5 easy pain-stopping attitudes

There are many ways of dealing with pain but medication and treatments are just two. Your frame of mind also has a big impact on how you deal with pain and can help alleviate it. These tips will help.

Let’s  face it. Finding your way through or out of pain is a challenge. Along with all of the physical treatments and focus, changing the way your mind works around pain is important too. Your mind, after all, directs your mood — and more than many people realize, our moods have an impact on our health and our healing.

Being thankful is just one component of the ways to change the way you think and feel in relationship to pain. Follow these tips to develop an attitude of gratitude.

Think about someone who has made a difference in your life. Thank that person through a visit, letter or phone call, describing in detail how he or she changed your life.

Happiness researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that study participants who practiced this exercise were immediately happier and less depressed, and that the effects lasted for as long as a month.

You don't need to do this every night. In fact, researchers have found writing grateful entries too often can become a chore and lose its effectiveness. Around, say, once a week, or as often as you feel moved to, write down three to five things that make you glad to be alive.

This will be entirely personal. Thinking about positive feelings automatically nudges out the negative ones.

Experts on mind and moods suggest that when a spiteful thought comes up, immediate replace it with a grateful one.

It’s simple: regularly recognizing good events diminishes the stress of bad ones.

According to research, many people have tried prayer to deal with pain and 90 percent report that it works well; half say it works very well. If you're not religious, try an alternative to prayer, such as a walk in nature. Focusing on a power outside yourself, whether you call it God or the universe or nature, can be psychologically healing, which can translate into fewer physical symptoms.

You’ll be surprised at how your mind can impact on your physical well being. Try these steps to see if your mind can turn your attitude to pain around and you’ll be focusing on health and healing in no time.