Having persistent pain and not being able to find a way to escape from it can be really demoralizing, and can lead to feelings of helplessness.  Researchers have been interested for a long time in trying to understand how people with chronic pain experience helplessness, and how feeling helpless affects their experience of pain. Many […]

The idea of accepting chronic pain can be an emotive topic for people.  It was for me.  I was having none of that! I think people can take different meaning from the word ‘acceptance’ in relation to chronic pain. When it was first suggested to me that I had to learn to manage chronic pain,

When you’re experiencing severe chronic pain, it could be difficult to imagine feeling gratitude – especially during the process of grieving for the losses in your life caused by having persistent pain.  Gratitude is a topic that has attracted some research over recent years, and also more specifically in the field of chronic illness. Here’s

When chronic pain is severe, it can cause physical limitations and reduced mobility for many people.  It can mean that many things we were used to doing before can be more difficult to physically manage.  People with chronic pain can experience boredom when the pain physically restricts their ability to act or engage with purpose

When you are with someone you love, it can feel like nothing else matters.  Many believe that love conquers all. I began to wonder if love could conquer physical pain.  I decided to look at the research to find out if love is a painkiller.  Love can be a painkiller. Aspects of love can reduce

I catch myself worrying about pain at times – especially when having a pain flare.  “What if this flare never ends?… What if it stays as bad as this?… What if…” Rationally, I know that the pain flare will end at some point in the near future and the pain will eventually settle back to

If you have chronic pain, you might have noticed that oftentimes when you’re feeling happy and positive, the pain doesn’t seem as bad as it usually does.  I decided to look at the research to find out if being happy can reduce pain.  Here’s what I found in Finan & Garland’s 2015 review of all

I’m acutely aware of the kinds of emotions that can be associated with having chronic pain.  For me, anger was definitely one of them.  I was interested to find out if and why anger is something that’s commonly felt by others experiencing chronic pain.  This article looks at research into the emotional experiences of people