Can The Mind Control Physical Pain?

Pain is an individual and subjective indicator that something is wrong inside our body.

It can have a huge impact on our well-being and on our ability to cope with the recovery process and daily life. The processes of the mind are responsible for identifying and transforming physical pain, hence the importance of knowing how our brain perceives and analyzes it.

In the brain, there are very well defined places that are responsible for our perceptions of pain. A lot of pain is rooted in brain processes that can be affected by mental attitude and emotions.

Strategies of the mind that can have a beneficial effect on physical damage are: relaxation and breathing exercises, therapies such as music and

Affective characteristics of pain

Studies by McCracken, from 2004, indicate that people who have greater acceptance of pain refer to it less, and have fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression.

The most important thing about this study is that the level of acceptance of pain is not a function of its intensity. That is to say, people do not accept it more on the pretext that it is less intense.

Acceptance involves having contact with unpleasant or painful experiences without it having a significant impact on driving.

Above all, it means that there are no disabling avoidance behaviors or that the person does not feel limited when it comes to setting goals.

Society sometimes encourages a certain unsuitable lifestyle through mottos, sayings, ready-made phrases, which by their simplicity become contagious truths. An example: “Avoid suffering and you will be happy”. But beware !

Suffering is an integral part of us. It must be accepted as a normal thing: it is normal to suffer in certain contexts.

This does not mean that catastrophism blinds us, because it is associated with a negative course of pain. Catastrophism is a set of cognitive and emotional processes that predispose pain to become chronic.

Whether it is catastrophism or acceptance, they are both considered to be decisive elements in prognosticating the evolution of pain, since they are two important mediators in the transformation of this one. The struggle of the two is key to the control the mind can exert over physical pain.

Pain and Spirit

The mind, according to University of California researcher Patricia Churchland, is what the brain produces and has a huge influence on health.

The mind, ideas and emotions affect our physical health because there is always a psychological aspect to any illness. 

Dr. Sarno, professor of rehabilitation medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, says the brain produces pain that has no biological cause, so that we pay more attention to our bodies and that in this way, we focused our attention on “repressed emotional tensions”.

When we recognize the emotional tensions we are repressing, the symptoms of physical pain decrease.

A study from Stanford University suggests that brain training can reduce pain without resorting to drugs.

Although it does not work in all people, the technique could lead to new medical treatments.

It only works when people can contemplate live, using magnetic resonance images, their pain-related area of ​​the brain.

The study shows that under certain circumstances it is possible to “dominate” our brain activity and control the intensity of the pain we feel without having to use medication.

The technique opens up new avenues for novel medical treatments, although it should be noted that it does not work in the same way in all individuals.

The association between a good predisposition to accept pain and an adapted mental training are key factors in reducing the impact of pain on our lives. Maybe we can’t make it go away, but by using our mind we can gain a lot of ground.

The pain is in your mind.