Читать книгу 52 Years Coping with Chronic Back Pain - Alvaro Graña - Страница 14

THINGS TO AVOID

– Heavy lifting – lift what you can handle – always lift close to your body – bend your knees and no stooping, let your legs do the work for you – avoid twisting your back.

– Sitting in one position for a long time – use a support if necessary – use an upright chair – if after a while you feel stiff, get up and stretch.

– Standing still for a long time.

– Staying in bed for a long time, but if it is inevitable, try gentle stretching and joint movement excersises– stretch before going to sleep and before you get up in the morning.

– Feeling negative and disgruntled when you are in pain or experiencing low energy – tell yourself ‘this is only temporary’ and plan the next step for as soon as you are able to be active; this will give you something to focus on, keep you in a positive frame of mind and give you something to look forward to.

Personal experience – Due to a series of unexpected and unavoidable chain of events I was living with very high stress levels and realized this was detrimental to my condition. In my effort to bring my stress level down I was trying to live as normally as possible after concluding that, come what may, I am responsible for my own wellbeing. If I am in pain I have to be proactive and take action. I have to analise the scenario and work out why I am in pain. Is it something physical? Something I have done? Or is it something mental/psychological? Stress maybe? I began to notice that whenever I was in a lot of pain and exhausted, I was also feeling down, had negative thoughts, and was sometimes in a bad mood. I eventually realised that this was to do with my mental attitude and my reaction to pain...perhaps focusing too much on it. I decided I had to change my attitude.