How to reduce anxiety-related pain

Anxiety is serious and can be life-threatening. But it is also life-limiting. This is what consultant psychologist Dr Sue Peacock sees most in her psychology and hypnotherapy for pain clinics.

Chronic pain is so personal and so malleable. People who are anxious feel their pain much more severely and that stops them from leading fulfilling and happy lives. In short, it makes them more miserable. But it also has another consequence.

If you are feeling your pain particularly severely, it is likely that you will feel less able to move about and to even exercise. This means your body will lose muscle strength and stiffen up. This in itself will make the pain worse and you will be trapped in a vicious circle.

Here, Dr Peacock explains how she treats patients in her clinic when it comes to managing chronic pain with anxiety.

What can we do?

Fortunately, there are tried and tested approaches to reducing anxiety and improving your physical health. I use a whole range of these in my pain reduction clinics. Here are some:
 

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

This addresses our emotions and coping strategies and changes them to be healthier for us. By learning to manage our pain we can change the physical responses in our brains. We can break the vicious circle of pain, stress, stress making the pain worse, which causes more pain.

Hypnotherapy

We can develop very effective ways which will distract you from your chronic pain. Hypnotherapy is a very effective technique for relaxation, which can break the cycle we talked about above. We can very quickly reduce the muscle tension that makes pain feel worse. We can also work with techniques of mental relaxation to take away the fear of pain.

We also use these techniques to explore the underlying reasons for anxiety. Causes of anxiety can be a variety of things, they are unique to you and come from your unique experiences and world view. The beliefs you hold, a lack of confidence or an unresolved hurt in your past are often the causes of the trouble. We can explore these and find better ways for you to cope. And if we can lessen that anxiety then it is very likely your pain will diminish as well.

All these techniques are about unlearning, unhelpful behaviours and learning more helpful ways of coping. It can take a bit of time, but under expert guidance from someone like me, it can be done. Even if you have suffered from pain for a long time, we can make progress.
 

Do not hesitate to book an appointment with Dr Peacock if you’re worried about your anxiety.

Read more from Dr Peacock on anxiety causing serious illnesses