The Pain Relief Secret: How to Retrain Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, and Overcome Chronic Pain

So the longer the inflammation continues, or the more often an injury is repeated, the more sensitive our nociceptors become. The resulting state of hypersensitivity, called peripheral sensitization, describes adaptive changes that occur in the PNS that increase the amount of pain we feel.

You can imagine how critical muscle memory was to our survival hundreds of thousands of years ago. Back then, only the fastest and fittest of our ancestors survived, and the ability to move quickly and automatically under stress

delta fibers are able to carry the pain signal quickly because they are surrounded by a layer of myelin, a substance made up of

When we encounter a potential physical threat, whether it be external like stepping on a thumbtack or internal like twisting an ankle, our nociceptors sense that their membrane is being bent or stretched. They spring into action, sending an electrochemical message to

Some pain pathways pass through the amygdala, which helps create our emotional reaction to pain.

While acute pain serves a crucial evolutionary purpose, chronic pain seems to have no value. It does not protect against tissue damage, nor does it promote healing.

Adaptations in the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves can outlast the original injury and lead to structural changes, which include the sprouting of new nerve endings and the formation of new synapses between

the anticipation of pain, along with stress, anxiety, and depression, work together to prolong our pain and make it much worse.

Despite what the term implies, muscles have no memory of their own. They’re controlled by our nervous system, which likes to be as efficient as possible because making fast decisions helps us survive. When our nervous system notices that we keep repeating the same movement or posture, it begins to make that movement or posture automatic. As the mus