New Year, Same Pain? Three Pain Management Tips for 2026
Is your chronic pain still lingering, year after year? Chronic pain (now better referred to as persistent pain) encompasses any pain that continues for three months or longer. The intensity and frequency of persistent pain can vary greatly from person to person, impacting daily life in different ways. New Year, same pain? Three Pain Management Tips for 2026.
Sometimes, living with persistent pain for so long can make it seem like it will never go away. But can reducing persistent pain be possible for you in 2026? Although persistent pain is a complex condition, there are simple ways to make a difference in how you feel. The following are three pain management themes to embrace for 2026: pacing, movement, and mindset. Let’s explore each theme to learn how it can be added to your routine in the new year.
Pacing
Persistent pain can be debilitating for many. What’s even more frustrating is that this pain can vary from day to day or week to week, making it challenging for people to stay consistent with daily tasks such as cleaning, going to work, and taking care of themselves and others.
Often, on a day with less pain, someone may try to complete as much of their to-do list as possible. Unfortunately, this often comes at a price: Their pain flares up for days, making them feel even worse than usual.
Why does this happen?
The nerves involved in sending warning signals to the brain need to sense a certain level of activity before starting their alarm process. The level that sets off the alarm process is called the threshold. Once the threshold is met and the alarm process begins, it takes a while to calm down the system—hours for some, weeks for others. People with persistent pain require much less activity to set off the alarm threshold, leaving less wiggle room to complete daily activities before they start to feel worse.
How do you know what your threshold is? This is unique for each person and requires some experimenting.
If you know that cleaning the house for thirty minutes always makes your pain worse the next day, then your threshold must be some time shorter than thirty minutes. If you clean for ten minutes and feel no worse the next day, then ten minutes of cleaning must be under your threshold. Unfortunately, that means there is still another 20 minutes of cleaning left unaccounted for. This is where pacing becomes useful.
What is Pacing?
Pacing is an activity-management strategy that sets a balance between rest and activity to reduce the chance of a pain flare-up. Pacing involves taking scheduled breaks and keeping activity levels consistent so nerve activity always stays below the alarm threshold.
So, if you need to do 30 minutes of cleaning, but cleaning for more than ten minutes makes you feel worse the next day, then pacing must bridge this gap. This may mean cleaning for ten minutes, then taking a purposeful break for ten minutes to rest your nervous system. Then, ten more minutes of cleaning can be done before another ten-minute break and the final ten minutes of cleaning. Pacing may sound inconvenient, especially when you just want to get the cleaning over with, but pacing makes it possible to not suffer from a pain flare-up after.
Tip: Set a timer and stick to it! Even if you are having a pain-free day, be respectful of your limits and stick to your established activity time and rest breaks. Hopefully, over time, you will be able to strategically add a few more minutes to your activity time to retrain your pain threshold.
Movement
This theme comes as no surprise—daily movement and exercise are key components to healthy living.
Daily movement increases blood flow, strengthens muscles, loosens joints, and sends positive chemicals throughout the body.
Aerobic exercise (exercise that increases heart rate, such as walking, biking, jogging, swimming, or arm cycling) has been found time and time again to be helpful in managing persistent pain conditions. As a bonus, any general exercise has been shown to reduce anxiety, depression, pain levels, and fatigue.
Finding some way to move your body every day can make a difference in your pain levels.
Remember the pacing strategies from above: Find what feels safe and doable as your baseline and take purposeful, meaningful breaks. Strategically increase your exercise difficulty within limits that feel safe to you. Physical therapists and occupational therapists are excellent guides to help you through an exercise plan for your unique situation.
Tip: Struggling to start? Begin with basic exercises that involve body parts farthest away from your location(s) of pain. This will make the exercise feel less threatening. Then, as you build confidence, comfort, and stamina, slowly add in exercises that bring the movements closer and closer to your location(s) of pain.
Mindset
How you think about yourself and your pain plays a significant role in your experience and relationship with persistent pain.
Your mindset is your beliefs and attitudes that influence how you think and see the world. In relation to persistent pain, your mindset is your beliefs surrounding the pain you experience and how it affects your life.
Acute pain is naturally seen as something to avoid, and that signals a threat. Pain lingering for months with no present threat is a different story. Your mindset toward pain gets more complicated the longer pain lingers, and if you believe your pain will be with you forever and can’t get better, then that majorly influences how long your pain does stick around. Changing this mindset is an important step in persistent pain care.
Keep this in mind
It may sound too simple, but keep this in mind: Persistent pain has strong connections to the nervous system, emotions, and belief systems. While pacing and movement can target the more physical components of pain management, we cannot neglect the powerful mind-body connections to our pain systems.
How do you change your mindset? First, you must study your current mindset. What comes to mind when you think of your pain? What is your attitude toward it? Be honest with yourself, and write down what your pain means to you. Then brainstorm ways to turn your beliefs into positive statements.
Here are a few examples of statements that encourage a positive mindset around persistent pain.
I am learning what is helpful to my body.
I can feel better.
I am resilient.
I have the tools to make a difference in my pain.
My muscles feel good when I exercise them.
Mindset work is different for each person. Especially for those living with persistent pain for years, mindset work can be emotionally challenging. It may help to have a trained professional work with you to unwrap your emotions and beliefs around your persistent pain.
Tip: Write your favorite positive mindset phrases on sticky notes. Then, place these sticky notes in common areas (your home, car, and workplace) so you are reminded of them often. Speaking these mindset reminders out loud when you see them (and even better, in front of a mirror so you are talking to yourself) can increase their effectiveness and help connect your words to yourself.
Conclusion
Pacing, movement, and mindset are simple but powerful themes to add to your 2026 pain management plan. Talk with your physical therapist or occupational therapist today on how to best use these themes to your advantage! Don’t let a New Year, Same Pain? Three Pain Management Tips for 2026 stop you from ENJOYING MORE FREEDOM.