The Link Between Depression and Pain – And How You Can Fight Back

Is there a link between depression and pain?  Are there days when you ask yourself, “Is my migraine making me feel so helpless and worthless?” Or did I get the migraine because I feel so depressed and under constant pressure?”

Yes!  The link between pain and depression is most certainly real.

One of the research studies describes two mechanisms that might help explain this link better.

1. Catastrophizing:  the tendency to ruminate about and magnify pain when combined with depression often result in adverse long-term pain-related outcomes such as, increased severity of pain, enhanced pain sensitivity and physical disability.

• Emotional Regulation:  This is important in both pain and depression since both these conditions are often viewed as significant emotional stressors.  Successful emotion regulation enhances coping while negative behavioral emotion regulation results in pain and mood related instability and, in the long term, a consequent relapse

 It’s therefore important to understand the link, and how it affects your body and mind. This understanding can help you with treatment and therapy.  One of the most celebrated personalities, Lady Gaga perfectly described it when she spoke about her experiences in Oprah Winfrey’s show, “My brain gets stressed, my body hurts,” she said, describing her battle with depression and fibromyalgia.

Learn more about this depression and pain dilemma:

1. Understand the depression and physical pain cycle. Health experts share that depression and pain appear to share a cycle. This cycle makes it difficult to see where one issue starts and ends. Research has shown that the presence of one both increases the risk and severity of the other. There is overlap between depression and pain, so it’s hard to tell them apart.

• As your depression gets worse or better, your physical pain responds and may get worse or better in sync. The two are interlinked in a complex way that makes it harder to treat.
  
  
• Pain can also make depression more difficult. If you’re not able to work or do the activities you enjoy because of physical pain, you suffer and feel isolated. This can increase depression and feelings of worthlessness.

How does it imply in my life?

For some of us who experience depression for the first time, or have in some way managed to suppress the mental or emotional symptoms of a depressive episode, the only visible symptom may be pain.   This may be as simple as a headache or a severe unexplained backpain which is not diagnosable by x-rays or other known means. This typically occurs in the form of headaches or backaches that have no clear physical cause. Some complain constantly of severe muscle aches, generalized body pains, debilitating migraines or even abdominal pains.

On the other hand, people who have experienced a traumatic event, like for instance, a road traffic accident, domestic abuse, assault or war trauma may associate their pain and injury with depressive symptoms such as flashbacks, changes in sleep and appetite, anxiety or depressed mood, irritability or in extreme cases, even thoughts of suicide.

• Consider inflammation. Recent research points to the role of inflammation in both depression and pain. More inflammation is likely to make depression worse. Likewise, if you have high levels of inflammation in your body, you’re more likely to have higher levels of pain.

Fighting Back Against Depression and Pain

If you’re battling depression and pain, using these strategies may alleviate your symptoms:

1. Seek help for your depression. You may benefit from therapy or medications specifically designed to manage depression.

• Get help for your physical pain. You may have to make multiple doctors’ appointments to get to the root cause of the pain. But you want to ensure that whatever is causing your physical pain is also being treated in the best ways you have available.

• Therapies:

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

Dialectical behavioral therapy seems to be the therapy that worked in the case of Lady Gaga.  It involves validating a person’s true feelings while cultivating positive change. Some of the techniques include mindfulness, stress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. This helps regulate emotional responses, identify, manage and cope with triggers that can spark an onset of pain and depression.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT):

This is a form of talk therapy that helps people identify and understand patterns of thoughts and feelings, and practice effective coping mechanisms to effectively manage their symptoms.  This therapy functions on the hypothesis that thoughts, feelings, and sensations are interconnected and thus helps alleviate pain.

• Stay active. It’s easy to allow depression and pain to take over your world and hide. However, it’s crucial that you exercise and stay involved.

• Lean on your support network. Whether it’s your friends, family, or coworkers, you need people in your life who understand you and can help you during a time of need.

• Find something that you love. Experts point out that pursuing a hobby or activity that you enjoy can help bring you out of the cycle of depression and pain.  

• Find something that brings you joy on a daily basis. This can range from cooking your favorite meals to dancing at a popular club. You can also find joy in smaller activities such as talking to a friend, reading a book, or writing down your thoughts.

• The key is to focus on positive activities that uplift you and help you forget the pain.

• Stress-reduction techniques, like the physical activity, exercise, meditation, journaling, learning coping skills and other strategies that have worked effectively in the past may also help.

• Learn to speak positively to yourself. Positive self-talk has been shown to reduce both depression and pain.

• Many athletes can talk through the pain to finish a competition. Many celebrities use positive self-talk to get out of depression. You, too, can use this technique to help manage your pain and depression.

• It’s important to focus on positive aspects of your life and personality, so you don’t feel guilt or shame. Avoid berating yourself over mistakes. Shift your focus away from negative ideas, habits, or suggestions.
  
  
• The more you practice positive self-talk, the better you get at it, and the greater influence you’ll have on your results.

Conclusion:

Chronic pain is depressing, and so is depression.   Treatment becomes all the more challenging and difficult when pain overlaps with depression. A mere one-sided focus on pain can mask both the clinician’s and patient’s awareness about an underlying mental illness.

It’s not easy to see where one starts and the other ends. Therefore, take action to alleviate both pain and depression. Try these techniques to make a positive difference in your life.

Have a question or suggestion to make?  I would love to hear your take in the comments section.