How do emotions impact pain?

Stress and emotions are critical to the big picture of pain. Scientists have found that feeling pain involves the same parts of your brain that feel emotions. This means that negative emotions like sadness, anxiety, fear, and anger can all make pain feel more intense. The opposite is also true. Positive emotions like happiness, humor, or peace can make pain feel better.

Being worried, sad, angry, and scared are normal parts of life, and they are normal feelings people have when coping with cancer pain.

In real-life it can be hard to tease out whether negative emotions make pain worse, or if pain makes emotions worse. The answer to that question doesn’t really matter. What is most important is coping with both the physical and emotional parts of pain.

Cancer

Emotions

Physical activity

Music

Diet

Prayer

Stress

Constipation

Pain

Medicines

Weather

Sleep

Other diseases

Genetics

"Chemo Brain"

Cancer treatment

Distraction

Relationships

Why is it important to address emotions when treating pain?

Findings ways to manage negative emotions can help you feel less overwhelmed and less helpless. Treating the emotional aspects of pain has also been shown to reduce the severity of pain and improve a person’s ability to function with pain.

Of course, treating the physical parts of pain is also very important. But opioids and other pain medications usually work best people learn how to cope with stress and the emotional parts of pain.

How can I manage the emotional parts of pain?

Learning about what things makes pain better or worse can help you take control over your situation. Simply noticing connections between your emotions and pain can give you another way to cope.

Think about emotions you may feel when you are in pain (anger, sadness, defeat, hopelessness). Have you noticed times that you have been under a lot of stress recently? Have you noticed anything different with your pain when you’re feeling difficult emotions?

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Lots of different things can help you reduce stress and cope with the emotional parts of pain. One thing that does not work is ignoring your emotions, or telling yourself that you should feel a different way. Emotions are a part of being human. We can’t get rid of them, and shouldn’t try to.

The following are different ways people have found to help with feelings of sadness, anxiety, helplessness, fear, or anger. Believe it or not, these things can all help with pain too. Different people find different coping strategies most helpful. You know yourself best - look over the list and make note of things that help you when you are feeling down, stressed, or upset. Next time you’re feeling upset or in a lot of pain, try one of these coping strategies and see how it may impact your pain or your mood: