Most of us will do whatever we can as soon as we can to escape pain. The National Library of Medicine describes pain as a signal in your nervous system that something may be wrong. I don’t want you to misinterpret this but let me challenge for a minute how we approach pain.
Watch commercials on TV and observe how many are for drugs designed to relieve pain. Even those not specifically targeting pain are aimed at some discomfort. We have an opioid epidemic due to the prescription of addictive medications.
Here’s a post I did that you might want to check out Chronic Pain is Not Normal
What Does Chronic Pain Mean?
Chronic pain can mean a number of things. It can certainly be the result of permanent damage to a joint, soft tissue or a nerve. Chronic pain is a sign of imbalance in your body that is putting stress on your nervous system. Over time the tendency is for this imbalance and nervous system stress to worsen.
Experts estimate that 90% of doctor’s visits are for stress related illnesses that manifest as headaches, hypertension, insomnia, gastrointestinal disturbances, chronic pain, fatigue, and skin disorders, to name a few. The psychological aspect of stress shows up as tension, anxiety, depression, anger, reclusiveness, pessimism, resentment, increased irritability, feelings of cynicism, and inability to concentrate or perform at usual levels.
When I see someone with chronic pain rarely is pain the only issue in their health. They typically don’t think the pain is related to fatigue or anxiety or indigestion but it is.
Stress is the Common Cause
Stress is the link between the vast majority of health issues and if we follow the progression of stress to pain or headaches or anxiety we can use the same pathway in reverse. Here’s a simple explanation of how stress causes health challenges. Even if your pain resulted from trauma the same principles apply.
- Stress of all kinds activates the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) known as the “Fight-or-Flight” system.
- The SNS drives inflammation up, increases muscle tension and pain, disturbs sleep and healing, and interferes with the immune system.
- The more the SNS is activated the easier it becomes to activate it and the more active it becomes.
- Over time you begin to live in a state of chronic Sympathetic activation that I call Sympathetic Dominance.
- This Sympathetic Dominance creates a perpetual state of pain, tension, inflammation and impaired sleep.
Are you starting to see where I’m going here? If an imbalance in the ANS with an overactivation of the SNS is involved in chronic pain then the solution lies in part in restoring balance to the ANS.
5 Critical Things to Kill Chronic Pain
The more chronic your pain is, the more things you might both need and want to do to restore your body to balance. The body is striving for balance. Sometimes it needs a little assistance. What assistance can we offer that will help your body and nervous system return to balance?
#1 Correct tension and irritation to the Vagus Nerve. The Vagus Nerve is the counterpart to the Sympathetic “fight-or-flight” system. It promotes rest, relaxation, healing, sleep, and digestion as well as lowers inflammation
My clinical focus is on the upper cervical spine where the Vagus Nerve runs right in front of the first cervical vertebra.
#2 Correct tension on the Sympathetic Nervous System. The upper cervical spine is important but the upper and mid back is crucial as the sympathetic chain runs on each side of the spine in the thoracic spine.
#3 Correct Structural Imbalances. If you are out of balance structurally your nervous system is forever working in an attempt to bring you back into balance. If your pelvis is unlevel then not only will this create tension in the lower back but will also cause a chain reaction all the way up to the upper neck.
#4 Maintain Structural Balance. We want to activate and balance the muscles that hold you up against gravity. Our modern life involves far too much sitting which weakens the muscles that work against gravity to hold us up. Once we bring you into balance and correct tension on the ANS we want to maintain this balance.
#5 Activate the Vagus Nerve. With chronic pain it isn’t enough to simply remove irritation from the ANS. The longstanding chronic pattern has resulted in lowered Vagus Nerve function that won’t come back on its own. By activating the Vagus Nerve not only will we increase the Vagus Nerve function but it will also lower the activity of the Sympathetic System.
Chronic pain can be challenging to unravel because the longer it persists the more layers of adaptations and compensation there are. Your body is forever doing the best it can to bring you back to balance. If we can restore better balance we can reduce or eliminate your pain and return you to the activities that bring you the greatest joy.
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