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! Sometimes it’s hard to do things that will help yourself, even if you know they’re good for you. An intriguing suggestion comes from Haider Al-Mosawi. He writes that committing to a new habit – say, […]

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. Visualization exercise […]

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! I hope you’re using pain management techniques regularly – or at least making progress getting into that habit! But none of us is perfect, and we can all use a boost, right? Here are some […]

This article is in our articles featuring pain management techniques to help you decrease and cope with pain. It’s your at-home pain management class! Relaxation exercise help reduce pain by helping you be more relaxed. Relaxation Exercise There are several ways to use this exercise: read through the exercise and then do it from memory (it doesn’t have to […]

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! Relaxed breathing can help you reduce pain by helping you relax. Here are 2 for you to try: Breathing #3 Breathing #4 You can use these exercises in several ways: read through the exercise and then […]

This series looks at ways to cope well with pain and how to get yourself to use helpful techniques regularly. It’s your at-home pain management class! Before we jump into the actual skills, I want to take just a second to talk about changing behavior. Getting yourself to regularly use your pain management skills. If you […]

How can our senses increase the positive in our lives? Today is: Kinesthetic Sense Kinesthetic sense is our body awareness, our ability to sense where our body is in space as well as our sense of movement. When I think of how our sense of our bodies can help us, I think of beautiful movement such as dance or yoga. I also […]

How can our senses increase the positive in our lives? Today is: Thermoception Thermoception is our sense of temperature, our ability to detect hot or cold. Some of my favorite warm things – warm sand of the beach between my toes, the sun on my face, snuggling under warm blankets, sitting in front of a wood fire. Favorite cold things […]

Toni Bernhard has written another great book, How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness! Her first one, How to Be Sick, is one of my all-time favorites, and this is a wonderful follow up.  Both books share her experience of living with chronic illness, including fatigue and pain. She fully describes her journey to figuring out […]

How can our senses increase the positive in our lives? Today is: Touch Using touch to help ourselves feel better can be as simple as snuggling under a soft, warm blanket. Another way that is so relaxing for me is petting our cat Sammy. His soft fur is soothing, and seeing how much he enjoys rubs under his chin makes me smile. […]