UP

#upandsing T5 Heathrow Sat 25th June

Richmond Stace | The Pain CoachLeave a comment

Tomorrow is the 3rd #upandsing event at London Heathrow T5, so if you are working or passing through, come and see the show! There will be hundreds of singers once again, entertaining the passengers and staff at Terminal 5 from 1030 in the morning until 4pm. It’s a marathon sing song! And what better way to be uplifted than with music and singing.

The last two events in 2015 were both great fun days as well as opportunities to deliver the UP | understand pain messages. Chronic pain is one of the largest health burdens. The personal suffering and cost to society is enormous, yet many people do not realise this fact. Recent figures suggest over 40% of the population suffer pain beyond 3 months, a timeline that is deemed to be chronic. Whilst there is much more to it than a timeline, this figure demonstrates the enormity of the issue that needs addressing urgently.

One of the main contributing factors to this vast problem is the misunderstanding of pain in society. The UP campaign seeks to address this aspect by providing the latest information and thinking about pain. One of the reasons for raising money is to develop this website into a great resource for people across the world to access freely and learn both about pain but also what they can do to change their pain. Further, we are in the process of designing the best structure to apply for charity status so that we can fundraise to support important research and studies into pain so that understanding and treatment continues to advance.

Pain touches so many people across society. Pain is indiscriminate. It does not receive the attention or funding in proportion to the scale of the issue. So many conditions involve painful experiences and so many people experience pain without any serious condition, together making for the seismic impact that it has across the globe.

Please share and spread the word! Follow us on twitter @upandsing and see us on Facebook (a new page has been created today!). You will see picture and videos uploaded from tomorrow’s event, so you can share these with friends and colleagues, knowing that pain can and does change when you understand it and know what you can do.

UBER-M to overcome persistent pain

Richmond Stace | The Pain CoachLeave a comment

understand painPersisting pain pervades all aspects of life, thinking, feeling and doing. Pain affects decision making, with tendencies to avoid or sometimes overdo and lead to a flare up. This is very individual, and each person will have their stories to tell about fears, worries, beliefs and what they did.

The Pain Coach Programme gives the person knowledge about their pain and skills to make moment to moment decisions about what is best to think and do at any given moment. In effect, the Pain Coach is coaching the person to become their own coach! The person is with themselves at all times, and therefore needs the knowledge in order to make the best choice. And this choice is all about taking an action that takes you towards your vision of where you wish to be. Where you wish to be is in the answer to the question ‘why do I want to get better?’

One of the strategies I coach people with persistent pain is called UBER-M. Cheesy perhaps, but easily remembered. One of the first things we do in the Pain Coach Programme is to help the person understand their pain, this to reduce fear and increase engagement with what needs to be done to overcome pain. You cannot solve a problem unless you understand it. But it is not just telling the person about their pain, it must be a working knowledge that can be applied: what do I know, what can I do now that is wise and healthy? This is the ‘U’. And below are the others:

U – understand your pain

B – breathe (mindfulness, relaxation)

E – exercises (general exercise, specific exercises & training)

R – recharge (we need to have enough energy to engage with the programme, with others, at work etc)

M – movement is congruent with health, but you need to develop confidence to move

For more information Pain Coach | Specialist Pain Physio Clinics London | Richmond Stace

What’s next for UP?

Richmond Stace | The Pain CoachLeave a comment

singforpainAfter today’s huge success once again, we know that we are on the right path. The support from the members of Rock Choir and the public was incredible, demonstrating that people recognise the scale of the problem. They also acknowledged that the situation is changeable, and we will certainly be driving this change with both our messages at events and with the Pain Coach seminars. Pain Coach is an approach to persisting pain that incorporates the latest pain sciences, the latest thinking in pain and strengths based coaching for successfully overcoming pain and resuming a meaningful life — watch out for the dates. This is all about the individual understanding their pain and knowing what action to take at any given moment to take them towards the life they envision.

singforpainHere are our immediate objectives that we are now working upon:

  • Achieving charity status
  • Pain Coach seminars for people suffering persisting pain and their carers
  • Pain Coach seminars for clinicians and others who need to understand pain (e.g. lawyers, human resources, occupational health, managers within business)
  • The next events that will always include music and song; simply because it makes us feel great!!

Party time with upandsingOur aim is to develop and mature UP, widening our net gradually as we support and educate society about pain and how we can go about changing and overcoming pain. If you would like to help us grow, please do get in touch: upandsing@gmail.com

We will announce Pain Coach dates and the next event very soon. Please tell your friends and colleagues about us and ask them to join our journey — a fun way of delivering a serious message and taking definite action.

We look forward to seeing you at the next event!

What a day!

Richmond Stace | The Pain CoachLeave a comment

upandsingWe had a fantastic day at T5 London Heathrow today with around 800 Rock Choir members singing out for UP. There were some memorable moments as favourite songs were performed to passengers and staff as they walked through the corridor of melody between the opposing choirs, including a rugby team and a school tour, both of whom joined the spirit of the occasion. Here are some clips from the today:

UP in the news

Richmond Stace | The Pain CoachLeave a comment

UPYesterday The Basingstoke Gazette published an article about the UP event tomorrow at Heathrow (Sat 24th October 2015). We are very excited about this second huge sing-song as the members of Rock Choir get ready to belt out the tunes all day at T5, London Heathrow. We will be filing the event and sharing the footage after the event, so you won’t miss out on the fun.

Read the article here

CRPS UK Conference November 2015

Richmond Stace | The Pain CoachLeave a comment
CRPS UK Conference 2015
CRPS UK Conference 2015

Here’s a quick reminder about the CRPS UK Conference that is coming up on 14th November in Bath, when there will be some fascinating talks from leaders in the field — see the flyer for details and booking.

I will be discussing practical elements of blending pain science and philosophical thought within a coaching model, a concept that I term ‘Pain Coach’, accompanied by Georgie from UP and Jo Moffitt who will both be sharing their experiences of CRPS. Our session aims to show you how we can go about changing pain and resuming a meaningful life with the right thinking and action, based on understanding pain.

The CRPS UK conference will be on the back of our next UP event, which is on Saturday at T5 London Heathrow, where an even bigger choir will be singing out all day to raise awareness of the problem of pain. We will be filming the event and putting out the footage so that you can enjoy the music — music being such an uplifter.

CRPS UK Conference | November 2015

Richmond Stace | The Pain CoachLeave a comment

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I was very pleased to be asked to speak at the CRPS UK Conference this year (see flyer for information). A few years ago I went to the conference and gave a talk about some of the latest approaches to treating CRPS, and since then there has been further progression in both thought and action. I will be looking at these developments as well as sharing the stage with Georgie who will be telling her story.

Those familiar with the UP mission will know that we are delivering messages about pain based on fact and science, illustrated by people’s lived experiences that demonstrate how individuals can move forward and live meaningful lives by understanding their pain and knowing what they can do at any given moment.

One of the problems with treatment and ‘sessions’ with healthcare professionals is that the actual face to face is limited in comparison to the rest of the time. Hence the individual must develop their knowledge and skills so that at any moment they can make a clear decision about the best course of action in terms of how they think and what they do. Arising as a solution to this problem, I developed Pain Coach, which is not only about coaching the individual in pain but also guiding them to become their own coach. This is a blend of the latest neuroscience, thinking in pain and a strengths based coaching model — we all have strengths and values that we have used in our lives, and we can use these for success with our painful problems as well.

The CRPS UK conference will be off the back of the UP event at Heathrow in October, so we shall be full of beans! UP uses singing and music to deliver our messages, but I leave that to Georgie and her choirs — I will not be subjecting you to my tones!

Hope to see you there!

Pain Articles & Blog

Richmond Stace | The Pain CoachLeave a comment
Richmond Stace | Specialist Pain Physio & Pain Coach
Richmond Stace | Specialist Pain Physio & Pain Coach

Richmond has published some pain related articles in recent time in addition to the regular blogs. The links to all are below:

Specialist Pain Physio Blog

Functional Pain Syndromes | In Touch Autumn Edition 152 (2015)

Whiplash review 2015 (Bone & Joint 360, 2015)

Shoulder Pain (Manual Therapy, 2013)

 

2nd UP event 24th October 2015

Richmond Stace | The Pain CoachLeave a comment

UP HeathrowAt UP | Understand Pain we are really excited to have our second event following the enormous success of the launch in March. We had hundreds of choir members from Rock Choir, singing out for UP at Heathrow where passengers and staff enjoyed the entertainment at Terminal 5. This time we are going bigger and better with more choirs and a non-stop sing-a-thon, the only breaks being brief talks about UP, what we are doing and why.

UP was formed by Georgie and Richmond earlier this year to raise the awareness of the huge problem of pain (back pain is the number one global health burden; in the top 10 of global health burdens we have back pain, neck pain, osteoarthritis and headaches), and that there is plenty that we can do to change and overcome pain, this to resume a meaningful life as exemplified by Georgie herself and many others.

One of the biggest problems regarding pain that we face as a society, is the misunderstanding of pain itself. It is still thought of and treated as if the body structures are to blame, i.e. where the pain resides is where the issue exists and where treatment must be directed. Pain science has been telling us for years, since Pat Wall and Ron Melzack shifted our thinking, that there is much more to consider as the biology exists elsewhere in the main. The latest thinking blends science and philosophy to consider pain as a whole person, lived experience — e.g. in the case of back pain, it is the person who feels pain, not the back; much like hunger, it is the person who feels hungry and not their stomach.

Our current priorities are:

  1. To achieve charity status — this will afford us opportunities for fundraising and other benefits of being a charity. We have had numerous offers from people who wish to run to raise money. We will support people who wish to fundraise with information and t-shirts
  2. To develop the website and social media presence
  3. Start the Pain Coach workshops* with the monies raised so far and from the next event.

* more information to follow on Pain Coach workshops.

If you are travelling through Terminal 5 or work at the Terminal, come and see us and show your support!! If not, don’t worry as we are filming the event so that the World can see the performances and hear our messages.

Onwards and UPwards….. please spread the word and ‘like us’ on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @upandsing