Emotional effects
Strong feelings or emotions such as fear, anxiety, depression and tiredness can make your pain worse. So, it’s important to try to treat the emotional as well as the physical causes of your pain. Learning to relax and get rid of some of your fears and anxieties, if only for short periods of time each day, can play a very useful part in controlling pain. You can relax by becoming aware of different groups of muscles around your body and learning to relax them so that you can do this consciously when you are under stress or in pain.
Visualisation or guided imagery helps you to bring happy relaxed pictures into your mind. These can help distract you and overcome some of your pain. Massage with soothing aromatherapy oils can also help you relax.