If you struggle with high levels of stress and anxiety on a regular basis, it’s important to understand all of your options when it comes to managing these symptoms.
If you find yourself frequently feeling stressed or anxious, pain medication may be able to help you manage those feelings while also providing long-term benefits. Here are some ways according to Dr Brian Blick that pain medication can help you manage stress and anxiety.
Tame The Stress Response
At the core of many mood disorders, such as anxiety and depression, is a dysregulation of the body’s stress response. Lifting a person’s cortisol levels and restoring normalcy to their stress response can have a profound impact on their mental health.
While there are a number of ways to treat elevated cortisol levels, including psychotherapy, exercise, and nutrition, increased access to these pain medications may help many patients restore normal cortisol levels.
Help You Regain Control Over Your Being
Pain is both a physical and psychological experience. When you hurt, your body releases endorphins, which are hormones that act as a natural painkiller. However, if you have chronic pain, your body becomes accustomed to these levels of endorphins and requires higher levels to feel the same effects.
This can create a vicious cycle whereby you feel more pain and are more sensitive to that pain. When you use pain medication, you can regain a sense of control over your pain. You may be able to decrease your dependence on other pain management solutions as well. When you regain control over your pain, you can also feel more in control of your emotions and thoughts.
Provide Short-Term Relief From Your Conditions
Although research suggests that using any kind of pain relief medicine use may help people with anxiety and depression, in the long run, it also points out that these treatments may provide short-term relief from negative emotions in the same way that anti-anxiety or antidepressant medications do.
While many people take certain types of medications such as antidepressants to help them regulate their mood long-term, some individuals find that the drugs provide immediate relief from stress-related symptoms, such as feelings of sadness or irritability.
Additionally, pain medications are often prescribed as an add-on therapy to other medications that treat anxiety and depression. This means that you can use these pain medications to address your symptoms in the short term and then continue taking antidepressants.
Help You Feel Better Overall
Lastly, pain relief medicines are commonly prescribed for anxiety, as well as for psychological disorders such as PTSD. For many people, these treatments aren’t just a way to help them get through challenging times; they offer a path to long-term recovery.
Over time, these substances can help change your brain chemistry by restoring serotonin, dopamine, and GABA levels. Because these substances are long-term solutions to managing your symptoms, it’s important to find a treatment plan that works for you. Over time, your body will become dependent on the medication, so you need to be careful about how you use it.
