3 Daily Habits You Can Do to Help Your Chronic Pain

When living with chronic pain, it is important to have daily habits that help to calm the nervous system. This is because pain can often leave you with feelings of anxiety, fear, and stress. These feelings can lead to your nervous system being in a hyper-aroused “fight or flight” state. By adding daily habits and practices that calm the nervous system, your body can move from a “fight or flight” state into a “rest and digest” state. This relaxed state can ease feelings of pain, improving your quality of life! Below are my 3 favourite daily habits to help calm my nervous system, helping my chronic pain. 

Mindfulness & Meditation 

Mindfulness, or the act of staying present without judgment, is a great way to calm the nervous system. If you are having pain, mindfulness would be the act of acknowledging the pain without labeling it as good or bad. When experiencing pain you may note that your thoughts turn negative quickly. You might have thoughts such as “Oh no, here comes an attack, my day is ruined” or, “No, not more pain, how can I change this quickly”, or maybe even “This pain is so awful, it’s ruining my day”. Simply noting that pain is there without providing a label to it can prevent negative thoughts, keeping the nervous system in a more relaxed state. Mindfulness meditations can be a great way to stay centered in the present moment, acknowledging and observing your thoughts and emotions, without judgment. You can often find mindfulness meditations for free on youtube, or on a variety of apps such as Insight Timer, or Headspace. My course Chronic Pain 101 provides mindfulness meditations as well. 

Move Your Body

Movement can often fall away as an afterthought when living with pain. If you find movement ends up increasing your pain, you may be quick to set it aside as a not-so-important task. However, research shows that movement not only helps pain but helps both physical and mental health. Movement can happen in many different forms; gentle walks, stretches, housework, or gardening are all examples of movement. You don’t have to go to the gym and lift heavy weights for movement to count. If you find it hard to add movement into your day due to fear of pain, or high pain levels, start small. A 3-minute walk, a 5-minute stretch, or 10 minutes of housework are great examples. My course, Chronic Pain 101, has gentle movement practices, and education on how to move with pain. My youtube channel also has many movement practices for you to try. 

Spend Time In Nature

Spending time in nature is so beneficial for your nervous system. Research shows spending time in nature can increase happiness, and decrease feelings of anxiety, stress, and depression, which in turn calms the nervous system. There are many ways to add more nature time into your day. Going for a walk, gardening, or floating in a lake, for example. If you are short on time, spending one or two minutes outside with your feet in the grass counts! It can be helpful for your nervous system to practice mindfulness and tune into your 5 senses when spending time in nature.

There are many more beneficial practices that you can do to help calm the nervous system. Look forward to future posts where I dive into more practices!