Your Brain Learns Pain
If you live with chronic pain, whether from an autoimmune condition like endometriosis, or fibromyalgia, or arthritis, you might wonder “Do I have to live with pain forever?” or “What is the most effective pain relief?” Well, I’m here today to bring you hope and relief, armed with knowledge and understanding that pain is in the brain, not the body. It is learned, not inherited. This means it can change, reduce and even disappear, without the need for pain relief medication or surgery.
What Is Pain?
Pain is an electrical signal from a pain mechanism in your brain, telling you to give attention to an injury, or to stay away from a certain stimulus (such as a hot stove), or to rest and allow the injury to heal. However, as I’ll soon prove below, pain can also arise when there is no injury.
We have millions of nerves all over our body, acting as tiny alarms which go off when they sense our body is being attacked, or damaged. Those nerves send messages up to the brain that something is wrong. The brain does a quick scan of all memories, associations, emotions and sensations to make sense of this experience - “Are we under threat? Is this a totally new experience? Do I need to keep you safe?” If the answer is yes, it will decide to give you pain so you stop what you’re doing, maybe sit down and give some attention to the violated area. If the answer is no, pain won’t be made.
Your Brain Learns Pain
Just like you can learn a habit, or a fear, you also learn pain. We learn pain through having an experience, like cutting your finger, and the meaning we give to it. Consider these two very different ways of responding to cutting your finger:
🔴 Fear or threat-based meaning:
“That was scary.”
“Knives are dangerous.”
“I can’t be trusted in the kitchen.”
“Pain means something is seriously wrong.”
“What if this happens again?”
Your brain stores this as high-threat, and might react more strongly to similar cues next time. Even a small scratch might bring a big pain response.
🟢 Neutral or empowered meaning:
“That hurt, but it healed quickly.”
“I’ll slow down next time.”
“My body knows how to recover.”
“Mistakes happen, it’s okay.”
This tells the brain: “No need to overreact.” Future pain might be less intense.
Research Proves It
Dr. Mark Jensen: Conditioning Pain Responses
Dr. Mark Jensen, a leading researcher in pain and hypnosis, explored how people can be conditioned to feel pain, even in the absence of actual harm. In one study, participants were repeatedly exposed to a combination of a painful heat stimulus and a neutral auditory tone. Over time, their brains learned to associate the tone with pain. Eventually, the tone alone, without any heat, was enough to cause participants to report pain and show pain-related activity in their brain. This kind of classical conditioning shows how the brain learns pain just like it learns habits or fears. It also suggests why chronic pain can persist long after an injury heals: the nervous system has become so good at producing pain, it no longer needs a physical trigger to activate the alarm.
Dr. Tor Wager: The Power of Expectation
Dr. Tor Wager’s research shows that what we expect can dramatically change how we experience pain, whether for better or worse. In some studies, participants were given a cream and told it was a powerful pain reliever. In reality, it was just a placebo. When a painful heat stimulus was applied, those who believed they were protected by the cream reported less pain, and brain scans showed reduced activity in pain-processing regions like the anterior cingulate cortex and thalamus. But in other studies, participants were told the cream would make their skin more sensitive, that it would actually increase pain. And it did. These participants reported more pain, and their brains showed increased pain-related activity, even though the stimulus was the same. This phenomenon, known as the nocebo effect, highlights how the brain’s expectation of threat can amplify suffering. Together, these findings reveal a powerful truth: the brain doesn’t just react to pain, it actively helps create it, based on what it believes is happening.
Hypnotherapy For Chronic Pain
If you suffer from lingering, long-term pain, understand there is a remedy and it exists inside your own mind. At Evergreen Hypnotherapy, I help people like you to find relief from pain, to learn ways of managing your own pain and to live with the peace and freedom you deserve. Hypnotherapy is a powerful way to communicate with the pain mechanism and get it to calm down, to respond only when is truly necessary - when the body really is under attack.
Book an appointment today and experience immediate relief!
David Stewart
Evergreen Hypnotherapy
Bringing peace of mind to those in pain.
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