Although this may be my second time participating in the Stollery’s Chronic Pain 101 course I still found myself taking away new information and techniques regarding my chronic pain issues and how to deal with it through my everyday life. I may have struggled to do some and others I found easy and effective but some of which that I learned and found most useful for myself where techniques such as pacing, goal setting and relaxation.
Pacing and goal setting I found went hand-in-hand with each other for myself because as I paced myself in activities I set goals determining where I’d like to be at and encouraging myself to meet them. Pacing had always been something I had struggled to do as when I had good days I’d push myself to do more and in repercussion set off pain flairs. This would only serve to be a cycle of pain and relief from each time I pushed myself harder than my body could take. As I furthered on through the Pain 101 course I began to better understand what it meant to pace myself and it began to become easier and easier for me to not fall back into that cycle, my goal setting helped me manage it too so that I had a goal to look forward to reaching. My goal that I have set for now is to be able to run/jog outside for more than and hours’ time as the weather starts to warm in
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even if it was only by a small amount. Music was what I mainly used, I always had it readily available on my phone or on the radio, although the genre of music that I listen to may not be considered or thought of as soothing or relaxing it served to work extremely well as a relaxation tool for myself. Art was another tool I used to relax and distract myself as it was an outlet for me to create my emotions, feelings, thoughts, etc.. physically on paper or other