Today’s topic on pain relief is about what I call soothers.  Some people call this self-care.  When I say self-care what image do you conjure up?  A nice massage with the calming scent of lavender essential oils being rubbed luxuriously into your aching muscles and joints in a candle-lit room with gentle music playing?

Wouldn’t we all love to end our day this way!  But most of us don’t have the time or the funds for daily massage and we rely on ourselves to provide us with soothing comfort. 

There are many ways to soothe an injury, surgery area or aches.  Let’s divide them into two categories, hot or cold. 

Hot or Cold? Which do I use?

Cold narrows blood vessels and this reduces swelling and inflammation.  Cold is a temporary treatment for acute pain.   Use a cold ice pack right after injury or a flareup.  I like this one by Patterson Medical. 

In the case of an acute injury, your body is reacting to what it sees as an emergency.  Send in the troops we have an injury!  This is an appropriate response so that your body can heal itself.  But with chronic pain, the body is under constant attack and tends to over-react. 

I know my body can be quite the drama queen.  So even though it thinks it knows best and sends everything in its arsenal to the affected area, it needs to calm down.  Icing helps calm that reaction down.

As you get to know your body and your pains, you will know when ice or heat is the more appropriate treatment, but, as a rule, use ice for sudden pain or injury.

Heat has the opposite effect as it increases blood flow to the area and relaxes tight muscles.  You can use dry or moist heat.  When I want heat, I prefer a nice soothing hot bath with Epsom salts and essential oils.

Epsom Salts are not for French Fries

Epsom salts have been used for hundreds of years to ease aches and pains.  You can find Epsom salts in most drug stores inexpensively. Epsom salts are a water-soluble blend of magnesium and sulfate. I buy a large box of plain Epsom salts from Sam’s Club that contains two 7-lb bags for under $10 and add my own essential oils mixed in a coconut oil carrier.

Essential oils

Essential oils work either by inhalation or massaging into the affected area.  Studies have shown they help reduce autoimmune responses.  Essential oils should always be applied in a carrier oil because they can cause skin irritation if applied directly.  I use an inexpensive coconut oil for a carrier oil that can easily be found in the grocery store.

I mix about 15 drops of various essential oils in with about ¼ cup of coconut oil and drop in the bath with the cup of Epsom salts.  Here are some essential oils that studies have shown reduce inflammation and soothe aching bodies:

• Eucalyptus
• Frankincense
• Lavender
• Evening Primrose
• Ginger
• Turmeric
• Basil

You don’t have to spend a fortune on essential oils, but you want to be wary of very cheap ones.  There are some great direct selling companies that sell oils of impeccable quality such as Young Living.  So, if you know someone who is a rep for these, they are all good, established companies producing a quality product.   A company whose brand I really trust is Now Essential Oils. They are found in most health stores and are quite affordable.

If you don’t have time for a long soak in the tub, but want some good moist heat on the affected area, try making a hot compress with a towel soaked in a sink of warm water and essential oils. Wring out the water and apply to the painful area.

MBI exercises

Other ways to soothe are meditation, yoga or tai chi.  These are called MBI’s – Mind, Body Intervention exercises.  These exercises, while hard to make yourself do them, are so helpful once you are in the regular practice of them because they release endorphins and make you feel better. And in the case of yoga and tai chi, they stretch those injured or aching muscles and joints bathing them in comfort.

Self-Care = Self-Talk

In our minds, all of the above typically falls under the category of self-care, but the most important component of self-care is self-talk and it is usually ignored. 

Most of us are guilty of horrible self-talk patterns that lead to shaming and depression.  Those with chronic pain are particularly vulnerable to these self-talk patterns. 

We feel ashamed that we can’t get our work done. 

Guilt ambushes us because we aren’t as emotionally available to our loved ones. 

Our soothing is done with food or alcohol. 

We internalize our chronic pain as punishment. 

Who’s writing your script?

Sometimes the reel is a script written by someone else, but when we perpetuate it through repetition it becomes our own adaptation.

As a result, our self-talk reel becomes abuse on a never-ending loop.  You shouldn’t have done that activity.  You are too fat.  You’re so dumb to have gotten yourself to this point.  Everyone is relying on you and you’ve let them down… 

This negative self-talk is detrimental to our psyche, our mood, and our health.  It is not motivating.  It is not productive.  There are no positive results that come from negative self-talk.  We can’t shame ourselves into getting better. 

End the Loop

How do we stop with the negative self-talk?  Catch yourself doing it – become aware of your patterns. 

You would never talk to your child or your mother or any other loved one the way you talk to yourself.  You would never even talk to your dog the way you talk to yourself. 

Go back to that relaxing massage I painted earlier and put yourself in that room and start spewing your own brand of negative self-talk. 

It’s a record scratch, right?

Those words destroyed the scene.

And those words destroy healing.

Soothing Words

I found a picture of myself when I’m about 6 or 7 years old.  It’s a lovely picture of innocence.  I keep that picture in my mind and when I am starting to engage in negative self-talk, I picture that little girl looking up at me with those innocent eyes and I can’t yell at her or tell her she’s stupid.  I can’t berate her for some perceived wrongdoing.  I don’t tell her she’s too fat or things are her fault. 

Instead, I embrace her, and we share what went wrong and I tell her it’s okay, we will learn from this and we will get better.

I soothe her.  And that is what self-care is all about.

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Interested in learning more about self-talk? Here’s a great podcast on the topic from Brooke Castillo:  Ep #227: Self-Assault

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