Making New Year’s resolutions has always seemed to be a tradition. This year, instead of resolutions, I thought to myself, “What is something important to my health that I should be doing more on a daily basis?”
What change can I make in my life that would be positive? Is there something I need to do regularly? Lastly, is it something only I should care about? I came up with two things:
- Be responsible, and;
- Take care of myself mentally
As I grow older, the one truth that seems to be so important is to have good mental health. In general, it is easy to care for one’s physical needs. Exercise, eating, sleeping and those things are more straightforward. Keeping going mentally is more challenging. Everyone has a lot of responsibilities. Taking time to relax and enjoy the world and do things that make one happy are important. Remembering not to get upset about the petty stuff and things that are not controllable is also key. Spend time with family and friends, and do things besides work. Look for the beauty that surrounds us. Maybe consider more time away from work.
Caring For Your Mental Health
Mental health seems to be critical for physical health. All sorts of mental problems, especially stress, anxiety and depression adversely affect how one feels. With prolonged mental stress, physical health is almost impossible to achieve. Once stable mentally, physical problems can be much more easily addressed. If one has significant mental health issues, one often does not have insight into the relationship of those issues to physical problems. This is especially true with regards to pain and anxiety.
All physicians generally want to help their patients feel better. In Pain Medicine, we often want to try to cure the pain. However, pain is more complicated than something like sprain or a bruise. Almost all pain that lasts a length of time has emotional components. It is not just a physical sensation, but it is also tied to how we feel and often is associated with stress, anxiety and depression.
This is not a coincidence, and it is due to the fact that areas of the brain that interpret sensations related to painful stimuli are located next to emotional centers. Sensory input and emotions become entangled and then the brain stops being able to distinguish between them. Emotions soon are perceived as a variety of pains in the body. When this happens, solving physical sensory stimuli that produce pain is not helpful and the psychological issues must be addressed to move forward.
The recognition by a patient of the entanglement of stress, anxiety, and depression and the perception of having pain is a major milestone for people. Once an understanding of the role of emotions becomes evident to a person and how it influences physical well being, progress can often be made toward better treating abnormal sensations that may be considered painful. Improving anxiety and depression almost universally helps in the management of pain. It is not because you are “crazy” and the pain is all in your head, but it is that the painful sensations are entangled with emotions and these feelings need to be treated as importantly as the physical symptoms. Treating only the physical is only treating half of the problem and not solving the whole situation. However, patients have to admit to themselves that the other problems exist and need help. It is amazing how physical problems improve when emotional problems are treated.
The best wish for the new year is to improve both physical and mental health. If one treats oneself correctly mentally and emotionally, our physical health is much easier to work on. Without being stable emotionally it is hard to have the energy to solve other problems. Usually, it is much harder work to solve emotional trauma than physical problems. The first step is recognizing that there may be emotional issues and then seek out help. It is not a sign of weakness to have help solving mental health problems. These are very tough and often complex situations with difficult and less than perfect solutions. If physical problems exist and are not improving, take some time and look for the entangled emotions. Both probably exist and at least one of the areas is being ignored. Seek out help and amazing results often occur.