If you have experienced pain for more than 3-6 months, you may have heard the term ‘Chronic pain’. ⁽¹⁾

This pain may have started with an acute injury or disease, or maybe it seemed to come out of nowhere.

When pain becomes a daily companion it can be debilitating in many ways^(2,3)

• Brain fog: It can be harder to concentrate ⁽⁶⁾
• Restricted movement: It often restricts our mobility and strength as we try to avoid further pain
• Anger and frustration: ⁽⁷⁾
• Strained relationships: It affects our moods, with a flow on effect of straining relationships ^(4,6,7)
• Social isolation: It can prevent us from fully participating in activities we used to enjoy ^(4,6)
• Fatigue: often we are unable to sleep due to the constant discomfort ⁽⁶⁾
• Depression: all of the above can lead to a sense of hopelessness and depression ^(4,6)
• Medication and digestive issues:

All of which may affect our sense of self, our sense of purpose and can really shake our understanding of the meaning of our life ^(3,4)

To add insult to injury, the actions we take to avoid further pain can often lead to other issues. For example, if we have chronic pain in one hip, this is likely to negatively affect our posture and ‘good side’ as we rely more one the other leg to take more of our weight.

How can kinesiology work with chronic pain?

Kinesiology works to uncover the root cause of your symptoms, and what your body needs to return to a more comfortable state.

Some of the contributing factors kinesiology explores includes:

• Primitive and postural reflexes
• Holding patterns creating unnecessary tension
• Anxiety
• Fight/flight response
• Breathing habits/vagal tone
• Centring and proprioceptive systems
• Inflammation
• Structural imbalances
• Social factors⁽⁵⁾