Understanding why we hurt is one of the key steps to gaining control over chronic pain.
This knowledge helps us move from a state of confusion to a place where we understand what is happening in our bodies and can begin to put in place a range of strategies to improve our lives.
In this course we will cover some of the key concepts which underpin our understanding of why we hurt.
You can expect to learn about.
- Why pain is normal everyday experience
- The purpose of pain
- Why pain and tissue damage are not the same thing
- Why pain is not predictable and doesn't always happen when we expect.
- How thinking about pain as an alarm system can help our understanding and help us gain control.
Pain and Protection
Without an inbuilt protective mechanism like pain our body would be much more vulnerable to harm, if pain was not a an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience then we would not have the drive to avoid it.
Pain and tissue damage
We can have pain and tissue damage, pain without tissue damage and tissue damage without pain. Pain is both a sensory but also an emotional experience meaning that our experience of pain is effected by our thoughts and the world around us as well as any changes to our body.
Pain isn't always predictable
People experiencing chronic or persistent pain they will often report that they have significant difficulty gauging how they will feel after an activity and that it varies day to day. We also hear that people will experience pain in a wide variety of contexts and from completely varying stimuli such as lifting heavy objects or sitting still for too long.