Using CBT in daily life

Wendy Favorito, living with arthritis 

I learned CBT almost 20 years ago now and I have  continued to use the skills and strategies on a  fairly regular basis so, for example, I might wake  up and unpredictably my pain and Joint stiffness  is extremely bad one day and it  coincides  with a day where I've got busy family and work  schedules so I'll take a moment in the morning  to listen to what my thought processes are and  to challenge that thinking so often I'll wake up  and feel that awful pain and think oh you there  goes my day I won't be able to do this and I won't  be able to do that well and this is going to stop  me doing that and with applying what I learned  through CBT I can stop those thought processes  and think realistically about okay it isn't  actually going to stop me from doing what I  want or need to do, might be a little bit harder  and take me a little bit longer but I can still  what I want do what I want to do, so it stops me  in a sense from over catastrophizing.

 I also then use skills from the CBT treatment to apply  pain management strategies like breathing and relaxation I also find the technique of  distraction to be extremely helpful an  an example that always sort of comes to mind when  I think of that is I couple of years ago had some  very painful orthopaedic surgery because of my  arthritis and I took into hospital a photo of my two children and when I came out of recovery  and I was in excruciating pain I used the photo  of my kids to focus on them and to think about  all the joy and the happiness associated with  them and when the pain was at its worst I would  use that as a distraction tool to take my mind  off my current pain but also to then help me  think forward that you know I'd had this very  painful surgery for a reason and it was so that  I could be more mobile and do more with my kids,  so certainly distraction is a very good technique  that I've learned as well. 

When I use CBT I think  now after 20 years I just do it automatically and I think at times I don't even realize that I'm using those strategies but for me it it's  about stopping and really analysing my thought  processes and not letting them get carried  away, so I guess in a sense being analytical  about what is it that's madly racing through my  mind because I've got these elevated pain levels  and challenging the genuiness or the reality  of where my head is think is my thinking  is going with that pain um it it's something that  the skills from that I use even with parenting my  children at times you know that they've got such  wide ranging application it's an excellent technique.

Managing pain before CBT

Wendy Favorito, living with arthritis 

So, before I learned to use CBT  I think I struggled through managing my  pain relying very heavily on pain medication  and I guess mentally and emotionally really  probably feeling quite oppressed with living  with that pain I think that by learning CBT  it gave me another strategy in my Arsenal for  managing my pain and it stopped me from being  so heavily Reliant just on pain medication  and it taught me that I had the power  within my um psychological capacity to  manage my pain not just with drugs.