Maintaining your activity levels

Keeping active is one valuable approach to managing your pain. Whilst it is not going to cure you of your pain, maintaining your daily activity levels will contribute to a healthier lifestyle and pain will be less of a problem in your daily life.

Acute pain = warning of tissue damage
In the early stages of an injury and the associated acute pain, some reduction of certain movements or a period of relative rest is helpful to facilitate healing and limit further tissue damage.

Chronic pain � HURT ≠ HARM
When pain has persisted for longer than expected, and there is no evidence of new tissue damage, excessive resting and general inactivity will have an adverse effect on the body. Pain in this instance is no longer a useful warning mechanism. Increases in your pain levels may in fact be due to the long term effects of inactivity and increased sensitivity in your nervous system.

The Cycle of Inactivity
Keeping active will help you avoid the effects that disuse has on your body. People with chronic pain often arrange their lives to lessen the pain. They start to avoid activities that cause them pain, and thus reduce the amount of physical activity that they do. When activity is next attempted, there is greater pain with less activity than before.

As you become less active, you become less fit. This is known as deconditioning and basically means that the body is less able to cope with normal activities. Reduced levels of daily activity lead to changes in the body's various systems. Muscles and joints become tight, stiff and weak. Bones weaken. Cardiovascular system becomes less efficient, mental processes may become sluggish, concentration is diminished, balance reactions and co-ordination are affected.

Keep yourself active
So it makes sense that keeping up your daily levels of activity is one of the best things you can do for yourself in managing your pain. Now this doesn"t mean that you need to get in training for the next Olympics. Realistic goals for keeping active are more about maintaining your level of independence and keeping your mind and body in the best possible condition, despite pain.

Where to start in daily life?
The simplest answer to this is to begin with what you can manage today. There is no magic rule or number as to how much activity you can or should be doing - it will be different for everyone.

Maintain your normal levels of activity at home or work
� If this normal level of activity has already dropped, start with small amounts of a domestic chore, and pace yourself by giving yourself frequent rests in between completing the task.
� Go for a short walk everyday, and gradually increase the time or distance you walk for.
� Try to avoid over-exerting yourself by pushing on despite the pain, just so that you can complete the whole task in one go.
� Avoid resting for excessive periods of time during the day.

Remember, hurt does not equal harm. Some movements or activities may still result in some pain, but this does not mean you have done new damage. Certain actions may always hurt but this does not mean you should stop doing them altogether.

What next?
Regular exercise and stretching can be used to reverse the cycle of inactivity in people with chronic pain. Regular exercise will avoid effects of disuse � muscle tightness, muscle weakness, poor fitness and reduced coordination.

Start a stretching regime for the whole body and do this several times each day. The book "Manage Your Pain� by Nichols et al contains a useful section on stretching.
� Be committed to a daily walking program and aim to increase how far you can walk over a period of time.
� You may also wish to check out if there are any local community based exercise groups you could access.
� Individual exercise programs may be appropriate and may be obtained from your local physiotherapist. The �Manage Your Pain� book mentioned above also contains a suggested exercise program which is suitable for most people.

Now that you are keeping active, a few final things to keep in mind:

The usefulness of exercises should not be measured in terms of pain relief.
Expecting exercises to get rid of chronic pain is generally unrealistic
The purpose of an exercise program is:

To reverse the effects of inactivity on your body
To help you to do more of your normal activities
To reduce your physical limitations
To help you feel better and more confident about yourself

Other useful links�
http://www.stayactive.qut.edu.au/involved