Exercise Combats Largo Chronic Pain and Related Distress
Do you experience chronic pain? You’re not alone! Chronic pain can influence the mind and the body. Over 80% of retired NFL football players experience pain daily. A recent questionnaire study of them found that the greater the pain acceptance, the lower the pain intensity they experienced. (1) Accepting pain is hard though! Fortunately, so many studies show that some optimism and physical activity improves pain and optimism. For these and more reasons, Hollstrom & Associates Inc incorporates exercise into our chronic back pain patients’ Largo chiropractic treatment plans!
EXERCISE: GOOD FOR BODY AND MIND
Exercise benefits extend beyond the physical body improvements. Exercise also improves the mind and outlook of a person in pain, particularly one who has chronic low back pain. At the end of a 3-month study of chronic low back pain patients who either exercised or didn’t, researchers found that pain disability scores in the exercisers decreased significantly more. In both groups, lowered pain scores correlated with higher self-efficacy scores (feelings of independence). Chronic low back pain exercisers’ increased disability showed a beneficial influence on increased self-efficacy and pain relief. (2) Another study of 72 patients before treatment for their chronic pain and after 3 months of treatment reported that improved self-efficacy was associated with lowered disability whether they felt any decrease in pain intensity. They summarized that helping chronic pain patients improve their sense of self-efficacy could be a good way to help chronic pain patients cope with pain in addition to just relieving their pain. (3)
OPTIMISM FOR A BETTER, LESS PAINFUL DAY
And an optimistic attitude toward pain can be a positive! Fear-avoidance is a common problem for patients with pain. They don’t want to do anything to provoke their condition and exacerbate pain which leads them to move less and have less optimism for ever being without pain. Research denoted that patients with longer episodes of pain who expressed greater self-efficacy and patients with higher pain disability and depression had lower self-efficacy. (4) Knowing this, we encourage our Largo pain patients to be active and not avoid living life! Improvement is just around the corner!
EXERCISE: Time to Move!
And we all know it: physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyle are not beneficial for us. Researchers even write that they are linked to chronic musculoskeletal pain and can even aggravate it! What’s the answer? Physical exercise, of course. Researchers pointed out in a recent study that exercise programs combining several forms of exercise – flexibility, balance, aerobic, strengthening – tend to be better. Such combinations are also more adaptable to an individual patient’s issues. Light-to-moderate intensity exercise performed two to three times a week for a month were shown to be of greatest benefit for chronic pain patients especially for those with spine pain conditions like chronic low back pain, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia. (5) Hollstrom & Associates Inc designs a strategy expressly for each Largo chiropractic patient.
CONTACT Hollstrom & Associates Inc
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Kelly Brinkman on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as she shares the effectiveness of the gentle protocols of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management in treating chronic back pain.
Schedule your Largo chiropractic appointment now. Whether you are a retired NFL player or NFL fan or neither of these, bring your chronic pain and worried mind to Hollstrom & Associates Inc. We’ll work together to reduce pain and fear of pain and improve your sense of independence and joy of life with chiropractic and exercise!
