By now, you know that I'm a big fan of mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches for the treatment of chronic pain and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. If you look at studies, an increasing number of Americans are using some type of integrative or contemplative practice on a daily or a weekly basis to improve upon their physical health, as well as their mental health.
One of the reasons why I love mindfulness and acceptance-based approach so much is because, as practitioners, we're faced with an increasingly complex, more chronic, and more disease professional landscape. The other reason is I believe we've arrived at a place where we can no longer separate the brain from the body or the mind from the body, however you'd like to look at it.
Consider for a moment that there's a well-known, backed by evidence and science, strong positive association between living in a state of stress, which then turns into emotional distress and then finally, on to mental illness. There's a bi-directional relationship between mental illness and physical illness that's inseparable.
Currently, 1 in 5 Americans lives with a mental illness, that's about 52 million people and there have been surveys of physical therapists working in the general orthopedic practice where 75% report treating comorbid mental health problems on a daily or weekly basis. Mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions are a family of methods that emphasize a present moment awareness, nonjudgmental stance, and employ values-based living.
The techniques and exercises embedded in these methods teach you how to cope with stressful thoughts, stressful emotions, and even painful physical sensations. The goal is not to clear the mind or to prevent difficult emotions or thoughts from occurring. We don't have a great way to do that. It's about learning how to relate differently to all your experiences, even the distressing ones as part of our human experience.
These methods are useful in clinical practice, especially if you're aiming for health promotion, improving physical function, injury prevention, pain management, modulating the immune system, alleviating noncommunicable disease, and even improving sports performance. Mindfulness is much more than meditation. These are thoroughly investigated, science-backed, and proven methods of health behavior change.
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