The Relentless Grip of Chronic Pain
Chronic pain is a complex problem. It can disrupt your daily activities, steal your focus, and leave you feeling helpless. Imagine a world where you could take back control and manage pain more effectively. This world exists, it’s here, you can learn to leverage the incredible power of your own mind. This is where self hypnosis steps in. Join me for a bit of a deeper dive into the nature of pain and the power of the mind.
Science Behind the Power: Self Hypnosis and Chronic Pain Management
Did you know that pain management is one of the areas where research shows self hypnosis to have the most impressive results? It’s all thanks to the fascinating science of the mind-body connection. The mind and body are intricately linked. As much as the problem of pain causes us to feel miserable and generally inserts negatives into our lives, this is also a two way street. I’m not going to teach you how to control pain in this post, that’s a much larger conversation, and one we had better have in person. It is my intent here to discuss the range of ways we communicate pain to our brains (it’s not just our nerves) and the significant role our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs play in how we experience pain. When stressed or anxious, our bodies tend to tense up, amplifying pain signals. Conversely, relaxation techniques like self-hypnosis can actually reduce pain perception. Real world examples? Sure, Alex used self hypnosis instead of general anaesthesia before surgery.
Self Hypnosis: A Safe and Effective Tool
“Self Hypnosis for pain management? Sounds like a load of…” well, you know I’m going to tell you it’s not, but can it really be effective?
Self hypnosis is a safe, natural technique that teaches you to relax and focus deeply. Because of the link between thoughts and kinesthetic sensation, a really powerful starting place for pain management understanding and getting personal with your own unique experience of chronic pain and using that as leverage toward the positive. I’m not going to go into detail about how to do that in this article (I’ve got bigger fish to fry: Pain itself) but if that piques your interest, feel free to give me a call.
Chronic Pain: More Than Just Signals?
Obviously tissue damage and inflammation trigger the pain system, but what about when all that has healed? Technically speaking without the signals or their interpretation you would have no pain at all. Yes, that’s right, your pain is a result of your brain’s interpretation of signals. Just signals. Signals which can be either amplified or attenuated by the way you think. Signals which could be interpreted in a different way altogether. Just consider that as a possibility for a moment. While this is most definitely true, it’s not the whole truth. Pain carries with it a range of emotional and biochemical elements which all contribute to your own personal experience. Let’s explore that for a moment.
Acute Pain vs Chronic Pain (And The Role of Emotions)
- Acute pain is caused by an external stimulus, tissue damage or infection i.e. something other than your body’s normal working system. It is the body’s most intense and alarming sensation, and rightly so. It is designed prevent us from hurting ourselves any more.
- Pain is described as chronic pain if it has lasted for more than 3 months. The stage between acute and chronic is known as subacute.
- Neurogenic pain is a term we use to describe a pain that arises from false alarm signals being sent. This can happen when some damage, illness or disturbance is present anywhere in the central or peripheral pain sensing network. It’s called neuropathic if it’s specifically damage to the nerves themselves.
Now let’s look briefly at some emotional factors. Emotions are massively important in pain management for many reasons. From my side of it I want you to feel better, that is, be uplifted and generally happier. But that is the stuff of long lost dreams for many chronic pain sufferers. So why do I want this for you, why is it so hard and what does it matter anyway? Different emotional states generate different hormones. Certain hormones modulate the transmission of pain signals throughout the pain sensing network.
Emotion For Hormonal Control
The experience of pain is designed to be alarming and to stop you in your tracks. So much so that other body systems, ones that normally have a role in mediating neuron signals, simply stop mediating. In the case of perceived acute pain, they temporarily allow signals to pass unrestrained. Does this ring true for you? Problems can arise when this happens for too long. Dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cells are essentially a complex meeting point of the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. Extended periods of unmediated signalling can cause the DRG cells to become hypersensitive and likely to fire off pain signals even in the absence of external stimulation. While this is an active area of medical research, there is currently no commonly available pain relief drug that targets DRG hypersensitivity!
Some effective self hypnosis pain management techniques involve the use of emotions to stimulate the production of these pain mediating hormones in an effort to lift the burden off the DRGs. Visualisations in hypnotic conditions can be incredibly vivid and effective for hormone production. Some children suffering from leukaemia have been visualising dolphins swimming through their veins and repairing damaged cells. The exact mechanism behind this remains unclear, but they required less pain medication and had less anxiety in general about their condition. Maybe the thought of being looked after by a team of micro-dolphins is pleasant enough to invoke enough of an endorphin load to ease the pain. Insufficient study was carried out and the visualisation was a side issue in that study, but interesting to note nonetheless.
Learning to Bring Chronic Pain Under Control
In order to manage chronic pain effectively it’s useful to get a good understanding of what’s happening in your system. Understand that there is no simple or quick fix, we must learn about ourselves and about which techniques are most likely to be beneficial. This starts with increased self awareness, which also just happens to be a side-benefit of self hypnosis.
- When did the pain first start?
- What are you doing when the pain is at its highest and lowest?
- What do you typically do that brings a measure of relief? How long does it take/last?
- What words do you use to describe the pain? These words are often a glimpse of what you’re thinking about. It’s unusual to describe the pain as “dull” if, while you are experiencing the pain, you are remembering the house fire that caused your injuries for example.
For each of these try to consider all the possible pain pathways. Pain can get to your brain through nerves, yes, but also through emotions and thoughts. So not just “what physical activities do I do?” but also, “what am I thinking about?”, “what is my emotional state?”. The more you can learn about the specific personal circumstances of your pain experience, the better.
Understanding your pain from a wider perspective like this gives you a broader range of areas where you can apply controls to mediate pain and reduce the redundancy effect seen earlier. I’m not giving away techniques here because we all have such personal experiences. I don’t want you to reject the whole field of hypnotherapy on the basis of that one technique that is not appropriate for your pain experience.
A Tale of Two Daves
Dave (1)
“The other car smashed into my car from the left. It hit the engine block and glass and twisted metal went everywhere. My car spun round and I was left, powerless, facing oncoming traffic. When the car hit, my foot slipped off the clutch and twisted against the raised part of the footwell. I was lucky to get away with just a sprain, it’ll heal in no time. I was wrong”
For three years Dave’s ankle, rather than healing, got worse. “What started as bruise-like tenderness continued long after my ankle actually healed, the pain amplified to the point where water droplets from the shower felt like sharpened hammer blows”. Despite being a false signal from a healed ankle, by the time it reached his brain the pain was as real as any life-threatening injury. Consider what you’ve just read and imagine what must have been going through Dave’s mind at the time of the crash and then each time he felt the pain. Consider the emotional impact of the pain initially, and now consider the pain of the emotion. Getting relief from thoughts that amplify pain perception is as important as relief from the pain itself.
Dave (2)
“The bullet passed through the soft tissue at the front of my shoulder, missing everything vital, and tore a chunk out of my shoulder blade on its way out. I was already running full pace in the direction of the shooter, but I had to get to the transport. I thought I’d snagged my jacket on a branch, other than that I didn’t know about it until we got back.”
Dave (2) is a soldier who found himself in the high stress, high adrenaline environment of an unexpected combat situation. What Dave experienced was his cerebral cortex actually ignoring pain signals from a massive injury, while he dealt with a hugely emotional and life threatening situation.
Now, I’m not saying in order to manage your pain better you need to be stressed out, shooting up on adrenaline and getting shot at! I offer these as examples of exactly the kind of effect we are discussing, happening naturally, without prompting. The brain is capable of doing this exceptionally well both ways round. By using hypnosis we can artificially recreate the conditions necessary to limit the perception of pain. We can improve self awareness to the point where you can understand your own responses to pain signals and develop some more beneficial alternatives. Certainly hypnotic anaesthesia is possible, but it’s not a sustainable solution for chronic pain.
The Benefits of Self Hypnosis for Pain Management
Self hypnosis offers a range of benefits for those struggling with chronic pain:
- Reduced Stress and Anxiety: By promoting relaxation, self hypnosis can help lessen the emotional burden of pain.
- Improved Sleep: Relaxation techniques can lead to deeper, more restful sleep, which in turn can improve pain tolerance.
- Increased Sense of Control: Self hypnosis empowers you to actively participate in your pain management, encouraging a sense of control and increased well-being.
Are you ready to experience how learning self hypnosis can benefit you personally? Arrange a free 15 minute chat with me on zoom. Let’s take on this problem together.
Additionally:
The BBC also covered Alex’s self hypnosis anaesthesia story.
Photo credits
Phone cables by CALITORE on Unsplash
Car crash by Usman Malik on Unsplash
Soldier by Kony on Unsplash
Chronic Pain Cover photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash