Chronic Pain: Breaking the Cycle
A very dear friend recently brought my attention to an article about chronic pain, and a possible connection with the Alexander Technique.
Here’s the article:
Chronic Pain Harms Brain's Wiring Friday, Feb. 8, 2008 (HealthDay News)
The article discusses a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, February 6, 2008 issue. The idea is that being in chronic pain causes the neurons in your brain to fire continuously, and that in turn could cause permanent changes that are damaging to your brain. The researchers’ theory is that chronic pain causes changes in the brain. Those changes could be the connection between pain, depression and other difficulties.
Pain can be increased dramatically by our own response to it. The biological pain level can be multiplied by a factor of ten due to our own reaction, fear and tightening up. Most of us tighten up in response to pain, but that can make pain ten times worse. Therefore, by learning to loosen up we may reduce or eliminate the effect of the multiple.
If the study is basically correct and chronic pain harms the brain’s wiring, then techniques that interrupt the chronic pain cycle may help your brain as well as unhooking you from the pain cycle.


