If chronic pain has been a part of your life in any way, you know that there are ways to manage it. However, those ways frequently include popping a variety of prescription pills. Oftentimes, the pain relief that pills provide just isn’t long lasting or doesn’t help with long-term improvements.
Fortunately, research and studies are being done to help provide natural ways to assist with pain relief. Whether your chronic pain is in your back or caused by fibromyalgia or arthritis, natural methods can help to relieve or reduce the reception of your pain. Whether it’s a lifestyle change or holistic medicine, natural pain relief is worth giving a chance. Check out some of popular natural pain management techniques below.
Lifestyle Changes
Adding or removing certain habits to or from your daily routine can really help to manage your chronic pain. The changes don’t have to be big for you to see a result, either. Below are some tips on lifestyle changes that you can make to help with your chronic pain:
- Release those endorphins: Get your blood pumping through exercise stimulation to release your inner endorphins, which are the body’s natural pain relievers. These hormones block pain signals from reaching the brain, reducing the amount that you feel. They also work to prevent or alleviate any anxiety, stress, or depression you may be feeling in relation to your chronic pain, stopping the pain from being worsened.
- But before you exercise, stretch: A good stretching session should precede and follow any workout, but stretching is especially important for those suffering from chronic back pain. Your back is designed for movement, but chronic pain can decrease your mobility, increasing stiffness and exacerbating your pain even more.
- Then, eat some sweets: Yep, once you’ve gotten your blood pumping and worked off some calories, go ahead and treat yourself. Sweet foods like cookies and cakes or ice cream have been shown to reduce pain sensation. Not into eating too much dessert? Bake it for someone else! Even enjoying a sweet or pleasant smell has been shown to reduce pain perception.
- Keep good company: It can feel a bit overwhelming or intrusive to constantly complain about your pain, but studies have shown that keeping in regular contact with people who have similar forms of pain find that it is more manageable.
- Head to the great outdoors: According to a study by Boston University, those who get the recommended daily values of Vitamin D experienced less pain than those who didn’t, and what better way to get that daily dose than by soaking up the sun? Another study found that Vitamin D helped to reduce pain from fibromyalgia. Just 10 to 15 minutes of exposure to the sun’s rays can help produce Vitamin D, helping to not only brighten your day literally, but also to manage your pain and help brighten your mood.
- Focus on your state of mind: Imagining yourself in a better place or mood or even just simple meditation can help to take your mind off of your pain, and relax your body and mind.
Therapies
You can supplement any of those daily lifestyle changes with a few therapies to manage your pain. The following natural and easy-to-come-by therapies can work wonders for those with even the most chronic of pain:
- Acupuncture: While the intricacies and nuances behind the healing powers of this needle-based therapy are not completely understood, numerous medical trials and personal accounts have proven that this eastern-originated therapy can alleviate and treat pain from many sources and diseases.
- Massage: A massage of high quality helps to get the blood in your body flowing, which only serves to help nourish and heal the body and alleviate any pain that you may feel. Use your pain as an “excuse” to treat yourself to a relaxing massage.
- Heat/Ice Therapy: Each end of this temperature-based scale has its own benefits. Heat therapy (like application of a hot water bottle or heating pad) can help to increase the flow of oxygen and nutrients to a damaged area of your body and promote healing. Ice, on the other hand, can help to reduce aggravating inflammation and act as a local anesthetic that interrupts pain signals.
Supplements
There are numerous natural supplements that can work just as well as artificial medicines to help manage and alleviate pain.
- Astaxanthin: In scientific jargon, this is a phytonutrient that is synthesized by micro algae called Haematococcus. All you need to know is that this nutrient is grown in fresh water and produces its own medicine. When concentrated into a liquid, it becomes a very powerful, fat-soluble antioxidant that gives muscles and joints protection from many different degenerative conditions and helps to kill inflammation associated with lower back pain, osteoarthritis, or other types of chronic pain.
- Chlorella: This is a single-cell algae that provides a vast array of nutrients that fight inflammation with muscle and joint pain, encourage the growth of beneficial flora in the gut to promote a healthy immune response, and detox the body of toxins that are at the root of severe muscle and joint pain.
- Magneisum: Magnesium is one of the minerals most important to maintaining a healthful body, as it is responsible for up to 800 enzymatic processes. It has the ability to relax muscles and reduce soreness, and it’s critical to muscle and joint health.
Heal Naturally with Holistic Methods at the Pain Relief Center in Plano
Chronic pain isn’t something that you have to live with. If you are interested in more information on pain relief, the Pain Relief Center of Plano, Texas, can help. Call the Pain Relief Center today to reduce your pain with alternative healing methods.
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