Dealing with physical pain

[Barkadion]

I came across this article recently. Very interesting. I like the body scan technique in particular. I have tried it several times but I can't say that it was successful. Not yet...

I am interested in the topic for personal reasons... Does anyone have any experience with that?

https://tricycle.org/magazine/pain-without-suffering/

"You have a number of choices. Let’s say you have lower back pain. You can say, “I’m going to try to focus on my toes, even in the presence of back pain. The back’s always there; I’ll get to it sooner or later. Why don’t I see if I can really learn to focus my attention where it’s being asked to focus?” Often, when you do that, the felt sense of the pain in the back lessens.

But if the pain is too great, you can go to the region where the pain is and let the breath merge with it. Breathe in and feel the breath, or in your mind’s eye see the breath moving down into the lower back. Then on the out-breath, as the breath lets go, see if you can allow the mind to let go. You’re not trying to shut off the sensations from the lower back—just to experience the fullness of whatever happens as you let go.

Then in the next moment, the sensations and the feelings and the thoughts might all come flooding back, and you’ve got the next in-breath to work with. So it’s a practice."

[K.B.]

Good topic. In my case allowing myself to feel it/while not focusing on it is the most effective strategy - if that makes sense.

[Barkadion]

Good topic. In my case allowing myself to feel it/while not focusing on it is the most effective strategy - if that makes sense.

It does. Basically, you are “refocusing” your mind. That seems to be similar to the meditation approach. Interestingly enough, pain killers such as opioids just blocking your brain from responding to the pain from my understanding. Nothing can eliminate pain. All you can do is to stop responding to it in some ways.

Thanks.

[DocOctagon]

This loosely ties into the topic at hand I think... years ago I read an NLP/Performance based book that classified motivation as positive or negative and how people tend to fall into one camp or another.

If I remember correctly; the negative type motivate themselves through pessimism or fear of failure and consequence. Mental imagery fixated on what would happen if they failed.

Positive crowd through expectation of reward, positive self-talk, and using mental imagery to picture positive outcomes.

Apparently both were equally effective. You just go with whatever path your particular psyche tends to favor. I can see this manifest in coaching, where some athletes thrive on encouragement to get through rough patches ("you can do it", "you got this") and on the flip side others that train or fight with a fire in their belly because they can't handle the thought of losing ("you're giving this away" "get your head in the fight", "he's making you look bad" etc). I imagine dealing with pain could be handled in a similar fashion.

[b00tler]

I have only had to address acute pain — in daily living, excruciating menstrual cramps or a back spasm, and in athletic pursuits the pain felt toward the end of a marathon, or most recently (last weekend) during a GORUCK 12 hour event.

I find breathing meditation (mindfulness) the most effective technique. Last weekend during the long ruck, I would simply notice and acknowledge the pain in some part of my body (eg, calves, feet or between shoulder blades) breathe with it a bit, and before long I would be attending to something else while the pain was there but not controlling my thinking. It’s a good way for me to stay out of a negative/victim mentality while in pain. But in all situations where I have used this approach I have also known that the pain would end in some finite time. I haven’t had to deal with chronic pain.

[Barkadion]

I have only had to address acute pain — in daily living, excruciating menstrual cramps or a back spasm, and in athletic pursuits the pain felt toward the end of a marathon, or most recently (last weekend) during a GORUCK 12 hour event.

I find breathing meditation (mindfulness) the most effective technique. Last weekend during the long ruck, I would simply notice and acknowledge the pain in some part of my body (eg, calves, feet or between shoulder blades) breathe with it a bit, and before long I would be attending to something else while the pain was there but not controlling my thinking. It’s a good way for me to stay out of a negative/victim mentality while in pain. But in all situations where I have used this approach I have also known that the pain would end in some finite time. I haven’t had to deal with chronic pain.

Thank you! Appreciate your respond.

I know at least one person who has been dealing with chronic pain for about 10 years. He has same experience with deep analytical meditation. There is a reference to this spiritual practice (tonglen) in the article. It used to be part of secret Tibetan tantric practice centuries ago. It is available now for dedicated western Mahayana practitioners. This topic is complex and it might not belong to this forum but I wanted to mention it anyways.