IN-PERSON WORKSHOP: Creating a Practical Lifestyle Medicine Toolkit for Chronic Pain Management

Workshop Description: This immersive and interactive ACLM workshop equips interprofessional healthcare, wellness, and fitness professionals with practical, evidence-based lifestyle medicine strategies for the prevention and management of chronic pain. Through hands-on experiential labs, participants explore movement, stress regulation, nutrition, sleep, social connection, and behavior-change interventions designed to address persistent pain while reducing functional decline and improving quality of life.

Chronic pain is a leading driver of disability, healthcare utilization, and diminished well-being. Grounded in the six pillars of lifestyle medicine, this session emphasizes scalable, nonpharmacologic, whole-person approaches that can be integrated into clinical care and community-based settings. Participants will learn how to move beyond symptom suppression toward root-cause, systems-informed strategies that improve function and resilience.

Attendees engage in applied practices including tai chi, qigong, yoga, functional fitness, mindfulness-based stress regulation, mindful eating, expressive and nature-based therapies, and posture variability strategies that support musculoskeletal health. Emphasis is placed on restoring movement confidence, regulating the stress response, improving recovery, and empowering sustainable behavior change.

Participants leave with a practical, cost-conscious toolkit to support chronic pain management across diverse care settings.