How your brain creates pain: And how to turn off the alarm

Pain. We think we know it. If you twist your ankle, it hurts. That makes sense. But what if the pain continues for months, even after the sprain has healed? Or what if you feel pain with no clear injury at all? This is where the story of pain gets more interesting and much more hopeful.

The traditional view of pain is simple: pain equals tissue damage. This is what I was taught during my nursing training. However, my training with Dr. Luc Swinnen (stress management) also taught me another very important side of pain. Science has shown us something much more complex and powerful: pain is a signal, not a measurement. Your brain creates pain as a protective response.

The brain: The director of your pain

Imagine your body is a house with a fire alarm. When there’s a fire (an injury), the sensors go off and the alarm blares (pain). This is useful; it forces you to take action.

But what if the fire is long out, but the alarm keeps blaring?

This is what happens with chronic pain. Your brain has received so many ‘danger’ signals that the system has become oversensitive. The alarm center, also known as the pain matrix, is so finely tuned that it can go off even with harmless movements or thoughts.

Your brain doesn’t just process signals from your body. It also takes in:

• Emotions: Fear, stress, and frustration increase your state of alert.
• Thoughts: Beliefs like “my back is broken” strengthen the feeling of danger.
• Past experiences: A previous (unconscious) traumatic experience can influence how you feel pain.

All these factors combine into a powerful mix that your brain uses to create the final pain experience. So, pain is an output from the brain, not simply an input from your body.

The Power of the ‘Mind-Body’ Connection

If your brain creates pain, it means you have control. This is where the ‘mind-body’ connection comes in. Your nervous system doesn’t differentiate between stress from an injury and stress from a work deadline. It reacts to both with a heightened state of alert.

Long-term stress keeps you in a constant ‘fight-or-flight’ mode, making your nervous system hypersensitive to pain signals. The key to recovery is not just focusing on the body, but also on calming your nervous system and rewiring your thoughts. This is what makes the mind-body approach so powerful.

The ‘Pain Reset Method’ as your solution

The Pain Reset Method was developed to break the vicious cycle of chronic pain by addressing the root cause: your nervous system and your brain.

The method is based on several core principles:

1. Understanding: It starts with the knowledge you now have: pain is a creation of the brain.
2. Calming the nervous system: Through breathing techniques and specific exercises, we teach your nervous system to relax and leave the ‘fight-or-flight’ mode.
3. Reprogramming: We work on changing the thoughts and beliefs that keep the pain going. This helps to reduce the feeling of danger.
4. Regaining trust in your body: Through safe and gradual movements, also called ‘graded exposure’, you regain confidence in your body.

This isn’t a quick fix, but a sustainable approach to healing your relationship with your body and resetting the pain matrix. Your body isn’t broken; your brain just needs some help to turn off the alarm.

Ready to take back control? Book an introductory consultation soon to see if we’re a good fit, so we can start this journey together.