How do you cope with pain?

In my last post, I mentioned the childbirth prep class Dan & I are taking. One focus is on understanding our own instincts towards coping with pain. There are many ways of coping with pain, but two basic instincts: internalization and externalization. Some people like to focus on something outside of themselves to ignore the pain, and some like to focus on something inside themselves to address the pain. The main thing we're encouraged to remember is that neither way is "right" or "wrong." That's why Lamaze - a very specific pain-coping technique - worked wonders for some women, and not so well for others; it involved very externalizing methods which just don't click for those who tend to internalize pain.


One very intersting point is that labor pain is expected, whereas most all other pain in life is not - so we react to it differently.

One exercise we did was holding an ice cube for 60 seconds - the length of the average contraction. Some people in the class didn't find that painful, so they would hold it on their wrist or to their temple.

The first round was done with no instruction, just to see what we instinctively did. I kept my eyes closed and relaxed, focusing my attention on my breathing and directing my breath and attention to the pain in my hand. This is pretty much what I do when i have a migraine - I try to "be with the pain" and relax the rest of my body. That worked pretty well for me in the ice cube trial. It occured to me that I am one who uses the internalization methods more often than not.

The second round we were told to use focused, patterned breathing, whether that meant counting breaths, timing breaths, hee-hee-hoo-ing...whatever was focused and patterned for each person. That worked okay for me, but wasn't enough. I felt like I was trying to ignore the pain, and of course, the pain wasn't actually going away.

The third time we talked about the "Theory of Equanimity," a buddhist theory that basically says no one thing is more interesting than any other thing. So, we were instructed to widen our field of vision - try to look at the ceiling and the floor and all of the walls, all of everything in the area, without focusing on one particular spot - and to do the same with our other senses. It was really interesting! There were candles burning in the room, art on the walls, patterned slipcovers on the sofas, other couples sitting together, the instructor's soft voice, music in the background, traffic on the street, the feeling of the ice in my hand, the feeling of the breeze from the window, the cushioned sofa, the air flowing in and out of my nostrils... I was so surprised by how well this worked for me! I was so completely relaxed by the end of this 60 seconds, and the pain had just been a part of all of the sensations I was taking in. I had doubts about this technique, since in trial #1 I had realized, acknowledged, and grasped onto the idea that I Cope With Pain Using Internalization...like, it was a new law in my life or something. I remembered learning that "be with the pain" technique about 10 years ago, and that it's something I have practiced since then...always a conscious choice to cope that way, rather than what I could call an instinct.

I'm finding this stuff FASCINATING.

Again, I'm hoping for that 2 1/2 hour labor during which I won't need to know much of this stuff, anyway! (But, it's always a good idea to be prepared.)