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Notes -
Is most chronic pain 'in our heads?'
I spent almost a decade dealing with chronic pain of various sorts. I had many diagnosis such as TMJ, Hypermobility, Repetitive strain injury, Carpal tunnel, Tennis elbow, Conversion disorder, etc. What finally ended my pain was close to 5 years of serious meditation, stretching, dance training, and most importantly yoga. Eventually I developed the ability to relax muscles at will even if they were tense from stress.
Right now 20.4 Americans experiences chronic pain(1), with more people in rural populations dealing with chronic pain than in urban populations. Early research shows that this rate has been rising over time. (2) My pet hypothesis is that over time Americans have become more stressed for a variety of factors, which has lead to an increase in chronic pain. This is also most likely linked to a lack of mobility and a sedentary lifestyle.
However, doctors are very wary of telling a patient something is 'in their head'. This isue has probably gotten worse due to the recent backlash against doctors for ignoring someone's personal experience or opinion. I'm afraid that with the current state of our culture this problem will not get better at any time soon.
The most common way to get chronic pain fixed is seems to be to look for non traditional sources of information, typically 'woo' stuff like crystal or energy healing. Unfortunately I have seen a number of chronic pain suffers fall to these types of outlooks, after 'getting in tune with the universe' seemingly healed their pain. In reality I believe that these people simply develop the ability to visualize and relax their muscles.
I think this is a highly neglected problem and something that many people do not realize because chronic pain is often not talked about, and if you do talk about it most of people will either ignore you, give trite and terrible advice, or stop wanting to listen to you. Perhaps most people innately have the ability to relax their muscles, or lose the skill over time for one or another reason.
Has anyone else experienced something similar or observed it among others?
Sources (Cant figure out how to link text from my mobile device)
1 - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db390.htm#:~:text=Interview%20Survey%2C%202019.-,Summary,65%20and%20over%20(30.8%25).
2 -
https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/58/2/711/168526/Pain-Trends-Among-American-Adults-2002-2018
Edit: fixed spelling/formatting errors.
As
Doglatinecuwurious_strag_CA (mixed up posts) brought up, the Sarno Method sticks out to me as proving a psychogenic cause for some chronic pain. Whenever it’s mentioned online there are larger than expected people claiming to be cured thanks to it. Geraldo Rivera has video about it on YouTube. It’s vaguely similar to Carr’s Easy Way for smoking cessation, which also relies on a psychological approach.There’s also neurasthenia, historical neurasthenia which has similar symptoms to contemporary chronic pain. AZC hosted a book review on that. Most treatments had a psychological dimension, involving inherently pleasant places like the seaside or mountain, and a cessation from stressful reading and analysis.
I know Jordan Peterson says he suffered from varied symptoms and fatigue and pain before he went on an all steak diet. But his all steak diet corresponded with his rise to stardom, reduced obligations at work, enjoyable travel, etc. I doubt it was the eating of only steak that cured Peterson’s unusual pains. Instead he was probably suffering from a kind of psychogenic chronic pain, cured from the new (more enjoyable) lifestyle he developed, where instead of thinking up all his ideas he gets to talk about them to supportive people.
Does anyone have any experience with this? I've been suffering from some sort of mental burnout/exhaustion that I think is due to spending 10+ hours a day in front of screens while chronically ingesting information and over-analysing. Symptoms are eye strain, irritability/social awkwardness, anxiety etc. It's probably common sense that I need to dial things back and spend time relaxing away from technology. It's hard to change your habits though.
What worked for me was slowly learning how to relax my muscles, especially those around my jaw/mouth/throat, during meditation and yoga. As I got better I slowly started to work on relaxing those muscles while reading books, then watching shows, then browsing the web.
I do believe it's a skill you can train to relax your muscles while doing 'stressful' activity, but you have to take it slow.
Just wanted to comment on this (9 months later). I've had some success in physically relaxing muscles (and to a degree active thinking) while in a state of mindfulness. It really helps me relax and rest, particularly after a period of highly intensive stressful focus. Thanks for your advice on this.
Hah no worries. Glad to hear it was helpful for ya.
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Also where does Doglatine bring this up? Would love to see another similar discussion.
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Agreed! There are all sorts of diagnoses that make no real sense, such as Trigger Point issues, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, MS, Cluster Headaches, Hypersensitivity, the list goes on and on. As someone who's spent the better part of a decade in this space it boggles the mind how many potential options there are when you spent a lot of time going through them.
I didn't know about Jordan Peterson's issue - I also think a lot of 'diet sensitivities' can be explained by severe stress or anxiety as well. On another note I think this ability of training awareness and using it to relax muscles may be a large reason why meditation is so persistent as a practice, and so many claim it has extraordinary powers.
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