Yay! I can reduce my pain just by thinking about something else :D Using mental distraction to blank out the pain signals can work well for dealing with low to medium strong chronic pain.
Following an interesting twitterstream, playing video games, chatting online, reading, participating in online forums or solving sudoku puzzles. It's all good mental distraction, drawing your attention away from the pain and easing the pain experience.
In using mental distraction for pain management it's good to have a variety of activities to choose from, some work well when you have low pain, but have to be abandoned over level 5. Some work well at any time.
With mild pain I can usually engage in forums and social media online, I can read quite complicated books and articles, plan projects and come up with good ideas. The stronger the pain, the more passive I need to be because I have less energy to focus, but I can still draw, play games, solve sudoku puzzles or crosswords, read, watch TV or movies, listen to audio tapes or radio.
Practicing cognitive training of any kind that improves concentration might make this easier and give greater pain relieving effect. Meditation is widely used for pain management.
NB: Of course distraction is a technique for chronic pain, i.e pain that you have regularly and know the reason for. New or acute pain should always be examined!
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