the neuroscience of back pain

Hi, and welcome to the Neuroscience of Back Pain

Maybe you have been living with back pain for weeks, months, or [00:01:00] years. Maybe it's constant. Maybe it's on and off. Maybe you've had scans and you were told that they were normal, whatever that means. Maybe you've seen physios and you've done the exercises. You've tried strengthening and stretching, massage, medication, acupuncture, and some of those things have helped, but your back still hurts. Well, today I'd like to introduce you to something that might help change the way you see your back pain But before we begin, I want to make something totally and completely clear.

I'll be saying that pain is produced by the brain, but that does not in any way, shape, or [00:02:00] form mean that your pain is imaginary. It doesn't mean it's all in your head

Your pain is real. Pain is always real. I've been there, and it's so hard. So the question isn't whether your pain is real, it's why your brain has decided that you need that message of pain. So let's have a bit of a think about what pain is actually for. It's actually not there to just make us miserable believe it or not.

It's actually a survival tool. You know, if you think about accidentally touching a hot pan, you don't think, "Oh, hmm, that feels actually quite warm." Your hand moves away from the hot pan before you've even had time to think it through. That's [00:03:00] pain doing its job. It's protected you. Most of the time, pain is closely linked to an injury, to damaged tissues.

You sprain your ankle, you pull a muscle, you touch a hot pan, and the pain is protecting those injured tissues while they heal, and as the tissues heal, the pain usually gradually settles. That's acute pain. But persistent pain, also known as chronic pain, can be different. So now imagine you've had a particularly stressful few weeks.

You've had a looming deadline at work. You've been spending long hours at your desk. You're struggling to sleep 'cause you're worried about this deadline, and one day your back starts [00:04:00] to ache. Maybe something happened that irritated the back, but maybe it didn't, and the weeks go by.

Your looming deadline comes and goes. Life settles down a little bit, but you are still experiencing back pain, and months later it's still there, and you find yourself saying, "Oh, I'll see how my back is," when people ask you if you want to go for a coffee or a walk. You avoid picking things up.

You sit differently in the car and at your desk, and you're worried every time it flares up. Does that sound familiar?

So this is where the neuroscience come in, because your brain's number one job is to keep you alive. It's constantly asking one question, "Am I safe? Am I safe?" And to get the answers [00:05:00] to that question, it's collecting information from your muscles, your joints, your eyes. It brings in previous experiences. It brings in information about your current stress levels, how you're sleeping, emotions, everything.

And so ultimately, what might be happening with chronic pain is that it's the brain's way of saying, "Well, right now I think you need protecting." Sometimes that protection lines up with what's happening in the tissues, like with acute pain, like I talked about earlier on, but sometimes that protection becomes much bigger And just to add another layer to this explanation, Pain in and of itself is stressful. I don't have to tell you [00:06:00] that. And when you're in pain, actually what is happening is that your body's stress responses are activated. This, perhaps quite inconveniently at this moment, tightens your muscles. It often makes your breathing shallower. It pushes sleep away, which is really inconvenient 'cause sleep is where a lot of healing happens.

And you're kind of on high alert with the stress response, so you become even more alert to every sensation in your back, and that might start you wondering, "Well, is this movement going to make it worse? Do I need to move more? Do I need to move less? Well, what's that twinge?" And every time this cycle repeats, pain affecting stress, affecting pain affecting stress, your entire nervous [00:07:00] system is becoming a little more alert to what's going on.

And this is not at all because anything is broken. It's because it's trying to help. It's learnt that something about what's going on with your back at the moment isn't safe and so it's activating that protection mechanism through pain

So the really encouraging thing about this is that over time your nervous system has learnt to protect you with pain, and so it can learn something different. It can learn that you are safe. and I think this is where yoga is an absolute super tool. Not because it's magically realigning the bones of your spine, or not because stretching the muscles will fix everything, [00:08:00] but because yoga works with your nervous system, and yoga can present to your nervous system that you are safe through the mindfulness, through the movement, and through the breath.

Learning to notice tension and soften it slowly teaches your body it doesn't need to stay in this hyper-alert, hypervigilant, protective state. So yoga practice by yoga practice, you're changing the information that your brain receives and then how it perceives it. You're guiding your brain, your nervous system to become less protective.

This doesn't happen overnight, but it can happen.

I have a meditation which guides you through this on Insight [00:09:00] Timer. Maybe try it out a few times a week over the next few weeks and just see, and see if it helps

and if this has made you think differently about your back pain, I would love to invite you to my Yoga for Back Pain workshop in Leeds on Sunday the 9th of August. We'll spend the workshop looking at why chronic pain develops in more detail. We'll look at some modern pain science and then how yoga can help you move more freely and with less fear and hopefully with less pain. We'll be looking at breathing, movement, stress, and ultimately you can expect to leave with practical tools you can start using straight away.

And I think even if this makes you feel like you are in the driving [00:10:00] seat of your pain as opposed to the passenger seat of your pain, I think it's so, so valuable. You can find the booking link in the show notes.

I really hope that that has given you a new perspective on back pain. If I can be any help anytime, please do get in touch. Otherwise, take great care of yourself, And as always, happy practicing

I really hope that that has given you a new perspective on back pain. If I can be any help anytime, please do get in touch. Otherwise, take great care of yourself, and I'll see you next time [00:11:00]