The medical world is full of treatments to help you feel better. They have ample research showing both significant benefits and minimal risks aside from the same overuse danger that comes with anything. They’re also all demonstrated to be far less risky than the pharmaceutical treatments that have become the default in recent years.

That same research is also notable because it shows significant results in an individual’s subjective self-report of feeling better in their day-to-day life, but very minimal evidence of any of the below-the-surface physiological changes that could create more substantive and longer-lasting benefits.

This creates a mentality in health care providers that you as a patient should not pursue these “short-term” and “feel-good” interventions and instead focus on the smaller subset of treatments that have shown the desired long-term results.

Feeling good feels good, plain and simple. Telling you not to do something that improves your quality of life is equivalent to telling you not to feel better. Nothing is gained from choosing to suffer a lower quality of life right now because the improvement won’t last long term.

Most treatments that produce a more long-lasting benefit involve larger-scale changes that take time and consistent application. Focusing on that instead of feeling good can leave you frustrated when you’re neither feeling better nor making noticeable progress toward the long-term goal.

The two work together. You engage in treatments that allow your body to feel better in the short term so that you can enjoy your daily life more and feel better about doing the treatments that will get you long-term results. Over time, incorporating the treatments that produce long-term benefits will allow you to be less reliant on the treatments providing short-term benefits so that they can have a more functional role in your life on an “as-needed” basis.