Chronic pain is learned by the brain and it’s reversible.

Chronic pain is neuroplastic meaning it’s caused by the brain in an erroneous attempt to protect us from danger.

The brain often misinterprets threats and overreacts by causing or prolonging pain when no danger is present.

When we experience chronic pain, our nervous system becomes stuck in fight-or-flight mode, triggering our body’s alarm in the form of physical symptoms.

I pulled resources from modern neuroscience to depict the chronic pain cycle.

To get rid of the pain you should treat the brain.

What causes pain to appear?

We frequently consider pain to be a direct indication of bodily damage. In reality, pain serves as an alarm system.

Our autonomic nervous systems produce symptoms in order to protect us.

Therefore, pain alerts us that we’re in danger and must change our behavior to avoid harm.

This means that you can feel pain without actually causing tissue damage. 

It also implies that if you sustain tissue damage that is not perceived as dangerous, it’s unlikely to cause pain.

Normally, when you have an injury, nerves send signals from the injured part of your body to your brain, informing it that there is a problem. These signals are interpreted as pain by the brain.

When someone suffers from chronic pain, the nerves that carry pain signals to the brain, or the brain itself, behave abnormally. The nerves could be overly sensitive, or the brain could be misinterpreting other signals as pain.

Neuroscience and pain

When I explain the chronic pain cycle to my clients, I emphasize one important point: the brain can generate pain in the absence of injury or after an injury has healed, and that pain can be unlearned.

Pain neuroscience education (PNE) is a method of teaching patients to reconsider their perceptions of pain.

Through pain neuroscience education, the client is set up to feel supported in managing their pain experience. 

It has been shown that PNE has positive effects in reducing pain, disability, and psychosocial problems, improving patient’s knowledge of pain mechanisms, facilitating movement and decreasing healthcare consumption.^[1]

If something hurts, why not just avoid it?

When there is no physical cause for the pain, the brain changes continue to send warning signals to restrict movement and let the body recover.

However, this signal is no longer wanted or needed. 

If the brain changes continue to send signals after the injury has healed, the result can be chronic pain.

I believe that many people have a legitimate fear that if they do something painful, they will injure their neck or back, and so on. 

The keys to resolving neuroplastic pain are recognizing that it’s not dangerous and reducing the fear and other emotions that keep our systems on high alert.

This is why it’s good to have someone who will teach you how to perceive pain signals sent to the brain as less threatening.

Retrain your brain from pain

Pain is a brain condition and learning how the environment of safety influences it is crucial for our body to stop alarming our brain.

When we start to view our pain as uncomfortable but non-threatening, our brains rewire the neural pathways that were generating the pain signals, and the pain goes away.

This is done by introducing new neural pathways through new behaviors, habits, responses, and language around pain.

Body-based approaches to pain reduction begin by bringing awareness to the state of the body, the sensory input that is coming in, and inviting curiosity and observation to those inputs.

You can retrain your brain with proper therapeutic attention, paving the way for physical pain relief. 

Methods such as education, writing, meditation, visualization, and cognitive behavioral therapy can successfully assist the brain in breaking the pain cycle.

Observing how your body reacts to these new practices can help you recognize your own ability to heal your symptoms through the body-mind connection.

With repetition, these practices become a resource and, eventually, a new nervous system habit.

Conclusion

Chronic pain is a mind-body phenomenon and by gaining knowledge, altering beliefs, thinking and feeling differently we can dramatically reduce the pain.

Because all pain is generated by the brain, it’s dependent on the brain’s fallible perception of danger.

It’s simply a brain’s response to emotional stimuli. 

Your brain is capable of breaking the chronic pain cycle.

With the right guidance, patience and consistency you can feel energetic, calm, and your focus can shift from pain and fear to self-love and joy.