Relieving arthritis pain by relieving stress

Most treatments for arthritis both help ease pain and fight joint breakdown, but that's only the start of pain-control methods at your disposal. Your mind, a natural stress reliever, can also do wonders.

• Relieving pain has always been one of the chief goals of medicine, yet doctors traditionally haven't addressed it as a separate problem, focusing instead on underlying diseases.
• That perspective is changing as studies find that relieving pain helps people fight their illnesses better.
• It is now becoming more common for doctors to view pain almost as a distinct disorder — or at the very least, a "fifth vital sign" (along with temperature, pulse, respiration and blood pressure) that must be controlled for overall good health.

• It's clear that pain is as much a mental experience as a physical one.
• Ever get a sports injury that didn't really hurt until after you stopped playing, laughed off a bump on the head or kissed away a child's boo-boo?
• That's the nebulous power of the mind at work against all-too-real pain. As pain signals zip back and forth between the brain and far reaches of the nervous system, they can be influenced in a number of different ways.
• One theory holds that gates in the nervous system's circuitry can be closed to pain if competing signals use the same pathway.
• That may allow you to curtail pain by filling your head with more pleasant thoughts through meditation, hypnosis or exercises using imagery.
• Other research suggests that the way you interpret pain can change its impact on the body, making a sense of control, good spirits and lack of anxiety potent buffers against suffering.

Stress is no fun for anybody, but if you have arthritis, it can actually be physically painful: When your mind is tense, it fouls your mood, which makes pain even more difficult to deal with.

What's more, your body follows your mind's lead and tense muscles translate to less mobility and greater physical discomfort. Exercise is a top stress-buster and distraction, meditation and imagery can help. So can the following:

Breathe deeply. Slow breathing that completely fills your lungs with air has been shown both to calm the mind and relax the body. To do it right, take your time (about four seconds) at every step — inhaling deeply, holding air in and letting it out.

Scan your body. Tension isn't always obvious. In this technique, you systematically pay attention to the tightness you feel in every part of your body one area at a time, consciously allowing each part to relax as you breathe deeply.

Tighten and release. Stepping up from the body scan, you deliberately make each part of your body tight as your mind lands on it, clarifying the degree of tension it carries and allowing an even greater level of relaxation when you release.