In the excitement and enthusiasm for exercise as a treatment for persistent pain, I wonder sometimes whether we’ve forgotten that “doing exercise” is a reasonably modern phenomenon. In fact, it’s something we’ve really only adopted since our lifestyle has moved from a fairly physically demanding one, to one more sedentary (Park, 1994). I also wonder if we’ve forgotten that exercise is intended to promote health – so we can do the things we really want or need to do. Remembering, of course, that some people find exercise actually exacerbates their pain (Lima, Abner & Sluka, 2017), and that many folks experience pain as an integral part of their exercise (think boxing, marathon running, even going to a gym – think of the pain of seeing That Much Lycra & Sweat).
While it’s become “exercise as medicine” in modern parlance (Pedersen & Saltin, 2015; Sallis, 2009; Sperling, Sadnesara, Kim & White, 2017), I wonder what would happen if we unpacked “exercise” and investigated what it is about exercise that makes it effective by comparison with, say, activities/occupations that incorporate whole body movement?
One of the factors that’s often omitted when investigating coping strategies or treatments, especially lifestyle/self management ones, is the context and meaning people give to the activity. Context is about the when, where and how, while meaning is the why. Whether the positives (meaning, and values people place on it) outweigh the negatives (let’s face it, the lycra and sweat and huffing and puffing does not inherently appeal) are factors that enhance (or not) adherence to exercise and activity. One positive is a sense of flow, or “an optimal subjective psychological state in which people are so involved in the activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it”(Csikzentmihalyi, 1990, p. 4). I can think of a few things I lose myself in – reading a good book; fishing; paddling across a lake; photography; silversmithing; gardening…
Robinson, Kennedy & Harmon (2012) examined the experiences of flow and the relationship between flow and pain intensity in a group of people living with persistent pain. Their aim was to establish whether flow was an “optimal” experience of people with chronic pain. Now the methodology they used was particularly interesting (because I am a nerd and because this is one technique for understanding daily lived experiences and the relationships between variables over time). They used electronic momentary assessment (also known as ecological momentary assessment) where participants were randomly signaled seven times a day for one week to respond to a question about flow. Computationally challenging (because 1447 measurement moments were taken – that’s a lot of data!), although not using linear hierarchical modeling (sigh), they analysed one-way between group analyses of variance (ANOVA) to explore differences in pain, concentration, self-esteem, motivation, positive affect and potency across four named states “flow, apathy, relaxation and anxiety”. We could argue about both the pre-determined states, and the analysis, but let’s begin by looking at their findings.
What did they find?
People in this study were 30 individuals with persistent pain attending a chronic pain clinic. Their ages ranged from 21 – 77 years, but mean age was 51, and there were 20 women and 10 men (remember that proportion). People had a range of pain problems, and their pain had been present for on average 68 months.
The contexts (environments) in which people were monitored were at home, or “elsewhere”, and, unsurprisingly, 71% were at home when they were asked to respond. Activities were divided into self-care, work and leisure (slightly less time in work than in leisure or self care respectively). The purpose of the activities were necessity (35%), desire (40%), or “nothing else to do” (18%). And most people were doing these things with either alone or with family, with very small percentages with friends, colleagues or the general public.
Now we’d expect that people doing things they feel so wrapped up in that nothing else matters should experience lower pain – but no, although this was hypothesised, pain intensity scores during flow trended lower – but didn’t actually reach significance. When we add the findings that concentration, self-esteem, motivation, and potency mean scores were highest in the flow state and mean scores were lowest in the apathy and anxiety states, we can begin to wonder whether engaging in absorbing activities has a major effect on pain intensity – or whether the value placed on doing the activities is actually the most important feature for people with pain. Interestingly, people felt their flow experiences while outside the home: this happened rather less often than being in the home, where apathy was most present. So… doing something absorbing is more likely to occur away from home, while remaining at home is associated with more apathy and perhaps boredom. Finally, flow occurred in work settings more than elsewhere, suggesting yet again that work is a really important feature in the lives of all people, including people living with pain. Of course that depends on the kind of work people are doing…and the authors of this paper indicate that people with persistent pain in this study have few places in which they can do highly engaging activities, even including work.
What does this mean for exercise prescription?
Engaging people in something that holds little meaning, has little challenge and may not be in the slightest bit enjoyable is probably the best way to lose friends and have clients who are “noncompliant”. I think this study suggests that activities that provide challenge, stimulation, movement possibilities, the opportunity to demonstrate and develop skill – and that people find intrinsically lead to flow – might be another way to embrace the “movement is medicine” mantra. I wonder what would happen if we abolished “exercises” and thought about “movement opportunities”, and especially movement opportunities in which people living with pain might experience flow? I, for one, would love to see occupational therapists begin to examine flow experiences for people living with pain and embraced the creativity these experiences offer for the profession.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Collins.
Lima, L. V., Abner, T. S., & Sluka, K. A. (2017). Does exercise increase or decrease pain? Central mechanisms underlying these two phenomena. The Journal of physiology, 595(13), 4141-4150.
Park, R. (1994). A Decade of the Body: Researching and Writing About The History of Health, Fitness, Exercise and Sport, 1983-1993. Journal of Sport History, 21(1), 59-82. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43610596
Pedersen, B. K., & Saltin, B. (2015). Exercise as medicine–evidence for prescribing exercise as therapy in 26 different chronic diseases. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 25(S3), 1-72.
Robinson, K., Kennedy, N., & Harmon, D. (2012). The flow experiences of people with chronic pain. OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health, 32(3), 104-112.
Sallis, R. E. (2009). Exercise is medicine and physicians need to prescribe it!. British journal of sports medicine, 43(1), 3-4.
HealthSkills Blog 