How Pain Affects Your Future
Pain, whether physical or emotional, takes away our energy and enthusiasm to face a brand new day. It gives us a blurry picture of the future, if it can be seen at all.
The night before your presentation was so good. You had an early dinner, prepared all your things, and went to bed ahead of time. You’re excited because tomorrow is the day you’ve been waiting for. You are given a chance to handle a project that is going to jumpstart your career. But when you woke up the next day, you hardly had the energy to get up from bed. Your headache was so severe it feels like your head will split into two. You had a quick cold shower, thinking it will make the pain go away. But the pain gets even worse. The excitement about the presentation has just flown away. You don’t think you can still manage to go.
People who have suffered from chronic pain understand how this condition can make one’s life so miserable. Pain can be mild or severe, continuous or episodic, and can feel tiresome or totally incapacitating. Whilst some cases of chronic pain have known causes, others remained to be a mystery. A significant number of people who experience persistent pain are not diagnosed with any medical condition.
How does pain affect your future?
Many people, especially those who do not suffer from chronic pain, undervalue the effects of pain to the sufferers. In many workplaces, employees are still forced to work if the reason for the leave request is body pain. But there’s more to chronic pain than meets the eye. The emotional toll of chronic pain can make the symptoms worse. It increases a person’s risk of anxiety, stress, depression, anger, fatigue and other forms of distress that are truly incapacitating. Pain and emotions are connected in two ways. First, pain supersedes positive mood and pulls down the sufferer’s energy levels, making it hard for him or her to stay optimistic. Second, negative feelings deplete the natural painkillers in the body, amplifying the sensation of pain and making the symptoms more noticeable.
Numerous studies have linked chronic pain to depression. This is perhaps due to the fact that pain creates limitations in many areas of life, even to the basic stuff like getting up from bed, cooking, driving, climbing the stairs, cleaning the house, or sitting in an office chair. Pain saps our energy and knocks out our mood. Being unable to perform our daily tasks or engage in activities that give us pleasure can negatively impact our emotional health. And as the days pass by, the moment we realise that we are incapable of doing hard enough to pursue our goals, we get angry and disappointed about ourselves. Unfortunately, some of us tend to pass these negative feelings to others, which put their personal relationships at risk.
Why is emotional pain more tormenting?
Some people don’t experience physical pain but have long been suffering from emotional pain. Often, emotional pain is buried below our conscious awareness that we hardly recognise it – we don’t even know its cause. This emotional instability results to mild emotional symptoms such as mood swings to more debilitating ones like the onset of a mental disease. Many of us choose to deny that they are in a state of emotional pain. So they simply carry on with their lives, not acknowledging the fact that there’s an emptiness within. But the more they try to hide it, the more it gets worse.
Dealing with Pain
The first part of the recovery process, whether it’s physical or emotional pain, is acknowledgement. It is common for us to deny or ignore the fact that we’re in pain but this is less likely going to help. Accepting the fact that we are in pain is the initial step towards full recovery. It signals our brain and the rest of our body to do something to fix the problem. It is never a good idea to pretend that the pain is not real. Although our main goal is to end the pain, giving ourselves enough time to let the pain linger and know where exactly it occurs is very important. Part of acknowledging chronic pain is being aware of its symptoms. These include experiencing mild to severe pain that is characterised by either a shooting, burning, aching, or electrical sensation. Pain also comes with fatigue, sleeplessness, poor immune system, hopelessness, anxiety, stress and fear.
The next part of the recovery process is seeking treatment. There are various therapies designed to ease chronic pain, whether physical or emotional in nature. Whilst medications provide a ‘quick fix’ to the problem, there are safer and more effective treatments that offer lasting relief from pain. These include acupuncture, hypnotherapy, and massage therapy. Cognitive behavioural therapy, counselling and some other forms of psychotherapy can also help sufferers determine the real causes of their condition and devise a better plan to make their life easier.
Pain is a debilitating condition that prevents many of us from having a beautiful and more productive future. It pulls down our energy levels, makes us sad, angry and disappointed, and discourages us from pursuing our goals. Simply put, pain sets limitation to our capabilities, a fact that makes our future obscure. Fortunately, recovering from chronic pain, emotional or physical, is possible. It starts with recognising and accepting that something is not right. This is followed by seeking appropriate therapy.
By helping yourself and allowing professional people to help you, you can certainly get over from pain and live your life in the best way you can.
What other natural therapies are effective in treating or managing chronic pain? Share your insights by posting a comment below.
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