An Unexpected Strategy for Coping with Chronic Pain
Could the secret to chronic pain relief lie in the memories stored in your body and mind?
Stress can have a direct impact on autoimmune, chronic pain and other health conditions. The nuances regarding the types of stress and how to deal with them are not often something we talk about with medical doctors, but they should be discussed, as our emotional and physical health are intertwined.
Beyond everyday stressors, traumatic events, whether they occurred long, long ago in your early childhood, or something you experienced this year can get stored in your body and can manifest in the form of stomachaches, back and joint pain, or chronic migraines, to name a few. Everyday stressors may refer to issues with setting boundaries with a family member, difficulty speaking up for your needs, or putting your needs last ahead of everyone else.
The effects of emotional stress and trauma on the body’s hormonal functioning and immune system is well researched and yet there is still much that is unknown in this area. Dr. Gabor Mate, a Hungarian physician who has investigated for many years the potential psychological attributes to his patient’s illnesses including breast cancer and pulmonary issues, has found commonalties in his patients dealing with similar health issues. He found links between those who experienced childhood abuse, neglect and/or maintaining unhelpful relational roles and those who had chronic health issues. These connections are described in his book When The Body Says No.
Stress and trauma impact hormone functioning.
Specifically, research has found that cortisol, a critical hormone implicated in managing stress responses, is impacted by traumatic experiences. For example, decreased cortisol levels have been found in women who have a history of childhood sexual abuse and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This change in cortisol level functioning can impact the immune system (Kloet et al., 2006), as healthy levels of cortisol help to regulate inflammatory response and glucose levels. When too much cortisol is released from the body, it constantly feels as if it is in fight or flight mode (whether it’s a real or perceived threat), which can inhibit the regulation of glucose levels and responses to attacks on the immune system. Click here for more information.
Furthermore, the ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study conducted by Kaiser, found that the more adverse childhood events you had, the higher at risk you may be for certain health conditions such as heart disease, breast cancer and diabetes. For more information on ACEs and to find out what your ACE score is, click here: https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/
So what does this all mean? It means that help in the form of psychological healing may positively impact your physical health and decrease the chronic pain. Addressing long avoided emotional pain from past trauma can (and does!) help.
If you are thinking to yourself “I didn’t experience trauma!” but you wonder why those boundaries are so hard to set, you feel so guilty if you don’t take care of your parents emotional needs or you’re avoiding social situations (just a few examples), chances are there’s something from your past that may be keeping you from living a healthier (emotionally and physically) life today. There are many options for helping you in this area, in particular, body based psychotherapy models can be effective with chronic pain. One of these is EMDR Therapy.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) Therapy uses bilateral stimulation in the form of eye movements or alternative tapping to activate the traumatic memories that are linked to negative feelings and beliefs that we have about ourselves now (for example, having low self esteem, triggers to not feeling safe when you know logically that you are).
During a REM sleep cycle, your eyes move back and forth as you process the day’s events. In the same way, bringing up those past memories with eye movements in a safe, controlled environment with a skilled EMDR therapist helps the brain process through the memory and come to a more adaptive resolution. It allows the brain the space and time to do what it couldn’t do at the time that event occurred- process. And that can help remove self blame or other negative beliefs, and in turn, relieves symptoms of anxiety, depression and PTSD, to name a few.
With the relief of mental health symptoms, there is less stress on your immune system and this can improve overall pain symptoms and your energy level. To learn more about how EMDR Therapy may be able to help your chronic pain, click here.
As Bessel van der Kolk suggests, The Body Keeps the Score, so let’s not forget to consider what’s happened (or is happening!) in your life which may be contributing to your autoimmune symptoms.
This article was originally written for and published in The Autoimmune Warrior Blog. Click here for the original article: https://autoimmunewarrior.org/2020/01/26/could-the-secret-to-chronic-pain-relief-lie-in-the-memories-stored-in-your-body-and-mind/
Or go to https://autoimmunewarrior.org for more support on autoimmune conditions.