Are you aware of your body and what’s happening with it? This simple awareness can help you bring about positive change to any pain or discomfort. Become a body detective and get in touch!
Become aware of how you move. Tune into your body regularly throughout the day and night – how does your body feel? Are there certain activities during the day that trigger or aggravate your pain? Once you are pain free you want to be aware of and avoid anything that can cause re-injury.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to start becoming your own Body Detective!
| Body Detective Questions: |
| Where exactly is your pain? |
| Does it change position or is it always in the same place? |
| Do you have it when you first get up in the morning? If so, what is your rating? No pain | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Most intense pain |
| Do you have it in the evening or later in the day? If so, what is your rating? No pain | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Most intense pain |
| When is it worse – in the morning or in the evening? |
| How frequent is your pain? Is it constant? Is it daily? Is it weekly? Is it monthly? Other? |
| Does it affect your sleep? Do you wake up in pain? |
| Is there an activity or position that makes it worse? |
| Be really aware of the activities you do today. Before you do each activity, rate your pain levels. Write it down. After the activity, how are your pain levels? Did they change? Did this activity increase, decrease or made no difference to your pain? If it increased your pain, can you change the activity so it doesn’t cause you pain? Or do you really have to do that activity? If it is necessary, can someone else help you or can they do it? |
This is a great exercise to see what is actually impacting on your pain levels and with that awareness you can then bring change. If you are in intense pain just doing this for one day will bring some knowledge and insight. Even better if you can manage this for a week to really get an idea of the impact of the things you are doing daily. Respect and love yourself enough to do this little bit of homework.
It will be invaluable in helping you and your health professional identify what is happening in your life that triggers or aggravates your pain. Being a body detective, monitoring my posture and supporting my body as much as possible has helped me stay pain free for more than 30 years.
