your response to it? Could you have a break and what else could you do in that break that you don’t currently do? It may actually be strange to take a break.
Think about how would you advise someone else who was describing their situation to you and this may help you come up with an opportunity to see where you can make a change or take a break.
Set boundaries and stick to them
Whatever you decide, and this has to be your plan that you take responsibility for, then stick to it. Make it realistic and make a commitment to yourself that you’ll complete what you set out to do.
This process is about setting boundaries for yourself. It’s a powerful mechanism to instil as not only does it show yourself that you are worthy of taking a little time for yourself, but it demonstrates it to your work colleagues.
So pick a time through your day, where you plan to set out a new activity that represents that boundary. And set it at a point that you recognise comes before your pain comes on or starts to increase or dominate your day.
Make intervention tiny
Maybe its a thought, and movement a breathing pattern or a feeling. Choose what they’re going to be before you even before you get to the point of needing them
Attach a reward that comes from you.
This can feel a little strange but your brain and body become attracted to activities linked to a sensation of pleasure.
Reward Yourself
Rewarding yourself for new behaviour is key. That reward can be represented with a kind thought to yourself, a word, a clenched fist of celebration or anything that represents this small win for you.
The feeling that you overlay to this new behaviour is like glue for wiring it in your brain and body. That sensation of reward gets your brain to recognise what happened for you to feel like that and the next day when you see the cue, it creates a nudge for you to continue ahead and rep[eatthat behaviour which is going to bring about the rewarding sensation again.
The brain loves pleasure and it’s your job to help yourself by completing that neurological circuit. Repetition is key when you’re breaking a habitual pattern which creates your pain. Having cues to help you do that is key isi of you can attach your new behaviour to something you already have a habit for during your time at work then it will be so much easier to remind yourself to take action that puts you first.
5 Amazing Steps
These 5 steps can seem very simple when you’ve had the problem of persistent pain for many years, but ask yourself if you currently do them?
It is the habits you currently follow that create persistent pain and not the damage you believe you’ve sustained.
So many a change in your habitual behaviours is the way to reverse your persistent pain cycle and starting small is the best way to build confidence in this system and yourself.
What’s next?
Take Your First Step to Recovery.
Join our FREE private Facebook group, The Pain Habit Community, to see how others have successfully returned to a pain-free life. Get support on your journey.
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Buy The Pain Habit book. Order here.
