They mean well, but it can make you feel as if they do not believe that you are actually suffering from pain. Interestingly though, you are not just imagining the pain; but your perception of the pain may make it feel worse than it actually is.
So, can positive thinking help you if you suffer from fibromyalgia?
As CBT is a form of psychological therapy that involves looking at how you feel about your pain, why you feel that way and trying to alter it to help you manage your pain better; it is often included in many pain management plans.
There are many reasons why CBT and the positive thinking it encourages, is one of the more effective forms of chronic pain treatment.
What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
As noted above, CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a type of talk-based therapy that helps people to understand their negative behaviors and thoughts and learn skills to alter them and make them more positive.
The philosophy of CBT suggests that it is not only outside events and situations but also individuals themselves that create experiences for good and for bad, and this includes pain.
Therefore, by changing negative behaviors and thoughts, you can change your level of awareness concerning pain and learn skills to cope better with pain. Therefore, even if level and intensity of pain does not change, your perception of how it affects could be different.
What Could Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Do For You?
It is possible for you to experience pain relief through Cognitive behavioral therapy in a number of different ways. As shown above, it can firstly alter your perception of pain.
Changing the behaviors, emotions, and thoughts related to pain can help put the level of discomfort you experience into context while improving your ability to cope with it.
As you stop allowing pain to interfere with your life as much, you will be able to function better. As well as improving your actual outlook and attitude to a more positive one, CBT can actually alter how your brain physically reacts to pain.
The stress caused by pain affects the chemicals that control pain, like serotonin and nor-epinephrine. CBT can help lessen their impact, which could increase your body’s natural pain relief.
Ways CBT (And Positive Thinking) Can Provide You With Pain Relief
Encourages You To Have A Problem-Solving Attitude
As often one of the worst things about suffering from chronic pain is that you have a constant feeling of helplessness, that there is nothing you can do to stop the pain, CBT can be used to alter that, because as you take action against the pain, regardless of what the action is, you will feel more in control and more positive about lessening your pain.
Homework Is Involved
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy always involves homework of some description. This could be something as simple as keeping a journal through the day of your feelings and thoughts connected to your pain. This can help you to see the times when you could alter your perception of the pain to have the most affect overall on how the pain feels.
CBT Trains You For Life
It is more than just a form of treatment; CBT is often likened to skills training. Although you may learn coping mechanisms for dealing with your pain, these can be adapted to help you handle other problems you may face that are unrelated to your pain.
Enables You To Manage Your Attitude And Pain Yourself
CBT revolves around putting you in control of how pain affects you and although it can be helpful to have a full-trained CBT therapist, it is not necessary as you do most of the work.
A positive attitude has many other benefits for the health of mind, body and soul, so get started today!