Is the Pain All in Your Head?

I can't think of a more common symptom to which people seek medical care other than the dreaded feeling of pain. Setting aside the obvious reasons as to why pain does not make for the best of days, I want to share some interesting information on pain perception. Hear me out on this one.

Our basic understanding of pain is such that it is our body's way of telling us something is wrong, right? Many of you probably believe the feeling of pain is mutually exclusive to tissue damage. If you, while walking with an abnormally large pile of folded laundry, bump your hip into the side corner of your dresser (ok, well maybe thats just me...) your hip hurts right? Thats where we're fooled.

When you stub your toe or bump into something, it may feel as though the pain is in the specific location of injury. But, it is really in your brain. Information from our sensory nerves are constantly filtered by the brain and this very process determines our pain perception.

The brain has the capacity to either "turn up the volume" on the pain information coming in or turn it down and pay less attention to it.

To better understand this concept, think of an injured soldier who despite multiple injuries, keeps on fighting. Or, think of the football player who discovers a broken ankle well after the game has ended. Obviously in these instances, there is indeed tissue damage. It is also likely there was some kind of "sense" that something was wrong, but there was no pain.

So, if you are feeling anxious about receiving treatment for say, an injection for back pain; the brain will process this information as an indication of danger and it will (Yep, you guessed it.) increase pain.

In many chronic conditions, persisting pain creates changes in the brain and central nervous system resulting in a neural system that has become increasingly sensitized. This means that the relationship between pain and tissue damage becomes weakened and far less predictable.

Researchers from Brown Universtity monitored the brain waves of a group of people who were asked to direct their focus to their hand or to their foot. During the experiment, scientists delivered a light tap to each person of the foot group's finger and to each person of the hand group's toe. Findings were expected: Low frequency rhythms increased in the brain area that responds to pain sensations in the area participants were asked to ignore. It is these low-frequency rhythms that "block" the information about pain.

So, even though it's easy to succumb to the dreadful feeling, you are the one in the driver's seat. With practice, you just may be able to teach your brain how to filter out pain through mindfulness meditation and guided imagery.

Congrats to those who made it through reading this post pain free!

Source: Medical Information Pro