Did you know that your mindset can affect your recovery from pain?

Discussing mindset is quite important to me because it’s not spoken about openly. Peope are embarrased to talk about mental health issues for fear of being judged or worse made fun of. But it’s important to understand that mindset plays a huge role especially in chronic pain sufferers. This is by no means implying that the pain is in your head. It’s more about being aware of what tricks your brain can play on you to give you that short term pleasure and keep you from achieving your goal.

Do you analyse and assess people’s actions to the point that it can stress you out? Why I’m asking this is because stress directly affects your levels of pain in the body. Stress releases a hormone called cortisol and adrenaline. Now in ancient humans these hormones were very important to save their lives. Because they could have been wandering through the woods and suddenly they come across a Lion! These hormones would either make them flee or fight for survival. Once they accomplished that task, the hormones would come back to normal. But our modern world does not have dangerous animals. It in turn has social media and the constant bombardement of negativity can keep these stressors active in our system. This constant negativity can disrupt our normal bodily functions including healing. This puts you at increased risk of many health problems including anxiety and depression.

I don’t think genetics has as much a part to play in this as your upbringing or your lifestyle. You may have gone through a particulary difficult experience in life that makes you stress more in certain situations. I would even say that it’s lack of good quality breathing! What happens when you’re worried?You breathe shallow, your posture droops and there’s just not enough air flowing in your lungs. This can limit the amount of oxygen in the blood and the brain. In fact what we eat as well has major impact on our moods! Have you ever noticed how you feel after eating a big bowl of pasta as compared to a green , fresh salad? Digestion is the hardest thing our bodies have to do. Processed food has a lot of toxins in it that the body tries to get rid of . Hence it consumes a lot of energy to digest that food, in turn making you feel sluggish. And would anyone feel like doing anything if they’re feeling sluggish?