Pain is exhausting and causes the brain to be on hyper-alert.  Many people live with long-term, chronic pain such as backache or arthritis and managing it can be difficult and stressful and involve taking medication, which then can have knock-on effects.  

In our work as hypnotherapists, we see many clients struggling with pain-related conditions, so I read with interest an article last weekend in The Times titled: “Can you train your brain to beat chronic pain.”  It was a supporting article to a longer interview with Kirsty Young, the BBC broadcaster, who opened up about her own painful experience of fibromyalgia, a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body.

The piece in The Times coincided with a meeting of 5,000 pain professionals from around the world in Amsterdam last week.  According to one of the attendees, leading global pain expert and neuroscientist Lorimer Moseley, “Chronic pain is the world’s most disabling health condition.”  He has spent 25 years researching the subject of pain and concludes that “most current methods of treatment simply “don’t work” and that “Doctors are only now beginning to fully understand the role that the brain plays”.

But what is pain?

According to the British Pain Society, in July 2020, The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) revised the definition of Pain as follows:

An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with actual or potential tissue damage.

Many acute pains, such as a toothache or a burn, are like an alarm system telling us something is wrong.  These are often easy to treat; others may be a sign of something more serious.  For example, the pain of a broken leg will make us rest the leg until it heals. Here, the pain is helping.

However, persistent pain often serves no useful purpose.  The messages from the warning system linked to long-term conditions like arthritis or back pain are not needed – just annoying.  Over time, it may affect what we can do, our ability to work, and our sleep patterns. It can also have a strong negative effect on our family and friends, too.

Pain signals travel to our brain using the spinal cord and specialised nerve fibres.  This involves our whole body, which is more than just a network of wires.  These fibres also process the pain signals.  Together, they work like a very powerful computer.

Sometimes, this ‘computer’ system can go wrong. The messages get confused, and the brain cannot understand the signals properly. This can lead to chronic or persistent pain, which can be very hard to repair with conventional medicine or surgery. However, as Lorimer Moseley explains, we need to reframe the way we think about pain.  The good news is this is what we do in hypnotherapy.

How can Hypnotherapy help 

Simply put, how we are feeling has an effect on our pain. If we feel angry, depressed or anxious, our pain will be worse.

The opposite is also true. If we are feeling more positive and happy, our pain can seem to be less. We are able to cope much better.

In our hypnotherapy sessions, we create a relaxation response and short-circuit the fear and pain so our client feels more in control and the pain and discomfort are alleviated.

Relaxation is key. When we realign the mind and body, the cues of a threat lessen, and the stress/pain cycle is broken.

We work with all types of pain, so if you are struggling and would like to feel more in control and change the way that you feel, why not get in touch with us for an online session and try hypnotherapy?  It is an extremely relaxing and restorative way to spend an hour.

Alternatively, why not try my ‘Feel Better Pain Management’ Audio download.