Purposeful Pain

When something isn’t feeling right either physically or emotionally do you stop and question the source or do you mask the symptom by keeping busy or taking pain medication?

If you tend to resort to the latter of the two solutions you may be missing some crucial warnings from your body. Pain is the body’s way of either marking change or demanding it.

When we have switched or increased an exercise regime, when a woman experiences menstrual cramps or a baby cries from the discomfort of cutting a new tooth, these are all natural circumstances in which the body first experiences a sense of pain prior to, or during change. Emotional pain can be felt when we start a new job or start working towards a new goal, one that takes us out of our comfort zone and challenges us in new ways. It creates a sense of vulnerability. However these are positives in the long run and the pain will naturally subside without addressing it.

Pain that does not change or that intensifies is the body’s way of demanding some type of change. Tension in a muscle at its initial onset is easily relieved with stretching, exercise, changing the way an activity is performed or stopping an activity all together. If the tension is ignored then the affected area will begin to weaken, blood circulation will become impaired, other structures in the body will begin to compensate causing even more tension in the body. From there, more severe symptoms may develop such as nerve entrapments, which may cause shooting pain, tingling, weakness and even numbness in the limbs.

Pain that is caused by internalized stress will cause emotional distress and sometimes depression. Allergies may begin to develop, digestive problems, skin rashes or high blood pressure. Often we look at these conditions as their own pathology when they could be the body demanding a change in professions, the amount of hours worked or possibly ending a difficult relationship.

Chronic pain and depression effect huge portions of the population. Heart disease is still one of the number one killers in Canada. We are not always in control of these conditions and that is truly unfortunate. However lifestyle changes are often the solution. Taking the time to check in with yourself and identifying your symptoms so that they can easily be addressed is the simplest precaution to insuring that your symptoms don’t become your identity.