Pain occurs in the brain. When your brain perceives a dangerous situation, it causes pain. If you feel good about yourself, your brain is less likely to get upset, which in turn can have a positive effect on your pain. In this blog four tips to keep your brain as healthy as possible.
Sleep
Sleep has a huge impact on everything we do in life. If you sleep well, your body and mind recover during the night. During sleep, your body recovers from exertion. Sleeping well is therefore very important when you build up the load on your body.
Unfortunately, a good night's sleep in case of pain is not self-evident. Many people wake up from the pain, or find it difficult to get to sleep because of pain complaints. The amount of pain caused by the alarm system is strongly related to how you feel, where your attention is, your thoughts and what you do. You can be more irritable when you sleep too little (or dull when you lie in bed too long), don't seem to be able to keep up with anything, feel too tired to do anything, and so on.
There are books full of books about sleeping well, but the most important thing is that you go to bed at fixed times and get up again. Help a dark and preferably cool room, and try to take it easy for the last two hours before you go to sleep. More tips can be found here.
Nutrition
Just like sleep, nutrition has a huge impact on our daily lives. If you don't eat well, you don't have enough energy. Building up activities can be more difficult, or your mood can change a lot because you haven't eaten well. It would be a shame if your mission to reduce your pain eventually fails due to your diet. If your mood and stress change due to irregular or unhealthy eating, it can also affect your alarm system.
Try to eat regularly. Avoid being hungry before you get active. If you want to learn more about healthier eating, Food Rules is an interesting start. This book contains very simple tips to make choosing food easier.
Movement
Motion is lotion' - moving not only makes our body more supple, stronger and healthier. Our brain also benefits a lot from movement. It is in human nature to move, and in today's society we are sometimes quite far from that.
In previous blogs you can find tips to build movement for yourself. Choose activities that give you pleasure. Don't compare with others, but look at the progress you make yourself. If you can move in nature it is best for your mind. In a natural environment it is better to relax and recharge your batteries.
Mindset
Your mindset is the set of beliefs you have about yourself. What qualities you have, your own intelligence and the things you find yourself good at. You can imagine that many exercises of Reducept have a positive influence on your mindset.
Within the 'mindset' we do speak of a static or growth mindset. With a static mindset you do not believe that you can still change yourself. You feel trapped and do not have the confidence that something is ever going to change about yourself or your pain. With a growth mindset you believe that developments are possible. That you can change and your brain is flexible. That your pain can also become less by working with it yourself.