This week we will be taking a closer look at our over zealous pain system and its incredible capacity for learning.
Our pain system is indeed a fast learner, but what it learns does not always feel like it is aligned with our best interests. With prolonged exposure to pain, the brain learns not only to respond to danger messages from the spinal cord, but the brain can learn to respond to any sign of danger, anywhere, even to stored memories and experiences. The brain may be responding to very specific stressors or trauma to tissues, or it may equally be responding to a very vague and poorly defined/smudged stressor. An over protective brain can ultimately lead to chronic pain that is no longer helpful or informative.
Pain is a protective balancing act between perceived Danger and perceived Safety. When we understand this we can begin to navigate pain more successfully and become more comfortable doing so. Enjoy!
Your over protective pain system
The purpose of pain is protection. However, sometimes it becomes over-zealous. This is because – like all biological systems in the body – the pain system learns. So when you’ve lived with pain for a long time, your system will have become more effective and more protective of that body area.
When danger messages are sent from the danger detectors (nociceptors) in the tissues, they travel to the spinal cord.
When this happens repeatedly, the spinal cord learns to respond better and it amplifies the messages before forwarding them to the brain. This means the body becomes sensitive to, and overprotected against, changes in the tissue environment. This is especially true for mechanical stimuli, such as movement, stretch and pressure, and less so for heat, cold and chemical stimuli.
When the amplified messages reach the brain, the brain is more likely to produce pain. And, again over time, the brain also learns to become more efficient in producing pain and amplifies it.
When the brain changes to become more protective, the impact is much bigger because the brain doesn’t only respond to danger messages from the spinal cord; the brain can respond to any sign of danger, anywhere, even in stored memories and experiences.
We will have pain when our brains “weigh the world” and “decide” that there is more danger to the body than safety.
We will not have pain when our brains “weigh the world” and “decides” that there is more safety related to the body than danger.
The pain system provides a protective buffer that is big enough so as to stop an event from damaging tissue, but small enough to ensure pain is not triggered unnecessarily.
In a normal system, the buffer works almost 100% of the time – in a normal system we get pain but we don’t often get injury. The only situations in which the buffer does not work is when the event happens too fast (like a car accident) or too slow so that the body’s danger detectors are not activated (like a slow growing cancer).
Things are different when your brain has had sufficient exposure to pain to learn it well and create an overprotective pain buffer. In this scenario pain gets triggered way before your body is in danger, and even when you are doing the very things your body needs to do to recover. The pain information becomes less informative and less helpful. Next week we will learn how to retrain our brains and recover form this painful situation.
Start your journey to structural well being with a comprehensive 90 minute Adaptive Bodywork Session or make it a project with a 3, 6 or 12-series.
Together we’ll explore what’s holding you back.
Together, we’ll set you on a path to a more balanced and integrated life.
Removing Pain from the Human body by Adaptively Reconfiguring the Connective Tissue Support System…
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For more information visit us at: www.adaptivebodywork.com
Are you ready to get started?
Start your journey to structural well being with a comprehensive 90 minute Adaptive Bodywork Session or make it a project with a 3, 6 or 12-series.
Together we’ll explore what’s holding you back.
Together, we’ll set you on a path to a more balanced and integrated life.
3167 St-Catherine St., East
Montreal, Quebec, H1W 2C4, Canada
1-514-830-5444
info@adaptivebodywork.com
