Stress Management

No one can avoid stress, but you can take steps to manage the strain and prevent it from contributing to chronic pain or causing health problems. At The Modalities Group in Bowie, Maryland, the team specializes in creating individualized stress management programs. They help you reduce stress, learn to cope with stress, and restore a healthy balance to your life. If you feel overwhelmed with stress, call the office or book an appointment online today.

What is stress management?

Stress often serves a positive role because it triggers your brain to release hormones that energize your body and help deal with difficult circumstances. But stress is only positive up to a point.

It becomes overwhelming when you face constant stress, such as chronic pain, or endure more stress than you’re physically or mentally ready to handle. That’s when you need stress management to learn to manage stress and prevent it from causing health problems.

How does stress management help with chronic pain?

You may deal with daily stress and never experience physical problems. At the same time, there’s so much overlap between stress and chronic pain that it’s almost hard to separate the two.

Stress

Stress affects your musculoskeletal, respiratory, gastrointestinal, endocrine, nervous, reproductive, and cardiovascular systems. In short, stress negatively impacts every part of your body.

As a result, ongoing stress contributes to chronic pain syndromes, depression, anxiety, and chronic health conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes.

When the team at The Modalities Group develops a comprehensive pain management plan, they always consider how stress factors into your pain.

Chronic pain

Chronic pain adds more stress to your life and makes it harder for you to deal with everyday stress. Ongoing pain and stress interfere with your sleep and make you irritable and angry.

Beyond making you feel irritated, chronic pain is closely related to mental health disorders. It’s estimated that 50-70% of people with chronic pain suffer from major depression or anxiety.

Pain also substantially strains your personal relationships with family and friends. You may feel alienated because they don’t understand the complexity of chronic pain. Chronic pain stops you from engaging in social activities and makes you pull away from your loved ones. 

What should I expect during stress management?

The team at The Modalities Group develops a stress management plan that targets your specific stressors. 

Your stress management plan may include:

• Pain management
• An exercise regimen
• Dietary modification
• Counseling
• Massage
• Relaxation exercises
• Medications
• A plan to improve sleep habits
• Mindfulness meditation

The team helps you cope with chronic pain and gives you stress management tools so that you can lead a balanced and fulfilling life.

If you need to explore stress management, call The Modalities Group or schedule an appointment online today.