How to approach walking with chronic pain<\/p>\n\u201cI encourage people to do nuggets of movement where they can,\u201d says Helfrich.<\/p>\n
This bite-sized approach to movement can help people with chronic pain build up to longer times or distances with less risk of triggering a flare-up of symptoms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalking is a functional and easy exercise to progress,\u201d says Helfrich. \u201cStart by walking to the mailbox and back at a slow pace. You can add steps or increase your pace in a way that feels good and doesn\u2019t cause you pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
If 10 minutes of walking triggers pain, Helfrich recommends scaling back to a point where it doesn\u2019t. From this new baseline, you can gradually build up your tolerance to walk for longer and increase your threshold.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour body starts to learn that movement is safe,\u201d she says. \u201cBouts as short as 10 minutes or even five minutes accrue over time and can have similar health benefits to walking for 30 minutes in one go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBreaking your movement down into small nuggets, sprinkled throughout the day, will encourage blood flow and better mobility,\u201d she adds. \u201cWhen you sit for an hour, even though you may have already exercised earlier in the day, you’re still going to have pain in your back from lack of movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joints are self-lubricating so even if the first few movements feel stiff and uncomfortable, once you start moving, joints will loosen up.<\/p>\n
Chronic pain conditions often coexist with mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you’re depressed because you have chronic pain and then someone tells you you need to walk, it can be really hard,\u201d she says. But walking for five minutes? That might be a more manageable goal.<\/p>\n
She also advises not to worry too much about your pace. Focus on engaging with your surroundings and spending time walking mindfully.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always encourage people to walk outside if they can\u2014being outside in nature has its own therapeutic benefits,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n
Helfrich is also a great believer in adding goals to a walk to make them more motivating.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you can reach a goal and feel a sense of success, it\u2019s a big motivator,\u201d she says. \u201cFor people with chronic pain, seeing that they can slowly make progress is really helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n
These goals don\u2019t have to be step-based, either. \u201cIf you can\u2019t walk all the way to the store when you first start, that could be a nice tangible goal instead of a step-based one,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Living with chronic pain can make the idea of exercise feel overwhelming\u2014especially if you are worried about triggering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[6647,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-175556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}