Treating Emotions, Psychological Factors Eases Back Pain

The emotions have a major impact on our physical health, and while positive emotions can help us deal with stress, negative emotions can have the opposite effect, even manifesting into intense physical pain in your body.
This may explain why a new study found that psychological interventions are extremely effective at reducing back pain (along with depression and health-related quality of life).
Researchers evaluated 22 trials of patients with low back pain that had persisted for three months or more. Psychological interventions, including *biofeedback, relaxation, *hypnosis and behavioral techniques were reviewed, along with 12 pain-related outcomes such as pain intensity, depression, disability and pain interference.
They found that psychological interventions were superior to standard treatments for the entire range of pain-related outcomes. What’s more, the psychological techniques had the greatest and most consistent effect on reduction in pain intensity.
But even that the psychological treatments don’t carry the potential side effects that many pain medications do.

*Biofeedback is a treatment technique in which people are trained to improve their health by using signals from their own bodies.
*Hypnosis is a state of mind in which a person’s conscious critical thinking mind is bypassed and communication with the subconscious mind is established