My Top 5 Relaxation Tips for Stress (and chronic pain)

So many of us struggle to relax. To actually induce feelings of relaxation in our bodies and minds (which typically go together). And yet relaxation has been found to be very helpful for chronic pain. When the nervous system is dysregulated, the immune system goes into overdrive, causing inflammation, which causes pain, which then further dysregulates the nervous system. While there are many ways to break this cycle, relaxation is one.

Social connection can help with relaxation.

Relaxation is different from mindfulness. While many people do feel relaxed after meditation or some other mindfulness practice, the goal with mindfulness is not feel present and aware (relaxation is a common byproduct). The goal of relaxation practices is literally to relax. And so, mindfulness can be done pretty much anywhere, whereas relaxation needs to be done somewhere safe and comfortable. All that said, from my experience with chronic pain, here are my top 5 relaxation tips:

1. Deep breathing – sending the breath into the belly activates the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) moving us out of the sympathetic (fight or flight response). Closely related is sending the breath to areas of the body that need help relaxing. This is quick, easy and technically overlaps with mindfulness so it can be done in more places than some of the other suggestions. Check it out.
2. Progressive Muscle Relaxation – PMR is done when we tense and then relax different muscle groups in our body. I have been practicing PMR for years (former therapist taught it to me) and have always found it helps to relax me and often decreases pain. Check it out.
3. Yoga Nidra – newest one on my list as I’ve only more recently started practicing it. It sends you into a deep meditative state that is extremely relaxing. There is some evidence that the use of a sankalpa (resolve) can also help to promote healing. Check it out.
4. Exercise – believe it or not but exercise often helps with our emotions and can help us feel more relaxed. It can be more intense to less intense depending on what you need in that moment. I’ve found when I’m anxious, for example, going for a walk can ease a lot of it.
5. Social connection – in person is better, though any type of connection with a friend, partner, family member, etc. – especially one that is regulated – can help us move back into regulation because our nervous systems like to co-regulate with each other. Sometimes when I hang out with certain people, even if I was tense or stressed or anxious before, I feel calm and chill during and after the hangout.

There are many more ways to get ourselves into more of a relaxed state. These are just some of my personal faves. I hope that helps you to keep making the most of it!

My Ultimate Pain Coping Skills Part 2: Relaxation

This is part 2 of my 4-part series on my favourite coping skills for chronic pain. These are all things that I use and find helpful. Additionally, they all have scientific evidence supporting them as being helpful. This week we’re going to talk about relaxation: how it can be beneficial and some ideas for incorporating relaxation into our daily lives.

Time to get our relaxation on.

Let’s start with what the research says is helpful about incorporating relaxation into our “treatment” for chronic pain. Relaxation enhances our ability to tolerate pain. But how does it do this? First, it increases our brain’s ability to respond to endorphins, which are our body’s natural pain relievers. Second, it reduces inflammation, which is often a cause of pain. Third, it allows our muscles to relax, and tense muscles tend to cause more painful sensations than relaxed muscles. Fourth, it reduces hypervigilance and desensitizes our central pain pathways, meaning that it helps to decrease our sensitivity to painful sensations. Fifth, it improves our mood and makes us less emotionally reactive to our pain, and since we know the mind-body connection is a thing, this makes sense. I also want to point out that the research states that mindfulness skills are more effective than relaxation skills. However, I think having both is important, and the research seems to support that as well.

I want to be as relaxed as this dude.

So, let’s talk about a few different relaxation skills we can access, learn, and some other ones that I use that aren’t necessarily research based but are helpful for me.

• Progressive Muscle Relaxation: in this practice we tense each muscle group, one at a time, and then release the tension allowing for relaxation. I love this one and feel very relaxed afterwards. There’s been a lot of research on it, and it’s one we can do on our own as there are a ton of guided versions. Here’s a guided version I made from my YouTube channel.
• Guided imagery is another practice we can do on our own. I personally like “safe place” imagery, which I haven’t made for my YouTube channel yet but any guided imagery that uses peaceful, soothing or symbolically therapeutic mental images has evidence that it enhances relaxation from physical and emotional pain.
• Yoga is another practice that I normally associate with mindfulness, though I will admit that I find it relaxing as well. Yoga emphasizes a number of processes including acceptance, attention, mediation and relaxation, which is likely why many people find it effective. Here’s an interview I did with MS Warrior and Yoga Instructor, Clarissa, on the podcast.
• Hypnosis in an intervention that I haven’t tried, however there is growing research that it shows promise as being helpful for chronic pain. It alters our perception and cognitive patterns that occur in chronic pain syndromes through the use of relaxation. Here’s an interview I did with physical therapist, Sam, who uses hypnosis with his patients.
• Biofeedback is another intervention I haven’t tried but has a lot of research support it’s use and was discussed at the World Pain Summit I attended last fall. It increases our physical awareness and induces relaxation through the use of markers of the stress response. I definitely think it’s worth looking into.
• Pick any activity you find relaxing! Okay so this doesn’t have specific scientific evidence but if it induces relaxation then it can’t be bad. For me, that is taking a bubble bath (or epsom salt bath) and reading a book. I find it incredibly relaxing and definitely helpful for me.

Summertime, outdoor yoga definitely relaxed me.

As a therapist, I’m always surprised how many of my clients don’t have a lot of relaxation skills, which makes me wonder how many people actually actively use relaxation skills in general. So, I hope this gives you some helpful options, and I encourage you to try to make some time each day to actively do something relaxing. Keep making the most of it!

References:

Mind-body therapies Use in chronic pain management
Mindfulness-Based Meditation Versus Progressive Relaxation Meditation: Impact on Chronic Pain in Older Female Patients With Diabetic Neuropathy
Hypnotic Approaches for Chronic Pain Management

Why is Emotion Regulation Important For My Physical Health?

I’m going to be the first to admit that when I was younger I often struggled with my emotion regulation. This often came to the forefront in the context of relationships, because I had a “short temper.” I would get angry and yell, pretty quickly. I could always calm down, but I came to realize the older I got that I had to remove myself from the situation in order to get myself to be more calm. I had a really bad breakup geez, almost 5 years ago now, that I also had a difficult time controlling my emotions, especially sadness and rumination. That last time, that was the lesson for me. But we’ll get to that in moment…

A transition from a poor emotion regulation period to a better one.

First, let’s talk about what emotion regulation is, because I know that some of you may never have really heard the term before. Emotion regulation is our attempts to control the experience, expression, time and scale of our emotions. It has been long known to be important for our mental health, and only more recently explored for physical health. These are also skills that many of us learn as children, but often do require practice throughout our lifetimes. I worked in retail for a long time and as I reflect back I can see how customers yelling at me, for let’s be honest, very small things (I had a lady yell at me once because a competitor had an item for a dollar less but she didn’t tell me before she paid – I happily would have matched it… and by yelled I mean screamed bloody murder) and I realize they were exhibiting very poor emotion regulation, which is more harmful for themselves than the stress it caused me.

If you’re yelling at retail workers (or servers, etc) you might want to check on your emotion regulation skills.

Here’s what we know about emotion regulation and physical health:

1. better emotion regulation impacts our overall physical health positively
2. difficulties with emotion regulation, especially with prolonged negative emotion, can make you more at risk at developing heart disease
3. emotional suppression and rumination (part of poor emotion regulation) cause lower energy, greater physical pain, greater disability, and overall lower quality of health
4. difficulties with emotion regulation make it difficult to engage in self-care and health-related behaviours necessary for managing chronic illness
5. better emotion regulation makes it easier to manage stressors in our lives, meaning less flares and relapses of illness
6. better emotion regulation increases medication adherence and sticking with diet and exercise regimes

Back to my story. So, I had this breakup and this very poor emotion regulation following it, and then I had a flare so terrible I ended up in the hospital for pain. I was released the same day, and the pain came down a bit, but it really went back to normal levels when I was able to come out of the depressive funk I was in. I can safely say I have not had a problem regulating my emotions since… and I mean really who wants a flare like that again? So, we’ve answered the question why, and there are lots of “how tos” in regulating emotions, but I’m going to leave you with one to try out.

A much more emotionally regulated period

Learning to self-soothe. Again, many of us learn this skill as children, but not everyone does, and often we do less of it as we get older. Some ideas for practicing self-soothing are to do meditations such as loving kindness (click here) or a relaxation practice like progressive muscle relaxation (click here). Expressive writing about the experience (click here), breathing exercises (click here), and self-care strategies like taking a bubble bath, are more ways to lear to self-soothe. There are many other strategies online so I suggest a Google search if you’re looking for more!

Take care, and keep making the most of it!
–Kelsey