Episode3 Segment 3 - How are feelings, thoughts, and actions connected?

When we've got chronic pain our thoughts, our emotions and our feelings and the pain are all kind of tied together.

They're all really connected, and… your feelings and emotions affect your actions, that is what you do and don't do.

I'll give a couple of examples, I guess of… a young person who gets up in the morning with pain.

They're experiencing their pain and the first thought is "This is a horrible, overwhelming pain.

And it feels awful.

" And they think "Well I can't go to school today.

" And so they don't go to school and then they have a boring day at home and there's lots of time thinking about pain and feeling how miserable that pain is.

So on the other hand if we imagine the same young person who gets up in the morning with the same pain thinking "This is an awful, horrible pain.

" But then changes the way they're thinking.

Goes "Ok, hang on.

I think that I can do this.

I think I can get up and keep going despite my pain being here.

And I'm gonna have a go at getting to school today.

" And they get to school and then school is amazing and fun and there's friends who are really supportive and distracting and there's some good stuff happening.

And their pain is still there but it’s not playing as big a part of their day and they've had a whole bunch of fun on the side.

So I guess with my pain, if we were doing a physical activity and I was trying to get involved in it, I had a fear that when my foot would try to get involved in kind of walking or anything it would cause me to have more pain so therefore I'd be less likely to get involved and I was a bit fearful of doing it and so as a result of that I guess it made me feel worse when I saw the other kids running around because I had to stop 'cause I got fearful of actually getting involved in the activity because of the pain.

I was more in a position where I was focusing on my pain and of course that meant that if you focus more on your pain you became more aware of it and therefore would tend to increase more and possibly even cause flare-ups.

The more that I was able to get immersed back in life like I was before I had my injury um… was really great for me because I was able to forget about my leg for a while and just act like a regular kid.

Even though my arthritis is hurting, um… if I did something it would distract me and it would help because it would be really fun and it would be worth it.

And if I do something really fun and it doesn't distract from my pain then I'd still - I'd be in pain at the end but it would be worth it.

Because it would've - 'cause I would've had a great time.

When we've got chronic pain and we're full of thoughts and emotions and it's all rushing around, we don't often stop and think about what's going on.

And sometimes a useful exercise is to stop and think about how you're feeling about your pain, what you're thinking and how it's affecting the decisions you're making about your day and what you're gonna do with your day.

And if you can write those things down, you may yourself just look at them again and notice a pattern or you can take them into your GP or someone else who's helping you with your pain to help you understand what you've been noticing and recognising about the connections between your pain, how you feel and how you make decisions about what you're gonna do.

And that's the beginning, the start for changing that.