Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a technique that can be used to alleviate chronic pain. It is a way of focusing your awareness on the present moment while acknowledging and accepting your feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations in a non-judgemental way.

Therapists who work with mindfulness acknowledge 2 different types of pain: primary and secondary pain. Primary pain arises from illness, injury or damage to your body (= the pain signals that go through the spinal cord up to your brain). Secondary pain is the mind's reaction to the primary pain, or in other words, the "extra" pain we experience when we focus on our pain and our disability, worry about its causes or how long it will last, think about past painful memories, or end up with negative thought patterns, catastrophic thoughts and anxiety about the future. Secondary pain isn't just "in your head". It is very much real and we can feel it, but it is also the part that we can work on using mindfulness techniques.

The first part of mindfulness consists of focusing on the present moment and your sensations - what you can feel, see, hear, smell and taste. You might feel how soft the bed linens are against your skin or hear the birds chirping outside the window. Try doing a body scan: focus on one body part at a time, tighten it, then relax completely, and focus on what that feels like. If you experience pain somewhere, think about how it feels. Is it burning, throbbing, constant, or does it come and go?

The second part, which is often more difficult, consists of not judging your thoughts, feelings or sensations. Acknowledge them and let them go. Acknowledge that the pain is there and think about how it feels, but don't go any further than that. Don't judge it and don't draw any conclusions. If any negative or judgemental thoughts appear, accept that they are there and let them go, like clouds floating away from you. If you find this difficult at first, don't worry. Practice it for 5-10 minutes every day. It will get easier with time.