I’m no stranger to pain. You can’t participate in athletic events and train vigorously with weights your entire life without battle scars. However, mine were almost all self-inflicted. At any time, I was (and am) able to (though I never did and won’t) stop my activities and be in less or no pain. Stephanie, our know it all editor and my partner at Kaplifestyle, has a different relationship with pain. Hers is one I will never comprehend. She’s constantly fighting through it, tough as nails and stronger than all the athletes I played with combined. She knows how to manage. Listen up, she’ll teach you.

We will all experience physical pain over the course of time. We will have injuries and illnesses that leave us hurting and not ourselves. Through preparing and facing up to the mental challenge, we can mitigate the effect on our lives.

Pain is an instinctive reaction to something damaging. You will pull your hand back from a hot stove before consciously recognizing the temperature. Children born with reduced sensitivity to pain, or even a complete inability to feel pain, often don’t survive to adulthood. We need those sensations; they’re our primal protection against danger and harm. Rather than classifying all pain as “bad” and a sensation to be forgotten as quickly as possible, I do my best to learn from it.

I have to. My pain is not from a transitory experience, but is a constant, chronic pain that I’ve dealt with since I was 12 years old. Ever since, I have used the pain to become stronger, learning whatever it can teach me. Obstacles need not become excuses. I share my story not for sympathy, but in the hopes that I can sharpen and be sharpened by the Kaplifestyle community.

While chronic pain certainly presents its own unique challenges, there are some general lessons about managing pain that I have discovered.

1. Being specific is important. I despise the question “on a scale of 0-10, how bad is the pain?” I understand why it’s asked, I simply think it’s a poor way to achieve the objective. I identify and describe my pain in terms of the effects on my life. Calling it out and being specific about the location and type of pain helps me to decide whether to push through or not. If I’m going to do more damage to myself by working or being active, then I know to rest. If not, mentally naming the pain helps in pushing it to the back of my mind.
2. Control what I can control. I have a background level of pain that will never go away. Sometimes, I have flareups that leave me incapacitated. Learning to accept that is an important part of my process. Misplaced blame and self-flagellation serves no purpose. However, I do have plenty of control over my actions. Drinking enough water, getting an appropriate level of exercise, minimizing my stress and reactions to stressful situations, getting a decent night’s sleep and watching my nutrition are all things that make a difference on a day-to-day basis. I pay attention to my body, find what makes me feel better or worse and adjust accordingly.
3. Know when to back off. I struggle with this one. I grow frustrated when my body doesn’t allow me to do what I want, and I push too hard. I have a conception of “normal” in my head, and ignore my own personal needs striving to achieve that vision. When I do, I pay for it. This isn’t confined to chronic pain. Think of the athletes, rushing to get back on the field and reinjuring themselves nearly immediately.

You may notice that these suggestions are heavily tilted toward the mental aspects of pain. It’s not by accident. There are plenty of physical treatments – medication, heat, cold, compression, massage, the list goes on. For specific and individual pain, the treatment needed will change. What affects our quality of life most when we’re in pain is not the physical sensation, except in extreme acute instances, but the mental. Pain often makes us feel isolated, depressed and anxious. Even in the case of pain resulting from injury, we fear the recurrence of it and develop non-adaptive behaviors to compensate. Our mental state makes the pain worse or prevents us from taking advantage of the cessation of pain.

Most importantly, pain often makes us withdraw from our social support system. We fear being labeled as weak or we want to avoid inconveniencing anyone. This is counter-productive. People with strong support systems (when they take advantage of them) report less pain, less duration and less impact on their lives.  I’m certainly not suggesting that we should go around constantly bemoaning every nick and scratch. But when we’re rehabbing an injury, going through surgery or experiencing a long-term illness, maintaining our social ties is critical. Reaching out and asking for the support we need is the smart play, not the weak one.

Better yet, create and maintain those social ties far and wide. Not only do you protect yourself against the possibility that the person you reach out to is less available due to concerns of their own, you place yourself in a position to aid someone else. Nothing salves the mental strain of dealing with pain like knowing you were able to impact another’s struggle.

My story is far from unique and doesn’t define who I am. Rather, I can take my experiences, learn from them and hopefully share those lessons with others. Pain is not something anyone looks forward to or invites into life. It’s inevitable, however, that we will have physically painful experiences. Understanding and mastering those times mean that our lives don’t need to be completely taken off track when they do happen.

— Stephanie