Shhhhh! The secret we don ’ t talk about …

For all my writing about ACT, there are some things that ACT doesn’t directly deal with: what do people use to help them do what matters in their life? OK we do discuss actions, values, perspective-taking, mindfulness, willingness and defusion, but we don’t talk about the specifics of what people living with pain might do to live well. The skills or ways of going about daily life, using things that help people with pain do things. *Scroll to the bottom to see my totally unscientific survey for people with pain* So for a few weeks I’m exploring self-management: this is one of those poorly-defined terms that gets tossed around SO much, so I’m defining it for my purposes so you know what I’m talking about. Self-management strategies are all those things I do everyday that allow me to have a full life in the presence of my widespread body pain. Self-management includes the usual self-care stuff everyone needs to do like eating healthily, cleaning my body, having adequate fun and rest, sleeping well. Self-management adds those things I need to do because of my long-lasting pain – things like scanning what my pain is up to today, choosing the intensity of my life demands to suit my pain and stress tolerance, pacing (yes, even I pace myself LOL), communicating to others about my need to get up and move around, ensuring I go for a walk and do my mindfulness daily… all of those things! Some authors add symptom management to these two gr...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Back pain Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills Coping strategies Low back pain Occupational therapy Research Science in practice biopsychosocial Health pain management self-management Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs