You will see that there are six general principles and that success requires some attention to each. The application of each of these principles is easy enough to master if you will just let yourself go along with the idea of it.
1. Reduction of the general level of anxiety
This is the first principle in the self-management of pain. It is essential, as anxiety increases pain. The reduction of anxiety is achieved by understanding the nature of pain, by facing up to and resolving conflicts which have been causing anxiety, and by the relaxing mental exercises.
2. The avoidance of psychological reactions that increase pain
This principle means that, whatever happens, you will not allow yourself to be overwhelmed by distress, which is so easily induced by pain. You will be realistic if the pain should lead you into guilty thoughts about past shortcomings.
You will bait the feeling of fear which would only make you feel pain more acutely. In each of these matters the calm engendered by the relaxing mental exercises helps.
3. The use of psychological reactions that reduce pain
According to circumstances, and according to your individual personality, you can use various psychological reactions to reduce pain. You can deny it and use various distractions to forget it. If your personality is such that you can do it, you can dissociate yourself from the pain and stand apart from it. All can practice auto-suggestion, and most can get some help from it provided it is done in a really relaxed state of mind.
4. The practice of relaxing mental exercises
This, of course, forms the basis of this approach to the management of pain. It allays anxiety, wards off distress, allows the effective use of auto suggestion, and of itself reduces the threshold of pain.
5. Conditioning against pain
Conditioning becomes possible through the calm state of mind induced by the exercises.
You subject yourself to minor painful stimuli. You are not disturbed. Gradually use more severe stimuli; you maintain calm of mind and are still not disturbed. In a little while you can tolerate quite severe stimuli without discomfort. By the process of conditioning, you come to be less disturbed by pain in general.
6. The acceptance of pain in pure form
This is the last of the six principles in the self-management of pain. It follows quite naturally from the practice of the other principles. When you have mastered these, you will come to realize the fundamental truth of this last proposition - that pure pain does not hurt.
The prevention of pain when you are expecting it
One of the difficulties is that you tend to become anxious. Your anxiety shows itself in tension of both body and mind, and as a result you feel the pain more intensely.
But now you have practiced the relaxing mental exercises, the situation is different. When you know that something painful is going to happen, you simply relax. This not only prevents the pain being made worse by anxiety but allows you to experience the pain in pure form so that you are not distressed or hurt by it. In general, pain that we are able to anticipate is quite easy to control by this system of self management.
The self-management of sudden, unexpected pain
This is a different clinical problem again. The difficulty is that it is easy to be overcome with distress before you can compose yourself. It happens in the case of an unexpected blow, a broken bone, a burn, etc.
These studies in the self-management of pain help in two ways. If you have learned something of the approach and have had some experience in the mental exercises, you do not react so drastically to sudden pain. This has been my own experience, and a number of patients have volunteered a similar observation.
Secondly, you now have the means to bring yourself quickly under control and restore your composure.
Learn more about stress here: http://www.womenfitnessmag.com/things-to-know-about-stress/