Dr Anna Redmond

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San Diego, CA
Dr Anna Redmond

Learn my Anti-Threat system to conquer pain and thrive 👇🏼

https://drannaredmond.com/guide It is becoming a roadblock to your ambition.

You are a highly motivated woman living with persistent musculoskeletal pain. Like so many women, your pain is becoming more sensitive, widespread, and impactful in each moment. To everything that once held meaning for you. You’ve been let down by the medical model. You’re frustrated by your progress, despite investing so much time and energy into your health. You’ve even wondered if it’s time to just accept the mediocre results you’ve had. Whether cycling between under-active and fearful, overactive and crashing, or generally feeling held back from living the life you want, there is a place for you here. Pain doesn’t have to be in charge of your life. I believe there is another way. Here, you will learn things that no one has taught you about your pain. You will learn to understand and desensitize your body so that you can feel safe in it again. Your everyday experiences can change your brain - to work for you or against you. We call this “neuroplasticity”, and it’s your brain’s ability to adapt and respond to your environment. With pain experiences, neuroplasticity can work against you by turning up the volume on your pain. Using positive aspects of neuroplasticity, you will learn powerful methods to reorganize the nervous system’s response to pain, finding healing with everyday experiences. Once you are looking at pain through a fresh, new lens, you will begin to build forward momentum, get back to being productive, and reduce the noise of pain. You’ll have the space to enjoy the life you have designed for yourself. I help goal-driven women living with chronic pain to stop fighting with their body and design a life that is bigger than their pain. With over a decade of experience, I’ve specialized in working with patients suffering from long-standing pain and the physical impact of stress on their bodies. Together, we approach pain educationally from all angles - personal, physical, behavioral. We start with small changes that add up to big goals, and we reconceptualize everything you think you know about pain. You may feel like you’ve tried everything and have heard it all before, but you CAN learn a new way of thinking about pain. My education provides daily opportunities to retrain the nervous system to respond in a different way. It goes far beyond stretching and positive thinking. It works by changing how your brain responds to pain - and that changes everything. With small changes, we can see the emergence of a new level of confidence, stamina, and thoughtful awareness in your everyday life. After learning from me, you’ll walk away with new, powerfully effective skills for long-term wellness, so that you can take back control of your time and intentionally create the life you’ve been craving. Welcome to the community of action takers who refuse to let pain rule their life.

02/04/2026

Recovery is rhythmic, not forceful.

Most people with persistent pain try to improve the same way they’ve succeeded in other parts of life: more effort, more intensity, more discipline.

That works for skill building.

It often fails for nervous system-driven pain.

Because the pain system is not trained by force.

It is trained by repeated signals of safety and predictability.

This is why I often see this pattern:

Someone has a “good day” and does extra - longer walk, full workout, catches up on everything.

The next day they flare and assume they set themselves back.

It’s not weakness.

It’s a system that reads spikes in demand as threat and turns protection back up.

Research in pain neuroscience, central sensitization, and graded exposure shows that tolerance improves most reliably through gradual, repeatable, low-threat exposure, not intensity bursts.

In real life that looks like:

• stopping before overload instead of after
• repeating doable amounts instead of testing limits
• building routine before increasing challenge
• valuing steadiness over hero days

Force teaches the system to guard.

Rhythm teaches the system it’s safe.

If you want the step-by-step framework I use with clients to build this, start with the free guide and video linked in my bio.

pacingforpain
neuroplasticity
mindbodymedicine
persistentpain
chronicpaineducation
womenwithchronicpain
stressandpain

01/28/2026

Most people learn about chronic pain through a biomedical lens:

injury → damage → fix the tissue.

The biopsychosocial model expands this.

Pain is influenced by biology, psychology, and social context.

But here is the part most explanations stop short of:

Your nervous system is constantly asking one question:

“Am I safe?”

When stress, pressure, perfectionism, trauma, unpredictability, or high expectations are present, the system interprets them as threat.

Threat increases sensitivity.
Sensitivity increases pain persistence.

This is why someone can have a clear MRI and still experience severe pain.

This is why pushing harder often backfires.

This is why rest alone is not enough.

In practice, with clients, this looks like:

• Reducing unpredictable demands
• Building consistent rhythms in movement and work
• Shifting internal pressure and self-talk
• Increasing signals of safety through pacing, support, and meaning

Not less life.
Not more meds, appointments, and procedures with nothing else.

More sustainable life.

If you want a deeper walkthrough of how this model applies to recovery (and what to do next), my guide is linked in bio.

neuroplasticity
chronicpaineducation
painretraining
womenwithchronicpain
somatichealing
painresearch
healthpsychology
functionalhealing
painrecoveryjourney

01/22/2026

Pacing is often misunderstood as doing less, pulling back, or restricting your life.

It seems like it’s not doable for anyone trying to get through the things they need to do.

And that framing completely misses the point.

Pacing is actually about aligning activity with how the nervous system actually adapts.

Not through intensity or short bursts of effort, but through predictable, sustainable patterns the system can trust.

When pacing is treated as restriction, people tend to:
• underdo on hard days
• overdo on better ones
• monitor constantly
• swing between hope and frustration

That pattern keeps the nervous system in a state of vigilance.

Effective pacing looks different:
• activity is consistent rather than heroic
• rest is planned instead of reactive
• decisions are guided by capacity, not pressure
• the body receives steady signals instead of mixed ones

Over time, that predictability reduces threat.
Reduced threat allows the system to stand down.

That is when pain patterns often begin to change.

This is the framework I walk clients through when “doing less” hasn’t helped and “pushing through” has backfired.

If you want a clearer explanation of how this works and how I apply it in practice, you can start with my free guide - comment “guide” or the link is in my bio.

pacingnotpushing
stressandpain
somatichealing
neuroplasticity
healingwithoutforcing

01/16/2026

In pain science and behavior change research, the nervous system does not recalibrate through intensity or willpower.
�It changes through repeated, predictable signals of safety.

Pressure based approaches like pushing harder, being stricter, or trying to do it right this time often increase vigilance in the nervous system. That vigilance can amplify pain, fatigue, and symptom flares, even when tissue has healed or stabilized.

This is what I see in my sessions with clients.

When people rely on pressure, their days often look like:
• overdoing on good days
• crashing on harder ones
• constantly monitoring symptoms
• feeling behind or frustrated when the body does not cooperate.

When we shift toward rhythm, the work changes:
• movement becomes regular instead of heroic
• rest is planned instead of reactive
• expectations match capacity rather than ideals
• the nervous system receives steady signals instead of mixed ones.

Over time, reduced threat allows the system to stand down.
�That is often when pain patterns begin to change.

This is not about doing less forever.�It is about doing things in a way the nervous system can actually integrate, day after day.

This is the lens I use with clients who feel stuck despite trying everything.
�Not more pressure.�Better signals.

If this reframes how you think about effort or pain, save this post!

And if someone you care about keeps pushing through symptoms, share it with them❤️.

Thank you for showing up here today!

chronicpainrecovery
somatichealing
stressandpain
psychologyofpain
neuroplasticity
healingwithoutforcing

01/08/2026

I don’t believe the year starts on January 1st.

I believe a gentler start happens after your nervous system has had a chance to land.

Every year, people begin with good intentions:
more structure, better habits, a renewed commitment to feeling better.

And then a few weeks in, they feel more tired.
More achy.
More overwhelmed.

So they stop. Not because they don’t care, but because the effort starts to feel like it isn’t worth the cost.

That pattern isn’t a motivation problem.

It’s a pressure problem.

If pain is part of your life, January pressure doesn’t help.
It adds threat… and pain responds to threat.

By threat, I don’t mean danger or damage.

I mean internal signals that tell the nervous system something is at stake:

Urgency, self-criticism, pushing through, or feeling like you’re already behind (am I warm yet??).

When those signals stay high, the nervous system stays protective, which shows up as tension, sensitivity, flare-ups, and symptoms that don’t fully settle.

That’s not weakness.
That’s biology 🧠

This is one of the highest-impact pieces of pain recovery, and it’s the thread I’ll keep returning to - not just this year, but all the way through 2027.

Your first assignment drops next Thursday.
For now, all you have to do is show up here.

If this resonates, follow along .

And if someone else comes to mind who gets stuck in this same cycle, share it with them - this work is easier when you’re not doing it alone. 🌿

persistentpain
paineducation
psychologyofpain
traumainformed
womeninhealth

01/05/2026

I know as women that we are always telling ourselves that we just need to:

- try harder
- be more disciplined
- just manage better

And if you’re doing this AND living with chronic pain, I think you should know that chronic pain isn’t a personal failure.

But this internal voice that drives us to be better, also keeps pain active.

The nervous system doesn’t respond to effort the way muscles do.

It responds to perceived danger.

For many capable, responsible women, pressure becomes the signal.

Trying harder = staying on high alert.

This is why pain can escalate even when you’re doing everything “right.”

And why rest, pacing, and symptom management only help up to a point.

Sustainable change starts when the threat response is reduced (not when effort increases).

The guide in my bio explains this framework in depth.

This is not for people looking for quick relief, reassurance, or another strategy to push through.

This work is for people ready to understand why their pain persists and change their relationship with their body- long term.

12/20/2025

Pain isn’t stubborn.
It’s protective.

Persistent pain is often maintained by learned protective patterns: pressure, efforting, self-monitoring, perfectionism, internal language, pacing mismatches.

Some of these patterns formed long before pain ever showed up.

Others developed because pain did — as rational attempts to manage it, suppress it, or keep life moving.

All of them make sense.

The problem isn’t that these strategies exist.

It’s that over time, protection can turn into constant effort.

Over time, the nervous system stays overly protective... even when the body is safe.

That’s when pain can become persistent.

My work focuses on identifying these patterns, understanding why they developed (before pain or because of it), recalibrating safety versus threat, and restoring function without pressure.

No forcing.
No fixing yourself.
Just understanding first - because that’s when change actually holds.

If you’re new here, welcome! Start with my pinned posts or head over to the link in my bio to learn more about my approach!

11/01/2025

You’ve tried everything — doctors, PT, wellness hacks, mindset work.
And yet relief never sticks.

Instead of feeling better, you’re left exhausted, ashamed, and wondering if maybe it’s you that’s broken.

And the advice? “Try harder. Stay positive.”
That is not recovery. That is burnout. 😔

I’m Dr. Anna Redmond, psychologist and chronic pain coach.
I help women finally break free from the cycle of chasing fixes.

My evidence-based, compassionate approach blends pain science, psychology, and practical strategies that actually fit your life. 💡

Recovery should not feel like another job.
It should feel like getting your life back. 🌿

👉 Follow for weekly posts that make pain science simple, relatable, and actionable.

10/30/2025

Have you ever walked out of a doctor’s office feeling smaller, more fragile, or convinced your body is broken? You are not imagining it. Words matter.

Fear-filled phrases like degeneration, damage, or incurable spike your nervous system into threat mode and make recovery harder.

Here is the shift. Language can also build safety, capacity, and hope.

Advocacy is not confrontation. It is clarity. You can speak up without being difficult or dismissed.

Try this.
✨ Could we use language that emphasizes safety and building capacity

This simple shift rewires your nervous system toward trust, confidence, and healing. You deserve more than symptom management. You deserve care that sees your whole story.

🌿 Ready to reclaim your energy, confidence, and joy? My Breaking Through Pain Membership helps women make this shift real with strategies that actually work.

💬 Comment MEMBERSHIP and I will send you all the details.

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https://drannaredmond.com/pain

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