Last week we looked at what the painter Renoir was willing to do to continue his art.  He was plagued with rheumatoid arthritis, but didn’t let this stop him.  He wanted to paint, so tied his paintbrush to his hand.  Wow!

How else did Renoir cope with the severe pain of his crippling disease?  He juggled!  In addition to pain, rheumatoid arthritis causes stiffness and clumsiness.  To try to counteract these symptoms, Renoir used juggling to maintain flexibility and physical stamina.

We’ve looked at how continuing to move as much as possible is good for many pain conditions for several reasons:

1. Moving keeps you as limber and flexible as possible
2. Moving and activity keep your spirits up
3. Moving can actually decrease pain.  In your brain, normal movement competes with pain signals for attention.  So the feedback of normal movement can crowd out the signals from painful movement, making you feel less pain.

So Renoir was not just a painter, but a juggler.  Maybe we could even call him one of the first neuroscientists of the 1800’s!

Other related articles you might like to read:

• Think and Move, and Your Pain May Improve
• Mirror Imagery - Start Moving with Less Pain
• Dystonia - Why These Spasms Make Movement Hard
• 5 Tips to Exercise Regularly

Thanks to Andy Hares at Flickr for the photo.

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