Helping workers with chronic pain

Persistent, low-level health issues can be a right ‘niggle’ in the workplace. But there are some new ways of dealing with chronic pain that may help your staff feel better quicker – and make you their new favourite person!

Sometimes staff have specific accidents at home and (hopefully rarely) at work. But sometimes, due to old injury, repetitive strain or stress… chronic pain can set in and they are left with tenderness, headaches or persistent nerve pain.

Anyone who has ever experienced this kind of pain it knows how quickly it can take hold and set in for periods of time that seem unending. It’s hard on the employee because they are in genuine pain. And it’s hard on the employer – who wants to show support, empathy whilst dealing with the practicality of running a business that needs staff operating at optimum levels.

Staff may try medication or treatments like physiotherapy and still struggle to find relief. Sometimes their working conditions may need to be altered in order to help your staff manage this pain.

And while all of this may help with recovery, there is a growing school of thought around Mind-Body Pain Management that is helping hundreds of thousands of chronically injured people drastically reduce their symptoms.

The Mind-Body Pain theory centres around the idea that new trauma, stresses or physical strains and trigger neural pathways that have been damaged in the past to create a new pattern of pain that can linger. This is why we get pain in different places after one acute injury.

It’s not a suggestion that the current pain the employee is experiencing is ‘in their head’ – rather it validates their pain by looking at how our nervous systems can ‘remember’ past pains and bring them to the surface again.

If you have someone in your team struggling with chronic pain and they have tried everything and seem generally at a loss, then suggesting some Mind-Body tools could be helpful.

One of the most popular on the market is called Curable. It’s app based and is available on both android and iOS. Users will get lots of hours of free content before a subscription fee is required.

There are sample exercises that include specific ways to meditate around pain. Visit curablehealth.com to learn more.

It may just be the answer your staff member needs. Or you may even find it useful yourself. How tense are those shoulders feeling right now?