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Pain-Free New Year

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Chronic pain can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, millions of Americans suffer from pain caused by various ailments every year, which affects their life quality and ability to perform daily tasks. Fortunately, you don’t have to suffer from pain every year. You can do some activities to help you lessen the pain and focus more on the things you love.

Here are some things to do to have a pain-free new year.

1. Learn Meditation Techniques

Good meditation techniques, coupled with deep breathing, can help your body relax and ease your pain. This duo loosens the tightness that’s in the muscles and sends them a message to relax. You can engage in various meditation ways, though the common one is by repeating some phrases in your mind. As you repeat those phrases, ensure that you ignore your thoughts and focus on your breathing. Taking a meditation class can also help you grasp meditation techniques well.

Deep breathing is also an excellent companion to meditation. Like meditation, it can help you to relax your muscles. However, to effectively practice this technique, you need to assume a comfortable body position, get a quiet location, and block out destructive thoughts. After doing that, take deep breaths that will fill your abdomen with air, then exhale it out like a deflating balloon.

2. Minimize Stress

Negative feelings such as anxiety, depression, anger, and stress, makes the body more sensitive to pain. Managing your stress can help you find relief from pain. Some techniques to minimize stress and promote relaxation include listening to soothing music and taking a walk. You can also purchase specially designed relaxation CDs or use mental guided imagery to calm your mind. The activities you engage in to minimize stress should relax your muscles and make your mind peaceful.

3. Exercise

Exercise is vital because it stimulates the brain to produce endorphins, which block pain signals and enhance mood. Exercise can also strengthen your muscle and reduce your chances of injury and feeling pain.

If you have diabetes, obesity, or heart disease, exercise can help you mitigate them. However, if you’re diabetic or neuropathic, you need to be careful about the type of exercises you engage in. It’s advisable to consult your doctor and ask him or her the types of physical activities that can fit your body.

4. Join Support Groups

Copying with pain alone can be quite difficult. That’s why most patients suffering from pain are advised to join support groups to meet with other people who’re also experiencing pain. Being in such a group and learning how to cope with pain from others who experience a similar situation can reduce pain.

It would be best to meet with a mental health professional because excruciating pain often leads to depression. If you’re counseled by a professional, you’ll learn how to cope better and avoid negative thoughts that worsen the pain. Having a healthier attitude and asking for help can strengthen you during your journey.

Conclusion

Tolerating pain isn’t easy if you don’t know what to do to lessen it. However, if you know the right activities to engage in, you’ll find coping with pain easier and may even reduce its impact on your life.

Website – https://kimpain.com/

Michelle has been a part of the journey ever since Bigtime Daily started. As a strong learner and passionate writer, she contributes her editing skills for the news agency. She also jots down intellectual pieces from categories such as science and health.

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Health

The Subtle Cues in Our Environment that Encourage Healthier Living

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The choices we make each day regarding our diet, activity and lifestyle habits ultimately determine our health and wellbeing. Nonetheless, the surroundings we inhabit also actively influence those decisions, whether we realize it or not. Our built environment contains many subtle cues that either promote or impede healthy behaviors. With thoughtful awareness, we can leverage and shape these cues to nudge ourselves toward more positive choices. 

Architectural Cues for Active Living

Urban design and infrastructure elements play a major role in our activity levels. Visible, accessible staircases encourage climbing over passive elevator use. Features like centrally located, attractive stairwells bathed in natural light make stairs hard to ignore. Artwork beautifies the ascent while music enlivens acoustics. Placing stairwells near prominent gathering areas also maximizes exposure and use. Conversely, hidden dreary stairwells discourage climbing. Building layouts should make stairways the default for short trips. Thoughtful design embeds activity into daily routines.

Outside, continuous sidewalks and protected bike lanes provide clear cues that active transit is safe and expected. Ample parking signals driving is preferable. Traffic calming measures like speed humps and narrowed lanes imprint mental cautions for vehicles to accommodate bikes and pedestrians. Sidewalk street furniture and plantings buffer walkers from traffic. Crosswalks, pedestrian signals, and refuge islands imprint rights of way. Complete Streets redesign allocates fair space for diverse safe use. Our infrastructure surroundings can literally pave the path for active living.

Office and Home Cues

Subtle factors within buildings also affect activity and diet. Kitchen placement, for instance, affects our choices. Research shows open concept kitchens integrated into living areas encourage more healthful cooking and family meals than closed off kitchens. Islands and open shelving provide visual snack cues that can either prompt cravings or showcase fruits, nuts, and other healthy grabs. Kitchens sited near entries or offices also maximize visibility and food prep use rather than distant basement kitchens. 

At offices, centrally located shared spaces like break rooms, cafes and snack nooks encourage communal meals, informal gatherings and refueling walks to retrieve snacks. Providing showers, bike racks and lockers signals active commuting is valued. Standing and treadmill desks prompt movement during sedentary work, while choice architecture guides selections from communal food areas. Simple environmental adjustments nudge better decisions.

Nutritional Cues at Markets and Restaurants

Eateries and markets harbor cues that stimulate cravings along with willpower depletion. Certain lighting, music, and décor stimulate overindulgence. Cues that unconsciously hurry patrons undermine reasoned decisions. Scented air surrounding baked goods stalls awakens salivation and desire. Strategic menu design also sways choices. Listing unhealthy items first or at eye level suppresses willpower. Descriptive names romanticize less healthy options. Menu formatting can also highlight nutritious dishes and portion guidance. Markets use product placement for maximizing impulse grabs. Though subtle, environmental exposures across stores and eateries significantly sway our eating choices.

Cues for Hydration and Rest

Proper hydration and sleep are imperative for our wellbeing but are easily overlooked when immersed in urban settings and schedules. Environmental design can combat these gaps through strategic cues. Plentiful public water fountains provide visual refreshment reminders throughout cities, while placing restrooms near fountains links the hydration notion. Cafes position chilled water dispensers up front for thirst-quenching without calories. Homes and offices forget hydration less with decorative pitchers and glasses on tables. Lighting design is key for sleep cues. Dimming lights in workplaces and warm home lighting provide visual preparation for rest. Cool-toned blue hues stimulate and signal awakening. Our surroundings can cue us to drink and sleep wisely.

Signage and Sensory Cues  

Explicit signs offer direct visual cues to healthier behaviors – such as a no smoking sign that prompts at entrances. Staircases could feature plaques tallying burned calories. Cafeterias may display encouragements to take smaller portions or try vegetable sides. Signs foster mindfulness and restraint at choice points. Sensory cues also guide behaviors. Smells eliciting happiness or calm can de-stress environments. Soothing natural sounds and music relax tense settings. Harsh lighting and noise stimulate frenetic energy and impulsiveness. Pleasant sensory experiences invite more mindful, deliberate choices. Uplifting cues infuse healthy messaging into spaces.

Art and Nature Cues for Wellbeing  

Artwork carrying uplifting themes or depicting healthy activities, fruits and vegetables, serene nature and joyful gatherings infuses visual positivity into surroundings. Murals and wall graphics remind us what truly matters for wellbeing. Images are digestible in passing, sinking into the subconscious. Vibrant, thriving plants and greenery provide natural visual relief and comfort that lower stress. Decor mimicking natural materials brings warmer textures. Spatial flow mimicking nature’s curves calms minds. Natural light and windows boost mentality and sleep cycle regulation. Thoughtful touches of art and nature foster mental balance, positivity, and healthy choices.

Conclusion

Our everyday surroundings contain many subtle influences on our diet, activity, sleep, and lifestyle, either promoting or hindering health. But heightened awareness of these cues allows us to consciously reshape environments for encouraging wiser choices. Simple changes to architecture, office layouts, signage, lighting, art, and nature contact encourage movement, nutrition, and wellbeing. Our minds absorb ambient cues, so design wisely. When supportive healthy cues surround us, positive habits become a little easier, more inviting, and purposeful. Think about cues you could shift for better living. Small nudges in public spaces and our homes can guide us all toward healthier, more thoughtful lives.

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