A recent paper that examined 79 other articles about chronic pain in the musculoskeletal system (bones, muscles, tendons) was published in the April Issue of the European Journal of Pain.
It highlights that research surrounding chronic pain mostly focuses on things that make it worse, or trying to find possible causes.
We have loads of theories as to how chronic pain happens, but it's still an important aspect we need to investigate further. What we do know is that it's very, very complex, and very rarely can we put it down to one specific part of the body, or specific event.
This study instead looked at the positive factors that protect us from chronic pain, and can make us feel better.
And there is a lot of things to look at on the list!
Things that can make pain better include exercise, quality sleep, knowledge about pain, and motivation to make changes.
...where have we heard that before (other than from every health professional ever).
But the study also uncovered other aspects that we might not necessarily associate with body pain. Things like:
- Having a strong social circle
- Employment
- How in control of the pain you are
- How happy you are
- How you cope with things: do you power through, or do you save your energy
All these things can also improve your pain.
They very wonderfully have put together a great figure to help show all the things that can improve your physical health.
Yellow boxes mean that there is some pretty good studies done on the topic, and we can be reasonably sure it will help everyone.
Orange boxes mean they're just starting to study this, so these approaches might not work for everyone.
Have a look at these things - which one would you be able to try and work on to improve your pain?
Reference: Moore, B. (2026). Protection from Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain: A Scoping Review. European Journal of Pain, Apr 30(4).