There’s a common misconception that when you have pain, you have to wait until your pain stops before you can take action. Pain must cease before you can exercise, meditate, or return to hobbies. Truth is, the route to reducing pain often lies through accepting and working with the pain, rather than waiting for it to stop. As you return to activities that are meaningful for you, pain can take a back seat.
One in five people worldwide are diagnosed with persistent pain every year. If you are one of them, you may be wondering how being mindful about the pain is going to help you. Yet studies suggest that mindfulness-based interventions can change both the intensity of your pain, and your ability to work with it.
Mindfulness is often associated with managing difficult emotions – anxiety, stress, depression – which occur alongside pain in 30 to 60% of people. But mindfulness is also about cultivating joy, building your brain’s capacity to notice what is right, good, and pleasant. Something many people find challenging, because by nature, our brains are better at noticing the problems and difficulties.
Using mindfulness even when you have pain
There are a number of attitudes of mindfulness that can be valuable to anyone working with pain.
- Acceptance – the capacity to be with what is, including when that is not fun or enjoyable. Sometimes an essential first step is to stop fighting what is, in this case pain, so you can devote energy to the things you can change.
- Non-judgement – it is easy to get into the habit of automatic judgements, ‘good’, ‘bad’, which can increase your suffering and stress. With mindfulness you can develop a more objective way of seeing, get curious about your experience.
- Letting go – or sometimes termed letting be. The skill of not holding on too tightly to what is pleasant, and not trying to push away the unpleasant. Observe and explore both.
- Kindness – something you might find is easier to bring to others than to yourself. And yet kindness towards your own body, your own experience, can be vital in reducing the tension and tightness that often accompany pain.
- Compassion – the desire to not only acknowledge suffering, but want to do something to relieve it. Again a quality you may find easier to bring to others than to yourself. But as the great mindfulness teacher Jack Kornfield observes: ‘if your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete’.
Cultivating joy – five ways to get started
Lots of small steps can add up to big progress. Think how it is to climb a mountain – one step at a time. Here are five mindfulness-based interventions you can use to train your brain to notice the good.
- Gratitude practice – there are lots of ways to bring more gratitude to your experience. You can keep a journal, writing 10 things a day you are grateful for. Or spend a few moments, morning and evening, counting off 10 things on your fingers. Gratitude jars are also popular, where you write on pieces of paper things you are grateful for, and put them in a jar, to be unpacked when you need.
- Pay attention to what gives you pleasure. It might be a morning cup of coffee, a walk in nature, time reading a book, or listening to music. Make time every day to do something just for you.
- Make a small change to your eating habits. One that is aimed at your health. Maybe you think you should drink more water? Start with one extra glass. Eat a piece of fruit every day. Sit at the table to eat and turn off/put away mobile devices. Whatever is meaningful for you, acknowledge it as an act of kindness for yourself.
- Learn a simple breathing practice. It could be box breathing, or 3,4,5 breathing. Or a short meditation, such as The Compassionate Self. Bringing your attention to your breath can be a valuable way to combat stress. With stress we tend to breathe only in the upper chest. See if you can consciously notice your breathing in your abdomen, if that’s right for you.
- When you experience pain, always acknowledge it. Name it. But do so in the third person – ‘the’ back, rather than ‘my’ back. Once acknowledged, say ‘thank you’. Pain is a protective mechanism, and if you can view your experience in this way, it can bring a softening and a reduction in discomfort. And once acknowledged, move on to paying attention to something else. Giving your brain something else absorbing to occupy itself can also reduce symptoms.
Using mindfulness to work with pain is not a quick fix. And what works well for one person may not work so well for you. Be patient with yourself, and take time to explore the best options for you. Make a habit of acknowledging every step you take in your own self-care.
If you want to try a longer meditation practice to cultivate joy, here is one on Everyday Gratitude. It is 13 minutes long
It is not always easy to learn on your own. So, if you would like to explore learning mindfulness with a group, or getting some support one to one, please contact us.
