How to Soothe Chronic Pain

As a former gymnast with training in clinical psychology, I learned to stop suffering and start living

I cope daily with chronic pain, through a combination of old injuries and some other chronic health conditions that are just part of my genetics.

Chronic pain can be really scary. It’s isolating, it’s frustrating, and it can leave us feeling hopeless. But it doesn’t need to.

Here is everything I’ve learned in my own journey through chronic pain and my training in clinical psychology.

I was an elite competitive gymnast for 12 years before college. I thought that my college scholarship was the beginning of my college athletics career.

Instead, I experienced a career-ending injury — an Achilles tear requiring two surgeries that put me on crutches for eight months and out of commission for almost two years.

Growing up in the gymnastics world, I was no stranger to injuries. I subscribed to the get-tough/push-through mentality. I not only believed that injuries were part of the job, but that pushing through injuries was strength, that it was “cool” to compare scars, that my worth was hinged on my ability to keep going even when my body wanted to give up.

This mentality was helpful in the short-term — it got me through gymnastics. What I didn’t know is that pushing my body to its literal breaking point would have consequences for years to come.

What is Chronic Pain?

Fifty million people in the United States struggle with chronic pain. That’s about 20% of the U.S. population. Most people think chronic pain is simply about the physical sensations of pain we experience, but it’s actually more complicated than that.

Pain is comprised of:

Physical sensations
Emotional reactions
How pain impacts activities of daily living (ADL’s). ADL’s are things like sitting, standing, putting clothes on — the things that help us live our lives.

Most people over-focus on the physical sensations of pain and completely ignore the emotional reactions and how pain impacts their day-to-day. This is probably because the physical sensations of pain are the most distressing — and we might not even be aware of the impact pain has on our emotions or daily functioning.

But ignoring those impacts leads you to treat the surface symptoms instead of treating the root of the problem.

Even worse, most people try to manage chronic pain with medicine (including opioids), alcohol, or distraction. Our efforts to manage chronic pain understandably often include numbing the pain or avoiding it.

But chronic pain is a long game. You’re in it for the long haul. All those short term strategies seem really shiny and alluring, but they only work to a certain point. And most of the time, they don’t lead you to a more fulfilling life despite chronic pain. So what does help in the long run?

Here are some science-backed strategies that help me soothe chronic pain now and in the long-term.

You can remember them by using the acronym FUSS: don’t FUSS with pain.

F — Stop Fighting Pain

When we’re in pain, we not only feel the physical pain, but we also experience emotional distress from pain. We call this suffering.

Suffering occurs when we fight reality. Suffering from chronic pain might look or sound like, “I wish this didn’t hurt anymore,” “Why can’t this be different,” or “This sucks.”

And honestly, experiencing chronic pain does suck. But wishing it were different and fighting reality makes it suck worse. So to reduce our suffering, we need to stop fighting pain and accept our reality.

Accepting reality is accepting our situation as it is right now, without worrying about what will happen in the future or what happened in the past. We can’t buy into the stories we tell ourselves that the pain will last forever or things will only get worse — we don’t actually know that.

Accepting reality might look or sound like, “I’m noticing I feel this pain right now,” “The pain I feel right now isn’t going to last forever,” or “I’m going to do my best to make myself more comfortable.”

There is really no downside to accepting reality.

Just because we accept something doesn’t mean we like it or approve of our situation. Accepting it helps reduce the emotional suffering that we feel so we can focus our energy on other things that are important to us.

By accepting reality as it is right now, we still feel the pain, but we don’t add the suffering on top of it. This helps us manage in the short and long-term.

Here is a great video created by Dr. Shireen Rizvi explaining the concept of radical acceptance, which is a skill that helps us stop fighting reality.

Accepting reality is easier with mindfulness.

Photo by Aleksandr Ledogorov on Unsplash

U — Use Mindfulness

Mindfulness is focusing on the present moment. It is noticing and observing physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions, without judging ourselves for experiencing them. It is just noticing what is, rather than assigning extra meaning and judgments to what is.

Mindfulness has numerous benefits — it helps us manage emotions, focus attention, reduce anxiety/stress, and promote relaxation in the body. It even helps us feel less fear by changing our brain chemistry. But mindfulness is also crucial for managing chronic pain.

Mindfulness-based programs have shown to reduce pain intensity, reduce distress, and improve quality of life.

Practicing mindfulness deliberately and intentionally for 5–20 minutes a day can help with the experience of pain.

Mindfulness strategies to try

Belly breathing: Belly breathing is breathing using your diaphragm (a dome-shaped muscle that sits below the lungs). Often when we breathe, we use our chest muscles, which increases muscle tension, creates shallow breathing, and gives us more anxiety. The key is to breathe using your belly (think like you’re filling up a balloon), and emphasize a long exhale through your mouth. The exhale is what releases muscle tension and reduces anxiety. Here is an instructional video on how to breathe using your diaphragm.
“Just noticing” skill: Just noticing is noting sensations, emotions, and experiences without judging them. Instead of saying, “Ugh not this pain again,” you might say to yourself “I’m noticing I’m feeling frustrated with my pain,” or “I’m noticing feeling anxiety in my belly right now.” Just noticing means not getting caught up in the meaning of the pain, not worrying about how long it will last, and not jumping to conclusions that the pain means something catastrophic. We are just noticing what is.
Body Scan: The body scan skill is a way to notice what your body is feeling. It is the opposite of numbing out and involves leaning in. It’s asking yourself, “What do I feel right now?” This can feel counter-intuitive, but leaning in actually helps with the experience of pain. Check out a simple body scan mindfulness here, and a body scan specifically for chronic pain here.

Remember, there isn’t a right way to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is all about effortful attention to the present moment. As long as you’re paying attention, you’re doing it.

Here are more mindfulness exercises for chronic pain.

S — Set Realistic Expectations

When I started to suffer from chronic pain, my expectations were all over. I just thought that I could do everything that I used to be able to do and nothing had changed. But I needed to accept the reality of the pain and change my outlook.

It’s important to set realistic expectations — not too high or too low. This includes physical and emotional expectations.

It’s unhelpful to think that your pain will continue forever, but also not helpful to think it’ll be gone tomorrow. Chances are, if you’re struggling with chronic pain there are going to be good and bad days, and the intensity and struggle of your pain will vary.

Take it day by day.

Set baby steps that feel manageable for physical tasks. Start with the smallest step you can think of. Do the same for the emotional aspects of pain.

If you’re unable to reach a goal or expectation one day, remember that you can try again tomorrow.

Listen to your body. Chronic pain is long-term. It’s not helpful to push yourself past your limits to reach some self-imposed goal. Baby steps add up to big steps.

In managing my own pain, one of the most helpful things for me was rejecting the push-through mentality I learned from gymnastics and listening to my body.

I prolonged my pain for so long because I continued to exercise and push through the pain, even though it hurt. Then for years, I stopped exercising completely because I was so afraid of making the pain worse.

It was only when I started to set manageable expectations that I landed in the middle. I experimented. I tried something out and if it was painful, I stopped. I noticed and paid attention to what made my pain worse and either avoided or reduced those things. I found realistic ways to move my body that felt energizing and didn’t exacerbate my pain.

I finally found balance. You can too.

S — Seek Support

I felt so alone when my pain started.

I kept hearing unhelpful advice like “just think positively,” and I couldn’t figure out why nobody understood me. I just hadn’t yet found my tribe.

My burden was so much easier to bear when I found people who could empathize with what I was going through.

Then I realized that emotional pain is easier to bear when we have others to share it with.

Do you have a friend who can make space for you to voice your frustrations? If not, what about a supportive caregiver? A therapist can also be a source of support to learn skills and be a sounding board for how difficult it is to live with pain every day.

Support groups can also give people a listening ear, peers to relate to, and skills to manage pain. Here are a few online support groups:

Pain Connection offers monthly online conference calls. All support groups are free of cost.
Ben’s Friends offers online support forums for people living with various types of chronic pain.
You can also find support groups through the American Chronic Pain Association.

Putting It Together

Living with chronic pain is a difficult reality, but you’re not alone. And even when it feels helpless, there are science-backed strategies that work.

Don’t FUSS with pain. Stop fighting reality. Use your mindfulness skills. Practice them daily. Work on setting realistic expectations that help you find balance and allow you to balance the pain with the activities that are important to you. And most importantly, seek support from humans who can share in your experience.

These strategies significantly improved my quality of life. And they can help you too.

Start small. Just start with the guideline that feels easiest, and build from there.

Take your time. Build your tribe.

And kick chronic pain to the curb.