Georgie’s top 4 tips for preventing a relapse

5 minutes

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So often I hear people say that they had recovered from their pain and then a few weeks, months or even years later their pain returned and then they can find it a struggle to resolve it again.

Often this is because they were one of the ‘lucky’ ones who initially did the basic recommended ‘work’ and recovered quickly. They might have had a eureka moment and recovered just from understanding the concept after reading one of the books, or went on to journal to offload about things that had happened in the past and currently, told their pain to go away and ‘bingo’ they recovered.

Unfortunately these generally seem to be the main people who write up their recovery stories because it seems almost miraculous, and not surprisingly, they want to ‘share their story’. This is great and to be encouraged, but this doesn’t mean that if you haven’t recovered quickly you will never recover. It just means that there are fewer stories out there from people who have taken longer to recover, maybe because they just want to get on with their lives once they are better and not go over it all again.

A recurrence of pain

So why does the pain recur with some people, or why do some people continue to have occasional bouts of pain, although they might get over it more quickly?

In my experience this is often because although these people might have a good understanding of the general concept of stress-induced symptoms, they have not realized the impact their lifestyle, their personality traits and learned behaviours have on them. This means that often once the pain goes away, just as you would after any physical treatment, you go back to doing what you were doing before.

Unfortunately if your lifestyle and your personality are contributing to your perceived stress, then ‘if you go back to doing what you did’ before, ‘you will get what you always got’. It’s a bit like taking antibiotics and stopping when you begin to feel better, yet we know you need to complete the course or your symptoms are likely to recur.

This might be fine most of the time, but during times when there are more ‘stressors’ in your life, unless you change how you deal with them you can end up with symptoms again. This is because the nerve pathways are lying dormant, but when all the same ‘ducks are lined up again’, they will be triggered, resulting in a recurrence of the pain.

Nipping things in the bud

Having said that, if you recognize the signs quickly enough and address the underlying cause as you did before, you might well resolve the symptom before it ‘takes hold’ and you become conditioned to it. Better still, if you recognize you cause yourself self-induced stress due to poor self-care, your personality (e.g. analytical, self-critical, perfectionist, people pleaser, conscientious etc), by your learned behaviours (e.g. need to avoid confrontation, fears and phobias etc) or your learned beliefs (e.g. about how others should look, behave etc) and by looking at what you can do about these, you could reduce the chance of all the ‘ducks being lined up’ in the first place which then results in the triggering of a symptom.

We will all face stress in our lives, it’s inevitable, so the strategies you learn to help you deal with stress and reducing the self-induced stresses in your life can help you reduce the risk of ill health, or a recurrence of pain.

I use many of the strategies I teach my patients, because with a strong ‘TMS personality’ (Dr Sarno’s term) myself, they help me cope with the stressors in my life. Also as our perceived stress is only ‘10% what happens and 90% how we deal with it’, then this helps me remain healthier than I ever was before I came across this work. Just like anybody else though, if I overwork too often, don’t keep a tab on how I am dealing with things (internally and externally), plus ignore the warning signs, then I too will end up with a stress-induced symptom again.

So, what simple strategies can you incorporate into your life to help you cope better with whatever life throws at you and therefore reduce the chance of further symptoms?

Here are my top 4 tips.

1) Take even just a few minutes each day to ‘defuse’ all that has been ‘inputted’ into your mind during the day. Removing yourself from all distractions (including your inner chatter!) allows your unconscious mind to process everything that has been taken on board during the day. e.g. journal to offload, be mindful, meditate or do a relaxation exercise.

N.B. Sitting watching TV all evening might be resting your body, but it is a distraction and is just a means of keeping a lid on your emotional ‘pressure cooker’

2) If you have a tendency to work all day without a break, see how you can fit in short breaks away from
the workplace. e.g. ‘hide’ in the toilet or a spare room, go outdoors and be mindful in natural surroundings if you can, run up and down the stairs a few times to expend some energy if you have a sedentary job etc.

3) Use ‘Stream of Consciousness journaling’ at the end of the work day before going home. This just means putting pen to paper and spew all your thoughts onto paper without censor. Empty your head of thoughts, jobs to do, concerns etc so that you put a full stop to your work day and can go home and relax – without going over things again and creating self-induced stress!

4) Watch your thoughts because these are often a major cause of self-induced stress. Offload onto paper about a particular issue that might be concerning you, but then use distraction or reframing etc to stop yourself from ruminating over/analysing the same thing as this can become self-indulgent and then requires yet more journaling etc etc.

What have you found effective in helping prevent you from feeling overwhelmed or stressed?

Georgie Oldfield MCSP
Physiotherapist & Founder of SIRPA Ltd