When you’re dealing with pain on a regular basis, it can be easy to think your discomfort will never go away. And that’s, in part, because your brain and body are already stuck in a faulty pain-signaling loop. The brain can continue to receive pain messages long after the major damage has been healed, says Miranda Esmonde-White, author of Forever Painless: End Chronic Pain and Reclaim Your Life in 30 Minutes a Day. “This is not a psychological phenomenon—the pain signal is actually real, kept alive by the self-perpetuating biochemical loop, like a broken record that continues to skip,” she says.
So, how do you break this cycle that keep you feeling terrible? Start with these exercises designed by Esmonde-White to help you find relief. You can do them even when you’re feeling some discomfort, but remember that if at any point a knife-pain sensation kicks in, stop immediately, says Esmonde-White. “I can’t repeat this critical aspect of healing enough: Always exercise in a pain-free zone,” she says.
Side-to-Side Steps
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF FROM “FOREVER PAINLESS: END CHRONIC PAIN AND RECLAIM YOUR LIFE IN 30 MINUTES A DAY BY MIRANDA ESMOND-WHITE. COPYRIGHT 2016 BY MIRANDA ESMONDE-WHITE. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF HARPER WAVE, AN IMPRINT OF HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS
This exercise will loosen the ankle, leg, and hip muscles while improving your circulation.
1. Start by bending your knees.
2. Extend your left leg out to the side as far as possible.
3. Step carefully and lightly on your extended foot, trying to pull the weight of your body upward, away from the floor. This pulling-up will stop you from landing with a heavy impact, which is hard on the joints.
4. Bring your feet together and bend your knees, checking that both heels are flat on the ground. Make sure the full weight of your body is evenly distributed over your feet so that your soles are not rolling inward or outward. Rolling will cause joint pain and damage.
Alternate from left to right, 16 to 32 times.
Full Arm Circles
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF FROM “FOREVER PAINLESS: END CHRONIC PAIN AND RECLAIM YOUR LIFE IN 30 MINUTES A DAY BY MIRANDA ESMOND-WHITE. COPYRIGHT 2016 BY MIRANDA ESMONDE-WHITE. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF HARPER WAVE, AN IMPRINT OF HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS
This exercise is designed to stretch and strengthen your full torso. You will be moving the torso on all planes, from wall to wall and from ceiling to floor.
1. Start with your legs in a comfortably wide stance, knees slightly bent.
2. Reach one arm up and imagine that you’re drawing a large circle with your arm and torso, following a full circumference from ceiling to floor.
3. Stay relaxed throughout the movements—particularly relax your shoulders and elbows.
4. Focus on breathing deeply throughout the swings.
5. Don’t rush. Take your time to move carefully and fully control every movement.
6. Keep the movement controlled; never fling your body or use momentum as you do the circles.
Complete 4 large circles with each arm.
Shin, Calf, Ankle, and Foot Mobility Sequence
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF FROM “FOREVER PAINLESS: END CHRONIC PAIN AND RECLAIM YOUR LIFE IN 30 MINUTES A DAY BY MIRANDA ESMOND-WHITE. COPYRIGHT 2016 BY MIRANDA ESMONDE-WHITE. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF HARPER WAVE, AN IMPRINT OF HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS
Doing this heel raiser with a plié is a really powerful way to instantly relieve calf, shin, and foot pain by simultaneously stretching and strengthening the entire lower leg and foot, says Esmonde-White. Take your time and slowly build your strength and flexibility until you can comfortably do a maximum of 6 repetitions. Never do more than 6 in one workout.
1. Face your chair and hold the back of it with both hands. Stand close enough to the chair that your elbows can remain slightly bent.
2. Slowly bend your knees so that you can feel your muscles stretching (a movement known in ballet as a plié).
3. Then slowly raise your heels so you can feel your muscles doing the work of lifting your entire body weight. (Keep your movements slow; quick movements don’t give the strengthening benefits.)
4. With your heels still raised as high as possible, slowly straighten your legs. (The slow speed will actively stretch the shins, helping relieve your pain.)
5. Slowly lower your heels until you are standing flat on your feet in the starting position.
Repeat 3 to 6 times.
Hip Stretching Sequence
This hip sequence will loosen and stretch a chain of muscles that attaches the torso to the legs. When the hips muscles are tight, the tension in those muscles spirals down into the knees and feet, limiting their movement and leading to pain. The hip joint is a ball-and-socket joint; we do rotational, side-to-side, and forward-and-backward stretches to loosen all parts of the ball and socket. By shifting the thighbone back and forth in the socket during these stretches, you’re helping re-balance and loosen any tightness in your hip muscles.
Phase One:
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF FROM “FOREVER PAINLESS: END CHRONIC PAIN AND RECLAIM YOUR LIFE IN 30 MINUTES A DAY BY MIRANDA ESMOND-WHITE. COPYRIGHT 2016 BY MIRANDA ESMONDE-WHITE. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF HARPER WAVE, AN IMPRINT OF HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS
1. Stand diagonally behind your chair and place your outside leg on the seat.
2. Bend both knees while holding the back of the chair for balance.
3. Lift and lower your hips, as though you were swaying your hips side to side.
4. As you sway your hips, you may feel a loosening within your hip socket.
Repeat 4 times on each side.
Phase Two:
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF FROM “FOREVER PAINLESS: END CHRONIC PAIN AND RECLAIM YOUR LIFE IN 30 MINUTES A DAY BY MIRANDA ESMOND-WHITE. COPYRIGHT 2016 BY MIRANDA ESMONDE-WHITE. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF HARPER WAVE, AN IMPRINT OF HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS
1. Adjust your body to face the seat of the chair for a new series of exercises.
2. Start by rounding your spine, dropping your shoulders forward, and tucking your butt under.
3. Slowly shift your spine into the reverse position, arching your back and sticking your butt out while shifting your weight forward. (Note: The more you exaggerate the hip shifts, the better the results in loosening the joint.)
4. Return to the original position, with your back rounded and your butt tucked under.
Repeat the full arching and rounding of the spine sequence 4 times.
Psoas Sequence for Hips
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF FROM “FOREVER PAINLESS: END CHRONIC PAIN AND RECLAIM YOUR LIFE IN 30 MINUTES A DAY BY MIRANDA ESMOND-WHITE. COPYRIGHT 2016 BY MIRANDA ESMONDE-WHITE. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF HARPER WAVE, AN IMPRINT OF HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS
The psoas muscles attach in the front of your thighbone and finish in several of the lower vertebra, or lumbar spine. Due to poor walking or lifestyle habits, the psoas tends to tighten and shrink, unbalancing the entire hip region and leading to chronic hip pain. This exercise will stretch the psoas muscles, relieving hip tension and the resulting back pain. When the psoas muscles are healthy and well stretched, you’ll have greater ease of movement when walking, running, and climbing the stairs.
1. Stand beside your chair. Place one foot flat on the seat of the chair with your knee bent and the other leg straight behind you. (Note: Don’t stand too close to the chair.)
2. Holding the back of the chair for support, raise the heel of your standing leg.
3. Bend the knee of your standing leg, and tuck your butt under your hips while shifting your weight forward, toward the seat of the chair.
4. Try to lock your butt in the tucked-under position while simultaneously trying to straighten the back leg and press the back heel into the floor. (Note: You probably won’t be able to put your back heel on the floor if you lock your butt in the tucked-under position. That’s OK!) You will mostly likely feel a stretch somewhere in your thigh; everyone feels the stretch in a different place.
5. Return to the starting position.
Repeat the psoas stretch very slowly 3 times on each leg.
Zombie Swings
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF FROM “FOREVER PAINLESS: END CHRONIC PAIN AND RECLAIM YOUR LIFE IN 30 MINUTES A DAY BY MIRANDA ESMOND-WHITE. COPYRIGHT 2016 BY MIRANDA ESMONDE-WHITE. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF HARPER WAVE, AN IMPRINT OF HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS
This exercise is designed to decompress the vertebrae as your spine hangs partially upside-down, swinging in semi-traction. This helps pull the vertebrae apart, instantly relieving back pain and muscle tension. The stretch seems to liberate the large sheets of fascia that surround your back, preventing movement. You may feel some pain when you start to move; pause to let the pain dissipate, and then keep moving. The pain should go away within seconds.
1. Stand with your feet parallel in a comfortably wide stance. Keep your muscles loose and relaxed.
2. Breathe deeply before beginning; this will help you focus on relaxing your muscles.
3. Tuck your tailbone under your hips (never stick your butt out), and bend your knees.
4. Slowly walk your fingertips down the fronts of your thighs; stop when you arrive at your knees.
5. Relax your neck as you lower your head forward.
6. Slowly sway side to side 4 to 8 times.
7. Slowly roll up one vertebra at a time to your starting position.
Repeat 2 more times./
How helpful were these stretches? What other stretches do you recommend for chronic pain? Share you tips on our community forum!
Written by: Meghan Rabbitt, writer and editor for Prevention. Prevention is the world’s most established healthy lifestyle brand. For more than 60 years, it has delivered authoritative trusted information and authentic lifestyle advice that inspires, challenges, and leads readers to love their whole life, from nutrition to food, medicine to mood, and exercise to the environment.
