Pain: Is it All in Your Head?

ABBIE STILLMAN

The Paw Print

You cut your finger, you break your arm, or maybe twist your ankle and the more you think about it, the more it hurts. Then you watch a show, a movie, start thinking about anything else and all of the sudden, you forget about how much pain you are in. So the pain just magically disappeared because you were not thinking about it? “Neuroscience is illustrating for the world, that perhaps pain is more bio-psychological than we had previously thought. In fact, pain is more in your head than you ever realized.”

Not only do we experience pain but we experience various types of pain. There is the pain of a broken heart, physical pain, and the pain of the loss of a loved one, all of which can be excruciating. The difference is how your neurons interpret the pain associated with the stimuli. American Associates of Suicidology’s founder Edwin S. Shneidman and PhD has explained that the majority of pain has its roots in the body’s need for help.  “Dr. Shneidman goes on to say that the sensation of pain is a combination of physiological processes and psychological needs.”

It makes sense, when you are concentrating on pain, whatever the pain may be, it can be the most awful thing in the world at the moment. Then you think about wherever else you would rather be or that special someone, you think about anything other than what is hurting and your pain is gone. You forget you are even in pain; until you think about it again. Your childhood experiences also play in quite a bit. You have experienced pain before so you know what hurts you and what does not. Suppose you broke a bone falling out of a tree, you know what the pain feels like, so it is not as bad when you break another bone partaking in a sport. Those who have experienced depression or intense sadness a few times before know how to deal with it because they have the experience. You start to know what works best for you on how to deal with said pain.

According to Dr. Shneidman, there are two types of pain, peripheral sensitization and central sensitization. Peripheral deals with inflammation or damage to the bodily tissue. Central sensitization pain can manifest without tissue damage. This pain last much longer and turns into chronic pain. What happens is that your neurons become more excited more easily resulting in long lasting pain. “Dr. Frank explained to me that the majority of his (Fibromyalgia) patients that come complaining of chronic stress usually begins with a life story.” Whereas with athletes, they get hurt in instants and they are able to immediately pinpoint the pain, what it feels like how the incident leading to it. Those with Fibromyalgia and other chronic pain are suffering from painful events in their life or enduring long lasting depressions. For more information about this matter, visit this website http://ptjournal.apta.org/content/91/5/700.long.