Aches and pains aren’t just something to be ignored and endured.
Aches and pains in your body are a pain, literally. It’s incredibly frustrating to have some kind of long-lasting ache constantly reminding you of its presence while you’re trying to go about your day. However, it’s important to remember that while these pains can be an inconvenience, your body isn’t producing them to annoy you. Aches and pains are a sign that something is wrong, and you should treat them as a reason to carefully examine your body and determine their root cause.
Here’s an example: part of an exercise routine I use recommends a particular kind of cooldown stretching, and for a long time, I did it every time without question. However, in the days following a workout, I’d consistently get a really nasty ache in my sides and hips. I assumed it was a result of regular exercise and I just had to deal with it, but as an experiment, I did the rest of my routine normally while forgoing that one stretch, and sure enough, the pain went away. If I had kept doing that dumb stretch, I could’ve done permanent damage to my body, or at the very least developed chronic pain.
Pain is the signal that your body utilizes to inform you that something is broken or otherwise functioning incorrectly. If it’s severe, then it’s totally understandable to want to lessen it with painkillers or other soothing methods, but that shouldn’t be all that you do. You need to establish where pain is originating from, both to determine if it’s something serious that you need to see a doctor over, and to determine if there’s something you can do in your daily life to lessen or eliminate it. There are numerous kinds of pain that can be traced back to singular actions or habits that can be easily dealt with.
