12 Tips for Living With Chronic Pain

1. Stop Smoking

• There is plenty of evidence that smoking worsens chronic pain
• Smoking also decreases your ability to use other pain relief techniques

2. Concentrate on your Breathing and Meditate

• Mindful meditation has been used for thousands of years to reduce chronic pain
• Helps your body relax

3.  Reduce stress in your life

• Stress intensifies chronic pain.
• Negative feelings like depression, anxiety, stress, and anger can increase your sensitivity to pain
• Listening to soothing, calming music can lift your mood

4. Exercise creates natural endorphins that boost pain relief

• Endorphins are brain chemicals that help improve your mood while also blocking pain signals
• Exercise also strengthens muscles, helping prevent re-injury and further pain
• It can also keep your weight down, which may relieve stress on your spine.

5. Cut back on alcohol, which can worsen sleep problems.

• Pain makes sleep difficult, and alcohol can make sleep problems worse
• If you're living with chronic pain, drinking less or no alcohol can improve your quality of life.

6. Join a support group. Meet others living with chronic pain.

• When you're with people who have chronic pain and understand what you're going through, you feel less alone.
• You also benefit from their wisdom in coping with the pain.
• Meet with a mental health professional
• Anyone can develop depression if they're living with chronic pain
• Getting counseling can help you learn to cope better and help you avoid negative thoughts that make pain worse 

7. Track your pain level and activities every day.

• To effectively treat your pain, your doctor needs to know how you've been feeling between visits.
• Keeping a log or journal of your daily "pain score" will help you track your pain
• Each day, note your pain level on the 1 to 10 pain scale
• Also, note what activities you did that day
• Take this log book to every doctor visit to give your doctor a good understanding of how you're living with chronic pain and your physical functioning level.

8. Learn biofeedback to decrease pain severity.

• Through biofeedback, it's possible to consciously control various body functions. It may sound like science fiction, but there is good evidence that biofeedback works -- and that it's not hard to master.
• Here's how it works: You wear sensors that let you "hear" or "see" certain bodily functions like pulse, digestion, body temperature, and muscle tension.
• The squiggly lines and/or beeps on the attached monitors reflect what's going on inside your body. Then you learn to control those squiggles and beeps
• After a few sessions, your mind has trained your biological system to learn the skills.

9. Get a massage for chronic pain relief.

• Massage can help reduce stress and relieve tension -- and is being used by people living with all sorts of chronic pain, including back and neck pain.

10. Eat a healthy diet if you're living with chronic pain.

• A well-balanced diet is important in many ways -- aiding your digestive process, reducing heart disease risk, keeping weight under control, and improving blood sugar levels
• To eat a low-fat, low-sodium diet, choose from these: fresh fruits and vegetables; cooked dried beans and peas; whole-grain breads and cereals; low-fat cheese, milk, and yogurt; and lean meats.

11. Find ways to distract yourself from pain so you enjoy life more.

• When you focus on pain, it makes it worse rather than better. Instead, find something you like doing -- an activity that keeps you busy and thinking about things besides your pain
• You might not be able to avoid pain, but you can take control of your life

13.  Know Your Foods

• Red peppers - they contain a chemical which acts on pain in a way similar to acetaminophen
• Red Grapes, Blueberries, Cranberries
• Contains resveratrol
• blocks enzymes that contribute to tissue degeneration
• protects against cartilage damage that causes back pain