Chronic Pain: How Your Brain Learns Pain
Chronic pain is persistently felt in the body when the brain has learnt a specific pain. Neural pathways and tissues have the ability to remember the feeling of pain long after recovery, causing the brain to think pain is still actively present. The prefrontal cortex is where pain is perceived and although it can become chronic, this can be eased with chiropractic adjustments that support the way your brain is communicating to your body.
Trauma in the Body
Also connected to your prefrontal cortex is your autonomic nervous system which can also become affected by stress and perceived trauma, negatively affecting your digestion, immune system and heart rate. The good news is that the brain is ‘neuroplastic’ and has the ability to rewire itself on a cellular level to continually adapt based on our lived experiences. This means that with repetition, we can retrain our brain’s relationship with pain and change the neural pathways that continue to feel chronic pain and the physical effects of stress.
Healing Your Nervous System
When pain first occurs as a symptom of injury, the brain’s prefrontal cortex goes on overdrive sending pain signals to the area for awareness. Chronic pain takes over when the brain forgets to ‘switch off’ those pain receptors, becoming stuck in a constant loop that burns out and alters the nerve endings ability to calm down. By recognising the cause of chronic pain, and not just treating the symptom or location of pain, the brain and neural pathways are able to rewire themselves.
Chiropractic Treatments for Chronic Pain
Neuroscience studies have had a huge impact on how we understand chronic pain, and by learning how our brains remember and feel pain in the body, we are more able to reduce physical discomfort. By manually adjusting your spinal alignment, a chiropractor can increase your range of movement so your spine and nervous system can effectively ‘talk’ to your brain and retrain the neural receptors.
