When it comes to recovering from chronic pain, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all‘ approach. Some strategies might work well for one person, but not others. In the the list that follows, you will find some of the most effective, most well proven, strategies for improving chronic back pain.

Move often

• Exercise is an effective treatment for chronic low back pain ^1–9
• Integrate more movement into your daily activitie¹⁰: e.g. walking, gardening, housework, cycling, gardening, stretching, kitchen dancing etc…

Learn about pain ¹¹

• Learning about pain is therapeutic ¹².
• When you understand why you hurt, you hurt less. Understanding pain changes pain. ¹²
• “Pain does not mean damage” ¹³.
• It is possible to have pain without any tissue damage.

Work on your mindset

• “Beliefs ¹⁴, thoughts, emotions and experiences affect pain” ¹³
• The presence of pain, its intensity, character, duration and frequency are potentially affected by how you think. This can include: the weather ^12,13, beliefs ¹⁴, thoughts, emotions¹⁴ and experiences ¹³

Practice mindfulness ^15–20

• Practicing mindfulness can reduce your pain ^15,16, improve mood and mental health ²¹,  improve sleep quality²², improve tolerance to cold ²³, make exercise feel less difficult and more pleasant ²⁴, improve your sporting performance ^25–30, improve your balance ^31–33, preventing injury ²⁸ and benefit your “movement experience” ³¹ .

Address lifestyle factors

• Improved sleep hygiene, and stress management can improve chronic pain ³⁴
• Quitting smoking can improve chronic pain ³⁴

Better together…

• Combining two or more of these approaches has been shown to be even more successful than any one single approach ^{3,4,10,14,34–38}

Improving pain initially means finding ways of living with it, so pain does not dominate everyday activities, or prevent a fulfilling and active life ³⁹. Many of these strategies are discussed in more detail in the Pain Reframe course.

Produced by Nick Steele (www.PainReframe.com)

References

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