Hello and welcome, I’m Sarah Gowans, remedial massage therapist at BlossomingMe. Today we’re doing a follow-up chat, about the chronic pain, that we were talking about last week.
I’m really grateful that you’re here. Unfortunately, we’re not actually face-to-face and, you know physically together, but this is the next best thing, virtually together. So know that I’m sending all my positive energy and thoughts, your direction, whether you’re suffering with chronic pain, anything else, or you just have a curiosity about health.
Welcome to BlossomingMe. We’re here to help you on your journey towards health, in your life. Whatever that looks like for you.
Where does chronic pain come from?
So, talking about chronic pain, if you are suffering with chronic pain, that means you’ve been in probably distress, certainly discomfort, and probably intense pain, over the last three months. Those warning messages that the brain is picking up from the body are still coming through nice and strong. Initially, they were really helpful, so that your body could protect itself from further damage to tissues, in whatever area might have been affected for you.
But let’s go back one step and talk about how that pain communication happens, from the body to the brain. So we’ve got neurons or nerve cells that communicate with each other, that link our body through the spine into our central nervous system. And these nerves communicate with each other via a chemical style of communication. So they send neurotransmitters, chemicals, from one neuron to the next. That’s how the messages go from your point of pain wherever that is on your body, your arm, for example, in your elbow, commonly in joints. Up through the arm, into the nervous system, and up into the complex receptor areas of the brain.
The neurotransmitters help bridge the gap that goes from one nerve to the other. The gap, called the synapse, goes from one nerve to the other. So one nerve is sending, and the other nerve is receiving the neurotransmitters. The nerves themselves don’t actually touch. The more neurotransmitters that are sent from one nerve to the other, the greater pain will be registered in our brain.
But why is the pain still here?
Often when you have chronic pain, not only are you receiving those neurotransmitters, and the corresponding messages from the nerves still, but the neurons, the nerve cells, are not desensitised, as often happens in our body. They are actually hypersensitive! Meaning that it takes less of these chemicals, the neurotransmitters, going from one nerve cell to the other, it takes less of them to stimulate this nerve cell and make it release the neurotransmitters, sending messages up to the brain.
The more neurotransmitters that you, get the sharper, the more intense the pain. So in this instance, the neurotransmitters are still coming through, and this nerve cell is now hypersensitive. So it takes less of the neurotransmitters to activate or stimulate it, for it to send the messages. So it’s sending more messages, more often, and frequently more intensely, because the nerve cell itself is hypersensitised.
Along with that, when we feel pain, we automatically try to protect ourselves. So if you have a pain in the elbow, in the arm somewhere, whether it’s chronic or acute the natural human tendency is to guard the muscles, to protect them. To not move as far, as intensely, or as quickly. So when you are guarding the muscles then you are restricting your range of movement. You are naturally restricting that level of movement, intensity of movement, range of movement, and so your muscles can then start to weaken and atrophy. And that can decrease the ability of your muscles to actually function so the functionality of your muscles can be decreased. That can stress you out.
So then there is a psychological element happening here, as well If you are limited for a long period of time in what your body is able to do that can start stressing you, and have other psychological effects. It can also lead to a lack of sleep, which can exacerbate the whole cycle. So this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Impacting you not only psychologically, but at your sympathetic nervous system level. So that whole fight, flight, freeze, response is activated.
You can get trapped in this cycle of pain, where the sympathetic nervous system is always activated, always on. When your sympathetic nervous system is activated, your body can’t heal, because it needs to be in the para-sympathetic mode, the rest and digest, or rest and repair mode in order to heal. So if it’s stuck in that sympathetic nervous system, fight, flight, freeze response, and that is stuck on, because you’re in that pain cycle, then you have the complication of your body finding it hard, in fact, near impossible, to actually heal itself.
So what can you do to actually help reduce that pain, and get your life back, get your sleep patterns back, and start to actually feel better? Start to feel like you again?
What 1 thing can you do today to start clearing your pain and improving your daily life?
There are a couple of things that can help to reduce the pain or make you feel like you’re more in charge of yourself.
One is getting an understanding of what triggers the pain for you. When is it that your muscles will automatically guard, and your body will go into that self-protection, fight, flight, freeze mode?
Having a journal what we call a “Trigger Journal” can be really impactful, and help you to get an understanding of what is going on in your body. When it is actually most likely to be triggered? What situations or events are most likely to send your body into that self-protection mode?
You don’t have necessarily any conscious control over that self-protection reaction. It is simply that, a reaction. So you want to be aware of when those times in your life are. In your day-to-day work, in your day-to-day life. Being with the kids, working at your job. Whatever it is that you do, if you are able to be proactive, and understand your body better, so that you can foresee when those times are likely to happen, you will feel much more in charge of your own life. So a Trigger Journal can be really really useful.
Another thing that can support you in working through this pain and help to settle your nervous system, so that you can start to move out of the fight, flight, freeze mode, and into the rest, digest, rest and repair part of the nervous system, is pacing your projects.
So setting a time limit. It could be an hour, it could be 20 minutes, it doesn’t matter. Do whatever it is that you need to do in the day, in 20 minutes slots, and take a really decent pause in between those pauses. It’s best if they are nurturing and nourishing for you.
The pauses can be things like simple deep breathing. Take a few deep breaths, and if you can breathe out for longer than you breathe in, that will start to calm and settle your nervous system. So a simple deep breath in, and out. You might like to count to three or four on your breath in, and one count longer when you breathe out.
Other nourishing and nurturing things can be going for a walk, particularly in nature. That can really ground you and be nourishing for your soul as well as your whole body and settle your nervous system.
As you’ve probably heard me talk about before, epsom salt baths can be great. Any sort of relaxation like that, meditation, visualisation, prayer. In particular the Epsom salt baths, I like, because the Magnesium can sink into your nerves, and help to settle your whole system at that chemical level.
These things can be really useful for you, to help nurture and nourish your body and help you manage your life so that your pain and your whole nervous system in particular, can settle. So that you can come out of the sympathetic part, and into the parasympathetic nervous system. Activating that, so that your body can begin to heal and repair itself.
So that you can better manage your pain, improve your sleep, settle your nervous system, support your circulation, increase your range of movement, improve your physical health, uplift your energy, and drastically lift your energy.
