Pain Science 101

Hi there! 👋

In my last email (check it out here if you missed it) I mentioned that I’d recently wrapped up taking a Pain Neuroscience Education course. One of the things that stood out to me was learning that pain thrives off of fear and that the more we understand about pain the less of a hold it has on us.

So, I thought a series of emails sharing pieces of what I learned might help you (or someone you know) because at some point we’ll all experience pain and if it’s a little less scary then I think we’re winning.

Alright, let’s dive into Pain Science 101.

Imagine this…

You get out of bed in the morning. You’re groggy and definitely not awake yet. And, you stub your toe, hard, on the bed frame.

You have immediate pain (and maybe a few choice words 🤬) and limp around for a bit. After a few minutes, the pain has mostly gone away and you carry on with your day.

So, what happened here that resulted in pain?

All throughout our body we have sensors (nerves) that send signals to our brain via our nervous system. In fact, we have 45 miles of nerves that connect our body! 🤯 That’s a pretty impressive highway system, huh?

All of our nerves have a bit of “electricity” coursing through them, even at rest they’re a little bit active.

When we have an input into our system (stubbing our toe), the activity of the nerves increase and if that activity reaches a certain threshold the nerves send a “danger” signal to our brain.

Once that “danger” signal reaches our brain, our brain processes it to determine if there is a threat to our safety or not. If it is a threat to our safety, our brain outputs pain and we act in accordance (limp, move our hand off the hot stove, etc).

In most cases, as our injury heals the activity in our nerves decreases and returns to normal resting levels and we no longer experience pain. Unfortunately, there are times that this decrease in nerve activation doesn’t happen and that can lead to long standing pain…a discussion for another time.

So, that’s the quick explanation, and tip of the iceberg, of how we experience pain.

I’d love to know what questions this brought up.

Send those Q’s my way!

Chat soon,

Bre

References

1. Louw A. Pain Neuroscience Education. Presented: Therapeutic Neuroscience Education at Evidence In Motion; January 2020. Online.

2. Louw, A. Why do I hurt? A patient book about the neuroscience of pain. Minneapolis, MN: OPTP; 2013.