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Psychological Skills to Help with Pain

September 15th, 2014 · No Comments

Welcome to the series Why You Should See a Pain Management Psychiatrist.

What psychological skills you can learn to decrease and cope with pain? There are many types of relaxation exercises you can learn. Breathing, basic relaxation and visualization all help in several ways. They:

  • help you relax and decrease anxiety
  • decrease the stress response associated with pain
  • help you get better sleep
  • may indirectly help decrease pain

Here are several from the How to Cope with Pain website:

Guided imagery and hypnosis, which use suggestions of decreasing pain paired with imagery, help in the same ways that relaxation exercises do. In addition, these exercises can directly decrease pain through these suggestions.

Here are 2 examples of guided imagery exercises:

You can learn all of these skills and then practice them regularly on your own. That regular practice is key!


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