Using Exercise to Help With Chronic Pain

For many years, rest was considered the best treatment for pain caused by backaches, fibromyalgia, endometriosis, irritable bowel syndrome, and arthritis. But the opposite has been found to be true.

When you rest for pain, you become "deconditioned." That deconditioning can lead to further problems that can make the pain worse. Health care providers today encourage people with chronic pain to be physically active.

Many benefits

A regular exercise program, along with a nutritious diet, can help keep you in shape. It can also increase your energy, improve your sleep, reduce anxiety, and promote weight loss that eases stress on your joints. Exercise can help control blood pressure and cholesterol.

In addition, regular exercise can benefit those with chronic pain because it builds stronger muscles. These muscles support bones and cartilage and keep joints flexible to relieve stiffness. Arthritis, for example, can produce painful, inflamed knee joints. But regular exercise and strength training can help build up your muscles, which will provide a natural brace for your knee joint, helping to reduce pain.

Exercise can also have an indirect effect on pain. For example, during physical activity, your body releases endorphins, natural pain-relieving chemicals. The endorphins block pain signals from reaching your brain, and this decreases anxiety and depression, common problems for people with chronic pain.

Make it yours

Your exercise program should be tailored to your condition to increase your health benefits and decrease the chance for injury. Your health care provider or an exercise physiologist can recommend a program that is best for you. It should focus on flexibility, strengthening, and aerobic exercises.

Keep these tips in mind, as well:

• Start with modest goals. People who stay physically active for six months usually end up making regular activity a habit .

• Pace yourself. When you first start, your muscles may be sore because you aren't used to exercise. But after a few weeks, as you gain muscle strength and improve joint flexibility, your discomfort should start to ease.

• Keep a log. To track your progress, record what you do each time you exercise, how long you do it and how you feel during and after working out. How you feel after the exercise should improve over a period of weeks to months.