Sidebar into a bit of our current understanding of pain…..

Did you know that 100% of pain is an output from your nervous system? Pain is not transmitted from your body to the brain, but rather the other way around.

Pain is defined as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage” by the IASP (International Association for the Study of Pain).

It’s a hierarchy of when the brain decides something is important enough to warrant your attention. That trigger can be a perceived or actual threat. Simply put, it’s a protective mechanism. Although there are triggers, you may or may not have pain related to those triggers. 

Here’s an example: If you step on a nail, there is actual local damage that needs to be addressed. However, if right at that very moment you are about to be hit by a bus, I promise you won’t feel that nail. You’ll run or jump out of the way. THEN you might feel the pain related to your foot. If the pain came from the foot, you’d feel it right away. But you don’t – the brain decides when to send the message that this is going to hurt. 

This is exciting stuff! Why? Because the brain and nervous system can make changes in your body – AND in pain levels – faster than anything else.