Weird but true
We have all experienced pain at some point in our lives and is often the result of injury or illness. What most of us don’t know however is just how weird pain really is.
Research from lots of different scientists has now proven that it is not the body but the brain that produces pain. In the words of one well known scientist Lorimor Moseley ‘the brain gives you as much pain as it thinks you need’. Now that’s weird.
So how does pain work and why does stuff hurt? Following an injury, nerves in the pain system send a danger message from the area of injury to the brain. This message may be ‘Look out there’s a problem’ or simply ‘help danger’. It is not a pain message. We only feel pain when the brain receives this message from the body and interprets it. The brain decides how much danger it thinks you are in and then produces as much pain as it thinks you need.
Mostly this is caused by an injury and acts as a warning to rest and so stops us causing more damage. The pain generally goes as the injury heals and we become more active again. This type of pain is called acute pain and is helpful to us.
Unhelpful or Persistent Pain
Sometimes the nerves in the body continue to send danger messages to the brain even when the injury has healed. This message is wrong as there in no longer an injury. This is called central sensitization. The brain continues to respond to these messages thinking it is in danger and so continues to produce pain.
Stress and Pain
It is now well understood that stress increases pain and keeps it turned on when it would otherwise switch off. It is therefore important to reduce stress levels to reduce pain.
Hypnosis has been effective in treating all kinds of painful conditions such as :
Irritable bowel syndrome
Here at MTC hypnotherapy we use a 3 step approach to help you manage pain.
Step 1 – Explain why things hurt
Step 2 – Explain what you can do about it.
Step 3 – Help you start doing it.
Hypnosis encourages a healthy, proactive and empowering strategy for managing pain. In addition, because we are also fully qualified Chartered Physiotherapists with many years of experience treating people with varied painful conditions we are also able to provide advice, treatment and exercise programmes to compliment the hypnotherapy
Your initial assessment is free and all treatments are backed up with a free CD to help maintain and support the progress that you make.