Chronic Pain and the Nervous System
What no one is talking about is the relationship between pain and the nervous system and how understanding this relationship can help you navigate your healing journey with a greater sense of control.
Pain is part of everyday life. It’s the way our body tells us there’s something wrong, that needs attention, healing and possible lifestyle changes. But when pain becomes distressing, debilitating and chronic then it becomes a whole different challenge in our lives. Generally we don’t expect pain to last long because we have many interventions that can relieve and alleviate pain conditions and illnesses.
Chronic pain or persistent pain occurs despite a physical injury or illness partially or fully resolving. Chronic pain can even be worse than the initial acute pain. Sometimes there is no clear initial injury or illness to explain the chronic pain, like in fibromyalgia. Even so the pain is real and often involves broader systems. Instead of local pain receptors at the injury or illness site, chronic pain involves broader body mind systems. To address chronic pain requires looking at the broader body-mind systems of the immune, nervous, hormonal, brain, mind and feeling sensations.
Another important aspect that influences chronic pain is how the nature and experience of pain itself can change due to the neuroplasticity of the brain and the nervous system.
We live in a body that has the ability to adapt and change, this is our neuroplasticity. Our nervous system protects us from danger and our brain helps us interpret and predict. Just as our nervous system and brain can become hypersensitive to threat due to past trauma, it can also become hypersensitive to pain. Studies have found that psychological and physical stress can trigger ongoing pain cycles. Our bodies can become caught in an escalating cycle of pain and distress if we have no way of regulating our nervous system. Pain can become chronic when related to stress, emotional dysregulation, trauma triggers and mental health issues. Our past experience of pain through these lenses can influence our future experiences and responses to pain, this is the neuroplasticity of our body adapting to new experiences by drawing on the past.
Our nervous system is our frontline defense system and so it’s a fundamental place to start. When the nervous system and brain go into overdrive with anticipatory threat or fear and distress from pain it can create a snowball effect that is difficult to control, creating further distress and memory triggers. The rational brain is switched off as part of the nervous system responding to the threat and the nervous system continues to respond by highlighting the pain as a threat and so begins the cycle of feeling powerless and distressed, having decreased ability to function and a pain induced lack of respite and rest. The more we are alerted to the pain the more we may become distressed. The nervous system and brain become overwhelmed and are overly alerted and the experience of pain escalates. There’s no rational brain coming in to help us understand, calm us or figure it out. When we are caught in this cycle of nervous system overdrive and offline rational brain, it’s difficult to understand that working with the pain takes less energy and stress than mounting a fight against it.
The three key steps are understanding how your nervous system responds to stress and pain, managing your nervous system responses and supporting your nervous system recovery.
Basically our nervous system will respond to threats by either going into a reactive mode or shutdown mode, commonly known as fight, flight and freeze. If there’s a background of chronic stress and past trauma the nervous system is more easily triggered. You can better manage your nervous system if you can understand your responses and then you can apply somatic tools like breathing exercises and movement practices. Recovery is critical, your nervous system needs time to recover by having regular down time, fun time and co-regulating with others that help you feel relaxed and at ease.
Giselle Lamberth
Embodiment Institute Somatic Healing Programs
Clinical Social Worker, Somatic Psychotherapist