Pain is a normal reaction to injury that lets you know there is something wrong. Once you have healed, the pain will usually subside. When your injury has healed, but the pain persists, for longer than three months, it is called chronic pain. Chronic pain can take a toll on your mental health as well, and can lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety. Although chronic pain can often be difficult to treat, pain reprocessing therapy can be an effective treatment for neuroplastic pain.
What Is Chronic Pain
Everyone experiences acute pain. This type of pain is often the result of injury, such as a stubbed toe. The acute pain experienced from a soft tissue injury is short lived and goes away when the injury heals. Chronic pain, on the other hand, is pain that is long lasting, occurs often, and doesn’t have an easily identifiable cause. This type of pain creates suffering, confusion, and uncertainties for those experiencing the pain. When pain becomes chronic, it alters the structure of the brain by changing neural pathways. This change in the structure of the brain leads to the brain holding on to the sensation of pain. This can cause centralized pain, or pain caused by the changes in the neural pathways, not by problems in the body. While this pain is real, traditional medical interventions are unhelpful, and chronic pain sufferers find little relief from the help they provide.
What Is Pain Reprocessing Therapy
Pain Reprocessing Therapy is a treatment method that addresses chronic pain by retraining the way the brain perceives pain signals. Instead of viewing the pain as dangerous, PRT aims to change the perception of pain, so the brain views it as a neutral sensation. PRT sees chronic pain as a learned response, rather than a sign of physical damage. Based on neuroscience research, chronic pain is the result of the brain misinterpreting messages from the body. Even when receiving safe messages, the brain misinterprets them as dangerous. PRT utilizes techniques to retrain the brain to accurately interpret signals from the body. Once the brain interprets signals as safe, the cycle of chronic pain stops. According to painreprocessingtherapy.com, a study showed that 98% of participants showed improvement through the use of PRT. Also, over 60 percent were completely pain free at the end of treatment, and maintained this for a year.
How Does Pain Reprocessing Therapy Work
PRT aims to retrain the brain to identify pain signals as less threatening. This therapy focuses on neuroplastic pain, which is real pain without a structural cause. Neuroplastic pain is caused by the brain misinterpreting safe signals from the body as dangerous. PRT uses somatic tracking techniques such as body scanning, meditation, and guided imagery to help you change your relationship with neuroplastic pain signals so they are no longer viewed as threatening. Once your brain begins to view these signals as a neutral sensation, rather than dangerous, it starts breaking down the fear-pain cycle. This leads to a decrease in chronic pain sensations and an increase in overall functioning. When the brain no longer expects the pain, it no longer needs to create or maintain symptoms, as it no longer has to fear injury.
Components Of Pain Reprocessing Therapy
There are four key components of PRT. The first component is education. You are taught about neuroplastic pain and how the brain can send pain signals to the body, even without injury. The second component of PRT is Mindfulness. With mindfulness, you are taught techniques to view these pain signals as neutral sensations rather than negative, or dangerous sensations through guided imagery. The third component of PRT is cognitive restructuring. Here, you learn how to challenge the thoughts that reinforce the pain. When these thoughts have less power, fear of movement because of the pain can decrease. The final component of PRT is exposure. You are gradually exposed to feared actions in order to retrain the brain that these movements are actually safe. Once the fear/pain cycle is broken, chronic pain often decreases.
While chronic pain can be difficult to live with and hard to treat, there are things that can help. Pain Reprocessing Therapy can help retrain the brain to interpret pain signals as neutral sensations. This can disrupt the fear/pain cycle that reinforces neuroplastic pain. Once this happens, chronic pain and quality of life can vastly improve.
Trust issues can cause a lot of turmoil in a relationship. The constant questioning, suspicion, and disbelief can create conflict, defensiveness, and withdrawal. While trust issues can have a negative impact on your relationship, there are some things that can help. Below are some causes of trust issues as well as some ideas for improving trust in your relationship.
What Are Trust Issues
Trust issues refers to the difficulty in believing that others are capable of being honest, loyal, and reliable. The issues with trust tend to manifest most often in romantic relationships. If you experience trust issues, you may be unsure of who to trust, when to trust, or how much trust you should give your partner. This can lead to a lot of problems in a relationship. The person that struggles with trust may be suspicious, hypervigilant, and guarded. They may have difficulty accepting kindness and love, and may withdraw from the relationship leading to loneliness and more mistrust. Meanwhile, the partner of the person with trust issues may feel like they constantly need to defend themselves and prove their innocence and feelings for their partner. They may try to avoid the accusations by withdrawing from their partner and shutting down communication.
Signs Of Trust Issues
There are many different signs that may indicate that trust issues are a factor in your relationship. One common sign of those that struggle with trust is being overly suspicious. This includes constantly questioning your partner’s whereabouts, motives, and actions. Those that have trust issues tend to assume the worst, and have difficulty with forgiveness. They may be jealous, needy, and falsely accuse their partner of things they are worried might happen. When someone has trust issues, they may have a hard time committing to a relationship which can lead to isolation, loneliness, and depression.
Causes Of Trust Issues
Many experiences can lead to the development of trust issues, especially within an intimate relationship. When a person is betrayed by someone they love, through infidelity, lying, or abandonment, it can lead to difficulty with trusting others. Experiences of childhood trauma, such as abuse and neglect by a caregiver, can cause trust issues. If you grew up in a volatile household where there was a lot of fighting and tension, you may be more likely to experience trust issues as an adult. Trust issues are more common in those that have an anxious attachment style.
What Helps Trust Issues
When trust is an issue in your relationship, you may become guarded and withdrawn. This actually leads to trust eroding even further. In order to create a more trustful relationship, you need to feel like you are valued and respected by your partner. It requires letting down your guard and allowing your partner to really know you. Giving one another the benefit of the doubt, practicing forgiveness, and setting effective boundaries in your relationship can help create and maintain trust.
Communicate Effectively
To improve trust in a relationship it is important to communicate effectively. Effective communication requires active listening, paying attention to nonverbal cues, and not interrupting. When communicating effectively, one person speaks, the other person repeats what they hear, and the first person clarifies their meaning. This enables you to feel both heard and understood. Summarizing what your partner is trying to convey, enables them to know you are hearing them. It is important to make eye contact, put away distractions, and ask questions to help further your understanding, not to change the subject. If you are practicing effective communication skills, you are less likely to be defensive, which can help foster trust.
Set Boundaries
Boundaries are necessary in relationships, and effective boundaries can help build trust. There are many unspoken boundaries in relationships. For instance, if you hit me, I’m going to leave. However, it is important to establish clear boundaries when what is happening continues to hurt you. If your partner calls you a pet name that is hurtful to you and you don’t say anything, you will begin to resent them, which can damage trust. Instead, you can say when they use that name it hurts you and if they continue to do so, you will leave the room. When you can establish healthy boundaries in your relationship you can feel respected which can lead to a deeper level of trust.
Practice Vulnerability
While effective boundaries are essential in building trust and having a healthy relationship, it is also important to be vulnerable. Vulnerability refers to sharing who you are with another, including your thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and emotions, even if you might be rejected. When you are vulnerable with your partner, you are emotionally raw and there is a risk of being hurt. Without vulnerability in a relationship, you may not get hurt, but it is also difficult to feel truly loved. When someone really knows you, warts and all, and accepts you anyway, you can begin to put your faith and trust in them.
Practice Forgiveness
A relationship consists of two imperfect people trying to do the best they can. At some point, toes will be stepped on, feelings will be hurt, and trust will be questioned. Practicing forgiveness is a healthy part of any long term commitment. Forgiving the little offenses that occur in a relationship can help strengthen trust. Forgiveness is about letting go of the hurt and resentment you feel towards your partner when they have wounded you. If you choose to forgive, it does not mean that what happened is okay or that change isn’t needed, it simply means that you are making a conscious decision to let go of the pain and move forward. When there is an atmosphere of forgiveness, trust can flourish.
Although trust issues can occur in intimate relationships, there are things you can do to nurture trust. If the above tips are not enough, seeking couples counseling may help. When trust is strong, both of you can feel loved, cherished, and respected and your relationship can thrive.
Everyone experiences ruminating thoughts at times. However, ruminating on bad memories can lead to mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, and PTSD. When ruminating on these memories has a negative impact on your emotional well-being, it is important to know how to stop. Below are 8 ways to stop ruminating on bad memories.
What Is Rumination
Rumination is repetitively dwelling on a negative thought, feeling, or event. This can include recent or past memories. When you ruminate, the focus is on continuously going over in your mind what occurred, rather than processing the experience or looking for solutions. For instance, you might obsessively go over a conversation you had with your boss that didn’t go well, or you may ruminate about the last fight you had before a bad break up. Oftentimes, these repetitive thoughts revolve around negative past events or traumas.
Rumination And Mental Health
While everyone might ruminate about a recent occurrence from time to time, ruminating on traumatic events or memories that occurred in the distant past can be related to some mental health conditions. If you experience depression, you may ruminate on not feeling like you are good enough, or that you will never feel better. These negative ruminations can increase symptoms of depression. Anxiety can lead to rumination about something bad happening such as a job loss, or physical illness. Those who experience posttraumatic stress disorder might ruminate about an intensely traumatic situation, experiencing it over and over again. Unfortunately, rumination can intensify negative thoughts and feelings and perpetuate anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Below are some things you can try to minimize ruminating on bad memories.
1. Practice Self Compassion
Self-compassion is about being kind and gentle with yourself. Instead of berating yourself for a mistake or a bad outcome, treat yourself with empathy and understanding. Treat yourself the way you would treat a close friend in the same situation. Say kind things to yourself and remind yourself that everyone makes mistakes and it will be alright. Beating yourself up will often increase ruminating on bad memories, as you reinforce negative self-beliefs. If you are gentle and caring with yourself instead, it can allow you to stop ruminating and focus on ways to create a better outcome going forward.
2. Distract Yourself
When you notice yourself ruminating on bad memories, do something to distract yourself from your thoughts. The best way to do this is to participate in an activity that requires you to focus. You could talk to a friend, read a book, exercise, take a walk, listen to music, or try out a new recipe. If doing these things is not enough to keep the rumination at bay, you can try doing complicated math problems in your head, or reciting something you memorized. Distractions can give you a chance to take a break from focusing on your thoughts.
3. Practice Mindfulness
Practicing mindfulness can help you stop ruminating. Mindfulness refers to being perfectly present in the current moment without judgment. To practice mindfulness, it is important to engage all of your senses on the task at hand. Notice what you are touching, tasting, smelling, seeing, and hearing. It is normal for thoughts to come into your mind while you are practicing mindfulness. Instead of attaching to these thoughts, let them come and go and return your focus to engaging all of your senses. You can practice mindfulness with anything. Some common mindfulness activities include meditation, focusing on your breath, and getting out in nature.
4. Repeat A Mantra
Repeating a mantra can help drown out other thoughts so the focus shifts from ruminating, to the mantra. Therefore, it is helpful to say a mantra that resonates with you. You could repeat a phrase, such as thoughts are just thoughts. Repeat a saying that has special meaning to you, such as something a loved one would always say to you. Even repeating a word like stop over and over again can be enough to stop the negative thought loop. Your mantra doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to be easy to repeat and enough to override the ruminating thoughts.
5. Schedule A Time To Think
Trying to ignore your thoughts altogether, can actually make them increase. Instead of avoiding your thoughts, schedule a time of day when you allow yourself to ruminate on bad memories. Make sure to limit this time to somewhere between ten and twenty minutes. When your ruminating time is over, have something planned to help you transition. If your thoughts come up outside of the scheduled time, picture a stop sign in your head and remind yourself that you can think about it during the scheduled time tomorrow. Instead of trying to avoid your thoughts, this enables you to set boundaries around ruminating.
6. Feel Your Feelings
Ruminating on bad memories brings up a lot of uncomfortable emotions. Avoiding your feelings about the memory increases negative emotions. While it can seem a little uncomfortable, allowing yourself to feel your feelings can decrease rumination. To do this, name the feeling and notice where you feel it in your body. Sit with the sensation and let it be. Spend about ten minutes sitting with your feelings and then transition by doing something that requires your focus. If you can do this daily, the negative feelings and the rumination should decrease.
7. Focus On The Context Of The Memory
Instead of ruminating on a bad memory, you can try focusing on the context around the memory. This way the focus isn’t on the sadness or embarrassment you felt, it is on what was happening during the memory. You can think about what the weather was like, what time of day it was, or who was there with you. Any non-emotional context that you focus on can help decrease the strong emotional reaction related to the memory, which can help decrease rumination as well.
8. Talk To Someone
When you ruminate on a bad memory, it can be difficult to stop the negative thought loop. Talking to someone about the memory can be enough to help stop the rumination. You can talk to a friend, a family member, or a therapist. Doing this can help you feel less alone. Verbalizing the memory can make it seem less scary. It can help you see it in a different context, which can decrease the negative emotions. If you can’t talk to someone about it, writing it down can also help you view it less emotionally.
If you find yourself ruminating on bad memories, try the tips above. Doing some of these things can help decrease the rumination. Therapy can help if the ruminating thoughts lead to symptoms of depression, anxiety, or PTSD. When you stop ruminating on bad memories, your emotional well-being can improve.
Feeling emotionally safe in your relationship creates a level of comfort that allows you to be open and vulnerable with your partner. You can feel safe to be yourself and to share who you are with your partner with little fear of rejection, or abandonment. Emotional safety is the foundation for a healthy relationship based on mutual respect and understanding. Below are seven ways to create emotional safety in your relationship.
What Is Emotional Safety
Emotional safety is a belief and feeling that you can be your authentic self in your relationship without fear of judgment or harm. This allows you to be vulnerable, open, and intimate with your partner and to freely express your thoughts and emotions. Emotional safety creates an atmosphere of unconditional acceptance. There is mutual respect, trust, and compassion within the relationship, even during times of conflict. Emotional safety is the basis for a securely attached relationship. When you feel emotionally safe in your relationship, you can be who you really are and say what you need to say.
Benefits Of Emotional Safety
There are a number of benefits that couples experience when there is emotional safety in their relationship. When you feel emotionally safe with your partner, it is easier to share deeply and be more vulnerable. This allows your partner to really know and understand who you are. Feeling heard and understood helps strengthen your connection and increases intimacy. When you feel accepted for who you are, you can feel empowered to try new things and take some risks. This helps you grow and change with your partner instead of growing apart. When emotional safety is lacking in your relationship, communication can be difficult, conflicts can increase, and it can be hard to trust each other. Here are some things you can do to increase emotional safety in your relationship.
1. Respect Boundaries
All relationships require boundaries in order to function effectively. Boundaries teach others how you expect to be treated and what your limits are. In order to create emotional safety in your relationship, it is important to respect your partner’s boundaries. For instance, if your partner asks you not to call them a certain nickname, and you stop doing it, you enhance the emotional safety in your relationship. When you feel that your boundaries will be respected by your partner, it is easier to establish healthy boundaries which can increase relationship satisfaction and decrease feelings of resentment.
2. Communicate Often
Effective communication can help relationships thrive. In an emotionally safe relationship, it is easier to talk to your partner about your concerns, struggles, and needs. This is because there is mutual respect and the belief that your partner wants to understand you on a deeper level. The more you communicate, the safer it becomes to communicate openly. When you share yourself, your feelings, and your grievances with your partner, they can feel safe doing the same with you. If there is a safe space to openly communicate in your relationship, it can feel more comfortable asking for what you need. Talking with your partner about anything and everything, makes it safer to talk about the important things.
3. Practice Active Listening
In order to create emotional safety around communication, it is important to practice active listening. Active listening requires you to listen to your partner in order to further your understanding. When you actively listen to your partner, it helps them feel both heard and understood. Active listening is about being fully present with your partner. This means putting away all distractions, making eye contact, and withholding judgment. Open-ended questions can be asked to help further your understanding and it is okay to reflect on what is being said by summarizing what you hear. When practicing active listening, it is necessary to pay attention to non-verbal cues along with what is being said.
4. Be More Vulnerable
Being truly vulnerable with someone can be a little scary. If your partner knows who you really are, what you think, and what you need, they can hurt you, or worse, reject you. It is normal to want to hold back in order to protect yourself. However, it is impossible to feel loved and accepted if you are not being your authentic self. The more vulnerable and open you can be in your relationship, the more emotionally safe you can feel. Although vulnerability is always a risk, you can start small by honestly sharing your needs, wants, and desires with your partner. If you feel hurt by something your partner says or does, tell them this instead of holding back. Give your partner a chance to accept you, warts and all.
5. Respond With Empathy
When your partner opens up and shares with you, responding with empathy can go a long way towards creating emotional safety in your relationship. Empathy refers to understanding and having compassion for what another is experiencing from their perspective, not your own. Empathy requires you to listen without judgment and focus on the way your partner is feeling about what they are sharing. When you respond with empathy, you want to validate your partner’s experience at the feeling level. Saying things like, “that sounds hard”, or “I can see that this was upsetting”, lets your partner know that you understand what they are going through. Instead of trying to fix things, responding with empathy enables you to really get to know who your partner is.
6. Express Gratitude
It feels good when you know your partner appreciates you. Expressing gratitude in your relationship can help increase emotional safety. Expressing gratitude to your partner lets you share what you appreciate about your partner. This helps shift the focus from the things that aren’t going well, to the more positive things. You can write your partner a thank you note, verbally express your appreciation, or let them know what you like about their personality or character. When you express gratitude, it is important to explain why you are grateful. Doing this provides context that helps your brain accept and process the compliment, and makes you want to repeat the action. Expressing gratitude to your partner makes both of you feel good which enhances emotional safety in your relationship.
7. Show Support
You can feel emotionally safe in your relationship when you know that you have a supportive partner. Showing support to your partner can include expressing physical affection, letting your partner vent to you, and taking some of the burden off of your partner by doing more around the house. In a relationship, expecting equality at all times isn’t realistic. If you are sick, lose your job, or you are caring for a struggling loved one, you want your partner to be there to support you and pick up the slack. Without this support, things can feel overwhelming. In order to create more emotional safety in your relationship, you need to show your partner that you are there for them when they need help.
Creating emotional safety in your relationship can help enhance your couple connection. If you are lacking that feeling of emotional safety, you can try the above tips, or couples counseling. When you feel emotionally safe with your partner, you can feel comfortable being yourself, knowing that you are accepted and valued because of who you are.
Being diagnosed with a chronic illness can impact your life in many ways. Along with the physical struggles, there are often emotional and relationship challenges as well. Although living with a chronic condition can be challenging, there are things you can do to help lessen some of the negative effects on other parts of your life.
What Is A Chronic Illness
A chronic illness is a condition that lasts for a long period of time, at least a year, and often cannot be cured, but can be controlled. Chronic illnesses such as asthma, cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases can have a big impact on your daily life. Managing a chronic illness can require changes to your daily routine and way of living. Chronic illnesses are the leading cause of death and disability in the United States, with nearly 50 percent of Americans living with a chronic disease.
How Does A Chronic Illness Impact Your Daily Life
Living with a chronic illness can impact your daily life in a number of ways. Managing your condition can require many doctor visits, causing you to miss work, or social engagements. Medications and treatments that are needed to manage your illness can cause unwanted side effects that can lead to fatigue and moodiness. This can make it difficult to complete your daily chores and rituals as easily as you could before the illness. You may need to rely more on family and friends for help and assistance with tasks that you could easily complete in the past. Your symptoms may be fine one day, and debilitating the next day which can cause you to feel a lack of control over your day to day existence.
How Does A Chronic Illness Impact Your Physical Health
There are many ways that a chronic illness can affect you physically. Many illnesses cause symptoms such as pain and fatigue. Being in constant pain, or experiencing fatigue makes it difficult to function effectively and enjoy your life. Sometimes the symptoms of a chronic illness can include physical disabilities and vision and hearing loss. These symptoms can greatly impact your quality of life. Necessary medications can have a number of side effects that can be hard to deal with. It can also be difficult to get quality sleep, leading to constant fatigue. You may notice that your stamina and muscle strength decrease, as a consequence of your chronic illness.
How Does A Chronic Illness Impact Your Mental Health
Chronic illnesses can have a negative impact on your mental health as well. You may experience an increase in symptoms of depression as you are no longer able to do some of the things you used to enjoy. This can lead to withdrawal and isolation which can further increase symptoms of depression. Anxiety is also common with some chronic conditions, as you may worry about having an attack, or the disease progressing. Side effects of your illness and its treatment can also exacerbate symptoms of anxiety and depression. Having a chronic illness can lead to inflammation and changes in hormones and neurotransmitters, which can increase depression and anxiety. The emotional and physical stress associated with being diagnosed with a chronic condition can lead to some struggles with your mental health.
How Does A Chronic Illness Impact Your Relationships
Having a chronic illness can cause issues in your relationships. Pain and other effects of a chronic condition can cause you to socialize less often than you used to. This can make it difficult to maintain friendships. Managing your illness can leave little time to participate in your hobbies and engage with others outside of work. Your intimate partner may need to take on more of a caregiving role, which can impact your connection and the way you view one another. Household responsibilities can fall more to your partner, which may lead to resentment. Romantic and sexual interest can diminish because of your disease, creating distance and disconnection with your partner.
What Can Help
Although living with a chronic condition can be challenging, there are things that can help. You can focus on self-care activities such as eating healthy meals, exercising, and getting the rest you need, which can help increase your energy and decrease some of the pain and fatigue. Reach out to friends and family for help with chores and for emotional support, to ease some of your burden. Discuss your needs and limitations with your partner. Spend quality time together where the focus is on each other, not the illness. Prioritize your mental health by joining a support group to share your experiences with others that can understand. Attend therapy to address symptoms of anxiety and depression and to process the struggles involved with living with a chronic illness.
Having a chronic illness can affect your life in a number of different ways. It doesn’t just affect you physically, your mental health and relationships can also be impacted. If you are struggling with your mental health or relationship after being diagnosed with a chronic illness, therapy can help. With proper support, you can effectively manage the impact of your condition, both physically and emotionally.
