The mental toll of chronic pain

The Importance of Awareness and Holistic Support for Chronic Pain

Living with chronic pain can come with many different challenges that include and extend beyond the physical experience of pain. Chronic pain can touch virtually every aspect of someone’s life. It’s a complex, multidimensional issue that requires a holistic approach to manage and support.

It’s Mind, Body, and Then Some

Chronic pain involves a whole host of physical, social, and psychological factors that all influence one another. In addition to managing the experience of pain and related symptoms – such as fatigue, lack of energy, or sleep issues – living with chronic pain often involves grappling with numerous changes to your day-to-day life and identity. It can affect what you’re able to do, your financial security, your social and romantic life, and your emotional well-being.

Chronic pain can, for example, contribute to emotional distress, anxiety, depression, and even suicide risk. This can create a vicious cycle: Research suggests that emotional pain can increase our sensitivity to physical pain and alter how we process it through different pathways in our brains. In essence, chronic pain can turn up the volume dial on emotional pain, and emotional pain can turn up the volume dial on physical pain.

Increasing Awareness

Living with chronic pain can also be incredibly lonely. For those who haven’t experienced chronic pain, it can be hard to fully understand what it’s like – to empathize and know how to provide meaningful support. On top of managing their symptoms, people living with chronic pain often have to deal with the additional challenge of unintentional invalidation, dismissal, or judgment from loved ones and sometimes even healthcare professionals.

Increased awareness and a more accurate, nuanced understanding of chronic pain go a long way towards changing that.

Keep the Conversation Going

Do you have any friends or loved ones living with chronic pain? Talk to them, and more importantly, listen to them. Don’t rush to fix, solve, counsel, or advise. Instead, listen to really understand. Stay curious, empathetic, and nonjudgmental, starting from the awareness that pain is real and shaped by many physical, emotional, and social factors. Offering a compassionate ear can be one of the most important things you can do to be there for someone dealing with chronic pain.

If you, or someone you know, is dealing with the effects of chronic pain, know that help is available. There are resources out there that address the full picture: the physical, psychological, social, and practical aspects of pain. You’re not alone, and you don’t have to navigate it on your own.

Kii Health’s health and wellness program, Kii, provides organizations with this kind of holistic, biopsychosocial support through Employee and Family Assistance Programs, Mental Health Supports, Medical Care, Absence Management, and Occupational Health. It’s all accessible through one, connected program with highly professionals to help employees navigate the full spectrum of care. Connect with us to bring this innovative program to your organization.