Suffering from chronic pain is bad enough, and if your doctor recommends exercising through the pain, it may seem impossible. The best way to exercise through pain is to find something you enjoy and an exercise that is not too strenuous. Do as much as you can each time, and you'll be surprised at what you can do and how well it can help your pain.
How Exercise Helps
Chronic pain is often due to an over-sensitive central nervous system. In some cases, a simple touch can set off pain. Exercise increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain, which is important to improve neuroplasticity to help you feel better over time. Exercise won't help immediately, but given time can help ease the pain.
You can't start out running a marathon, so choose a form of exercise that is gentle but effective on strengthening muscles and flexibility. Some excellent choices are walking and Pilates for starters.
Walking
Walking is a low impact exercise and you can do it almost anywhere. If it's too cold outdoor you can invest in a treadmill or just walk in place. Walking has many benefits.
Taking a walk outside may also help boost your mood, which is essential in dealing with chronic pain.
Pilates
Pilates helps strengthen both the body and mind. It also helps improve posture, core strength, and balance. People with low back pain can greatly benefit from having a stronger core to support back muscles. There are other benefits we well.
Pilates if fairly easy and if you start slow with an instructor or instructional video, you can use this and walking as to forms to assist in chronic pain management.
Other Forms of Exercise
While walking and Pilates are both excellent choices, they may not be right for everyone. For those who have trouble walking, swimming is a good choice. If you don't like swimming or need to mix it up, you can also choose to perform water exercises. The weightless feel of the water takes the pressure off painful joints and helps muscles relax.
Some other good forms of exercise for chronic pain include yoga, strength training, and stretching exercises.
Whatever choice you make, talk with your doctor about getting started and go slow. Go at your own pace and listen to your body, so you overdo and end up hurting more.
For more information, reach out to a pain management clinic in your area.
Share