Pain is the Great Motivator

The one symptom that brings more people to our office, more than all the others put together, is pain.  Pain is the motivator that gets people to schedule an appointment.  Pain pushes them into their cars to get to our office.  Pain is the factor that forces them to do something about their situation.  If we are honest with ourselves, pain is the motivator for most of the significant changes we make in our lives.

Other than in traumatic circumstances, when we have physical problems pain is usually not the first symptom to appear.  Stiffness, numbness, weakness, restlessness, fatigue, or swelling may come before pain.  In heart conditions digestive problems, shortness of breath or fatigue will usually precede chest pain.  Constipation, diarrhea, bloating, or food sensitivities often come before abdominal pain when a person has digestive system problems.  Pain is the body's most powerful way to get our attention.  The loudest alarm is saved for last.  If we ignore all the more subtle symptoms, the body will give us pain we cannot ignore.  Pain gets our attention and persists until we do something to help the situation.  It is designed to motivate us into action.

Emotional pain can be as great a motivator as physical pain.  It is the tough situations in life that cause us to reflect and decide to do things differently; to take a new path.  A health crisis for ourselves or someone we deeply care about can motivate us to change our lifestyle for the better.  A financial crisis can cause us to re-evaluate our spending and saving methods.  A family crisis can help us to see our own shortcomings and to appreciate the value of those around us.   Without the emotional pain, seldom do we make any significant changes to our lives.

Pain is not the problem, rather it is given to us to tell us there is a problem.  Its purpose is to motivate us to make changes.  Sadly, pain is too often seen as the problem.  We try to numb the pain, block the pain, or ignore the pain without finding out why the pain is there.  By doing these things we miss the opportunity to fix the cause of the pain.  When the physical or emotional cause is not corrected, the pain just keeps coming back.  It's simply the body's loudest alarm to get our attention and motivate us to make some changes.

There's a familiar saying, "Don't waste the pain."  Don't ignore it or block it.  Use it to determine the cause and then make changes that will improve who you are physically and emotionally.  Correct the cause and the pain doesn't have to come back.  Chiropractic is about finding the cause of the pain and correcting it.