This article is in our series featuring pain management techniques to help you decrease and cope with pain. It’s your at-home pain management class!
Visualization is using a picture or image to help you relax. Both relaxation and visualization reduce pain by helping you relax. An image that may people enjoy is the beach, but you can use any place or thing that you love.
There are several ways to use this exercise:
- play the audio of the exercise on our website
- read through the exercise and then do it from memory (it doesn’t have to be done exactly as I’ve written it)
- tape record the exercise yourself, then play it back and listen (try recording it in your cellphone!)
- have someone else read or record the exercise for you
When you picture your image, use as many of your senses as possible with visualization – what you hear, smell, see, feel, etc. Some people find one favorite relaxation exercise and do just that one, while others like to vary the ones they use. Either way is fine.
Your assignment: Do a visualization exercise at least once a day.
(Thanks to Adwriter for the photo from Flickr.)