Understanding Pain - Pt. 1

Pain is not something we learn a lot about when we’re growing up, except that we don’t like it, we see others curse it, wish it away, see it as a problem, often an enemy, as an affliction, something being forced upon them from some external place. We learn to be afraid of it, rather than taught to understand it.

I remember as a child, the pain of sore throats and ear infections, cuts, scrapes, the loss of skin on knees and knuckles in hockey matches; the pain of a broken nose in cricket – all of these physical injuries or illnesses, infections and the like.

I was riding in a taxi recently whilst interstate teaching and said to the driver who had asked the reason for my visit that I was running a workshop on “pain”. After a pause, she said, now there’s something I hate. This said a lot for me. It’s our relationship with pain that is so important in being able to change it.

If you hate it, you reject it and then it’s hard to understand it and heed the message it is offering.

I appreciate now that there are many contributions to pain and that pain has a purpose. It is not the enemy, and although it is unpleasant, it is very unpleasant for a reason, because it is a message about a problem. It is essentially a message from myself to myself, and if I listen to the message and understand it I may be able to grow, heal, prevent recurrence of the pain and often times prevent further illness and even death.

Pain is part of our survival armory; it is like an alarm system, a response to perceived, actual or potential danger.

Pain is unpleasant – and is so for a good reason. We’re meant to pay attention to it. If it weren’t so uncomfortable, we wouldn’t pay attention to it.

I have come to learn also that pain does not exist in the tissues of the body. Although I feel that pain is in my thumb when I hit it with a hammer, it is not. It is in my brain. It is created there by centres of the brain that have interpreted messages coming via the nervous system, from the squashed tissues in my thumb.

Pain exists in the brain and is part of a much broader response to the perception of danger to the tissues of my body. These include:

·       Tension, which might be splint to protect an area of the body that has been damaged

·       The sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which drives the fight and flight responses through the body including chemical responses that kick start inflammation and healing pathways.

It is these neural and chemical interconnecting message systems between mind and body that mean that I can no longer allow myself to perceive that the mind and body are separate

Pain is an experience; it involves sensation, memory, and emotion and is unique and subjective to each individual.

Say I apply a light pressure to my thumb, a message is sent by a mechanically compressed nerve ending (well many lightly compressed nerve endings to be honest), to my spinal cord and then on up into my brain where it travels to many centres including the somato-sensory cortex, at the top of the brain. This is where the map of the body exists in the brain. This is how I know that it is a pressure applied to my thumb and not my big toe.

If I were a soldier, and had gone to war, and were involved in a skirmish and got shrapnel in my hand which got infected and had to be amputated I could years later still feel pain in my hand that no longer existed because the messages were still moving between these centres of the brain. This phenomenon is known as phantom limb syndrome, and proves again that pain is not in the tissues.

To be continued in “Understanding Pain – Pt. 2”

Written by Adam Cootes of Arising Self

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Two Parts of You.

Your body and your mind are one, two-parts of the one YOU. This might not be news to you, but even if it isn’t news to you, you may not still be living as though they are one. You may still blame or reject your body when it is unwell or when it is in pain.

Un-wellness and pain are messages from the body to your conscious mind, messages from one part of yourself to another part of yourself. They are messages about problems. How often do you pause to listen, to enquire, and seek to understand what the messages are about?

One of the communication systems that connect the mind and body is the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The ANS has two main arms: The Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS). The SNS is our “Fight and Flight” nervous system, and the PNS is our “Rest, Digest and Repair” nervous system.

The SNS is responsible for quick responses to threat and danger. It is the system that stimulates, that creates alertness. It is our stress response system.

These two-systems can’t both be running fully at the same time. When the SNS is on-line, the PNS is off-line. Because most of us lead busy, overstimulated fast paced lives with little focus on rest and relaxation and plenty of focus on stress, trying to keep up, keep on top, stay in control and prove ourselves our SNS is hogging the airwaves.

When this happens, our immune systems become suppressed, our digestive function becomes compromised, there is a rise in inflammation in the body, and biochemical imbalance occurs. All of which drive illness and pain.

If we want to be healthy, we have to look at our lifestyles, the choices we make, the ways in which we push ourselves, and the beliefs and stories we operate our lives by.

Slow down, be kind to yourself and learn to say no. What’s the worse thing that could happen if you do? You might be healthier, happier and more at peace.

Written by Adam Cootes, Arising Self - http://arisingself.com 

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