Psychosomatic pain is real pain. Psychosomatic pain is not 'all in your head'. Psychosomatic pain is far more common than most of us realise. Psychosomatic pain is also very treatable when its underlying causes are identified and treated.
Many pain sufferers struggle to discern between what really causes their pain and what simply triggers their underlying pain issues. Triggers are always external forces and events, like bad sleep and awkward lifts. Whereas causes can be environmental, but are often internal challenges, like having a weak core, for example. The true causes of pain are always a very big and important deal. Pain triggers, on the other hand, are very helpful to know but often trivial in the grand scheme.
For most of human healthcare, we assumed that our symptoms were the problem. We have moved past that now to a large extent. For example: we know that the virus is the problem, not the green snot. Mucus is just a byproduct of healthy immune function. Prior to the microscope, we naturally assumed the redness and swelling of an infection was ‘the problem’. But since microscopes, we know our swelling is the body’s vital inflammatory response and the actual problem was an invasion of hostile microbes. Through this deepening of scientific understanding, we’ve moved past ‘symptom blaming’. Somewhat. Because we still very much do it with pain.
Emotions can have a profound effect on our physical health, especially when it comes to physical pain.
If you have stubborn pain in a muscle, joint, nerve or your soft tissues - it’s highly likely to be mechanical pain. Mechanical pain is caused by factors relating to movement. It is the body's way of alerting us when healthy movement patterns are lost within body parts for an extended period of time.
It can be a little hard to swallow, but one of the most surprising truths about the biology of pain is that pain itself doesn't happen in the body. Pain very much feels like it’s in the body, we can all agree on that, but it doesn’t mean that it is. Sensory perception and scientific truth often don’t line up too neatly.
On 10 June 1963, U.S. press based in Saigon were informed that 'something important' would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. They were unsettled times, so that in itself was certainly nothing unusual. But what followed created an emotional shock wave that was felt on a global scale.
Pain, swelling, stiffness – our bodies often have specific ways of telling us when something is wrong. And when they do, it isn't always clear what we should do about it. Among the options are two simple, time-honored techniques, cold, and heat therapy. Understanding the distinction between these therapies, when to use them, and how they work can help empower us to address the various types of pain effectively.
Pain is not a disorder or a disease. And our relationship with pain is virtually as ancient as life itself because pain is a major part of what keeps us safe and alive. There's no question that the underlying physical conditions which lead to chronic pain cause untold suffering. That should never ever be diminished or disregarded. But the pain itself is just the body's way of signalling a real or perceived threat to tissue integrity.
A person's pain threshold is essentially the amount of pain they are able to tolerate. And there are some surprising variables that determine our personal pain thresholds. There is a very good reason why understanding pain tolerance and pain thresholds is important for many pain sufferers, and that is the surprising fact that our ability to tolerate pain is closely linked to the likelihood we will suffer with chronic pain during our lifetime.