07/11/2023
Your Body 101:
Pain:
“It’s all in your head”
Part 1 - the threshold.
Pain is your brains interpretation of an array of signals. So, it can only ever be in your head, and being in your head doesn’t mean it’s not real.
Your brain is constantly receiving signals from all over your body. The interpretation that you are experiencing pain depends on many different factors.
Your brain will ignore any input bellow a certain threshold.
For our example we will say your threshold is 50 on a scale of 1-100.
If the part of your brain that receives signals from your leg is receiving a signal of 40 your brain will ignore that and you will not feel leg pain.
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Now if your brain is also receiving an underlying signal from something like full body inflammation (let’s say it’s a 15) , this signal is very low so your brain doesn’t tell you about it and you feel fine.
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However….Your brain will add the 40 signal from your leg onto the 15 signal from your full body condition and because you are now above the threshold of 50 you will feel pain in your leg.
This is why living an active lifestyle (motion reduces inflammation) and eating a diet low in inflammation causing stuff like sugar can help with you pain levels.
There is soooo much more that influences pain, like the context of the pain and your emotional state.
The truth is it’s a confusing mess, even for people who study it.
So next time someone says “it’s all in your head” you can tell them:
“well, duh”
and relax because everyone’s experience with pain is different and nobody really knows what you are feeling but you.
Also, get a massage.
If you are near Bridgewater Nova Scotia, book an appointment :
Moderate to deep tissue massage therapy. Relaxation treatments that may not be a relaxing experience but the goal is to remove barriers to relaxation and healing, thereby allowing for greater relaxation and healing in the days following the treatment.