The Anticipation of Pain

A study done in 1999 by researchers in England and Canada shows how the brain reacts to pain by showing that the fear of pain is worse than the pain itself. Many of us have learned that anticipating physical or emotional pain can actually make the pain worse. People who worry about having panic attacks are almost certain to have them and the more they worry the worse the attacks are. Similarly, waiting in the dentist’s chair for the drilling to begin can be excruciating for some people. Then, the sound of the highspeed drill can send them over the edge.

The researchers built a "pain machine" that could deliver pain to a person without actually causing harm. It might be noted that the head researcher tried the machine on himself before using it with the research subjects.

When a participant was hooked up to the pain machine, a light came on before the pain was delivered. The light-pain combination was delivered randomly so that the person didn’t know when the light would come on. However, the subject did know that when the light came on, the pain was soon to follow.

The scientists monitored brain activity as the light-pain combination was delivered. What they found was that one part of the brain was activated when the light came on and another part when the pain was actually felt. These two brain areas were very close to each other.

The anticipation of pain caused the brain to respond and may prove that the anticipation of pain is worse than the pain itself. This anticipation is often accompanied by automatic physical reactions such as rapid heart beat, muscle tension, rapid breathing and a racing mind. These reactions often makes the pain worse. Studies have shown that if a person relaxes as a response to pain anticipation, the pain is actually less intense.

What makes this even more interesting is that previous research has shown us that we often become aware of something unconsciously before the awareness hits our consciousness. That means there may be times we will "feel" the anticipation of the pain before it happens but do so at a low level of awareness — the "gut level feeling."

The reason certain medications such as narcotics, alcohol and antidepressants seem to reduce pain is not that they act directly on the pain. By reducing awareness of it and damping the sympathetic nervous system, we just don’t feel the pain as badly.

So what can you do if you have a dental appointment coming up? Or maybe you experience anxiety in closed places. You can check out our blogs on stress management.

These skills are excellent tools for managing pain and stress. You may want to begin with the introduction to stress management. The skills you will need to learn are Natural Breathing, Muscle Relaxation and Mind Calming. As with all skills, how well you can do them will depend on well they work. Some people try to use these skills only when they are in a stressful situation. This is too late — sort of like trying to learn how to swim after falling out of the boat.

Practice these skill now, so that when you need them, you can manage your pain more effectively. Doing so will also increase your self-confidence and well-being.

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What We Don’t Know Can Kill Us

Research on our immune system is continuing to help us better understand ourselves. Recently, researchers have discovered that when stress negatively affects our immune system, it can have disastrous results on the actual cells in our body. These problems are not to be taken lightly. Allergies, arthritis, some types of cancer, diabetes and heart attacks are on this daunting list.

One researcher discovered that all these dire results are the result of one body event. Stress causes chronic inflamation. If this inflammation continues, the body’s alarm bells keep us on Red Alert. Although the inflammation is meant to help our body fight garden variety substances in nature that can kick off allergies, there is a high price to pay. While our body is fighting off allergies, it is also less able to deal with more serious problems such as actively dealing with infections and wounds.

This problem is not hidden or rare in our population. Studies have found that about forty percent of children and thirty percent of adults suffer from allergies. The scary part is that this can be worsened by only a one-time social situation that is stressful. Many people in our society must cope with an anxiety disorder on a daily basis. Unfortunately, they are more likely to have asthma and any additional stress can make it worse.

As stress continues over long periods of time, the immune system can age faster than normal. That’s why the list at the beginning of this article is so frightening. The more you stress yourself, the more sooner you may have to deal with serious illness.

Some studies found that ongoing stress – such as being a long-term caregiver for a loved one – can make a 55-year old have the immune system of a 90-year old. As we get older it is harder to heal from wounds and other daily ailments. We may also be less likely to be helped by vaccinations. Chronic stress can make these problems appear early than usual.

Sometimes, stress need not be chronic to affect our body’s immune systems respond. A study in 2008 found that even a small fight between married couples affected the immune system. The more the couples continued the argument by being nasty to one another, the more slowly there body healed from wounds. It seems the inner wounds affect the outer wounds.

Reducing your stress on a daily basis is not only a good idea but one that contributes to your physical health. You can do this by being aware of your breathing during the day and if necessary practice your Natural Breathing. To deal with bigger stressors, allow yourself time to release muscle tension and calm your mind. You can find instructions for these two skills at the blog article entitled Muscle Relaxation.

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Stress Management: Natural Breathing

Natural Breathing is an effective, quick technique that can be used literally anywhere and any time. If you have ever hyperventilated, Natural Breathing will keep you from ever doing this again for the rest of your life. This is because hyperventilation and Natural Breathing are incompatible—they cannot happen at the same time. You cannot sit and stand at the same time because they, too, are incompatible. When you master Natural Breathing, you won't ever have to carry a paper bag with you again! Natural Breathing has three components: deep breathing, slow breathing, and discontinuous breathing.

Deep breathing. To learn to breathe deeply, you first need to check how you currently take a deep breath. Do this now by standing in front of a mirror. As you take a really deep breath, watch what happens to your upper body and your stomach. You may notice that your upper body will move—if you took a really big breath, you may have raised your shoulders—and your stomach will be drawn in. Although the vast majority of the human race takes a deep breath in this way, it is wrong. It is wrong because it is backwards.

For a truly deep breath to occur, there must be little or no movement in your upper body—and at the same time your stomach must be pushed out. (This "belly breathing" is used by professional musicians.) To learn how to breathe deeply properly, put your hands on your stomach, directly on top of your navel. Now push in. While you are pushing in, push your hands away from your body with your stomach muscles. Then, as you relax your stomach muscles, let your hands push your stomach back in again. This in-and-out movement of your stomach muscles is the same movement that should occur when you breathe deeply.

Now that you have experienced this movement in your stomach muscles, you know which muscles to use for deep breathing. To learn the complete technique of natural deep breathing, follow this simple four- step procedure. (This procedure should always be done by inhaling and exhaling through your mouth.)

1. Push your stomach in again with your hands.
2. Let the air out of your lungs (be sure to keep your stomach pushed in).
3. Now "breathe in, push out" and then
4. "breathe out push in."

When you do this for the first time, it should feel different from any other kind of breathing you have experienced before. It may feel either labored or easy depending on how quickly you can adjust to the new coordination of your stomach muscles with your breathing patterns.

Do this several more times so that you can get the feel of what is happening to you. Don't despair if it doesn't come easy. If you are a woman, you have two strikes against you in learning this procedure. First, you must counteract years of physical conditioning. You have been breathing incorrectly for many years, and it may take some time for you to coordinate your muscles.

Second, social conditioning has taught you that, as a woman, "you must never push your stomach out." Let me reassure you that the first problem will take care of itself very quickly. The second is really nonexistent. When you learn to do this naturally, you can deep breathe and nobody will notice it.

Breathing slowly. Now that you have learned to breathe deeply, you must also learn how to breathe more slowly. If you breathe quickly and deeply, you will not get the full benefit of Natural Breathing. You can learn to breathe slowly by simply spelling the word "R-E-L-A-X" to yourself as you breathe in and again as you breathe out. Spell the word silently at the rate of about one letter per second. In this way it will take you about five to six seconds to inhale and the same amount of time to exhale. A total breathe cycle will last about ten to twelve seconds (which means about five or six breaths a minute).

This will probably feel a lot slower than the breathing you are used to. Try this now (using the four-part procedure for deep breathing you just learned) and see how slowly you can breathe. It would be unusual for you to get past the "L" in relax," because most people take in a quick breath and then try to slow it down for the remaining four seconds.

Musicians know that the secret to slow breathing is something called "breath control." When you begin to inhale, do it very gently and gradually, moving your stomach very slowly. You will probably find that controlling the speed of exhaling will be easier than controlling the speed of inhaling.

Breathing discontinuously. Finally, you need to learn how to breathe discontinuously. Listen to your breathing for a few seconds as you normally do it. You will notice that your exhaling and inhaling flow from one to the other. To breathe naturally, you must learn to pause after you exhale and before you take in another breath. How long this pause takes is insignificant. The important factor is that you put a discrete, specific pause between the exhale and the inhale. This pause will help you to further slow down your breathing.

Remember, the pause is the opposite of holding your breath. When you hold your breath, you stop breathing while your lungs are full of air; when you pause, you stop breathing when your lungs empty.

I have named this type of breathing "Natural Breathing" for a good reason: this is the way you naturally breathed when you were born. If you watch a baby on its back, you will notice the little tummy going slowly up and down as it breathes. When the stomach comes down on the exhale, there is a long pause before another breath is taken. So, you see, you are not learning anything new. Rather, you are relearning how to do something that your body considers natural and that which you have been taught not to do.

Now that you know how to breathe naturally, it is imperative that you also learn how to do it automatically. When you are stressed, it can be extremely difficult to remember a half-learned skill. To make Natural Breathing a regular part of your life, you need to practice this skill on a consistent basis.

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Stress: Overview

Stress is actually a survival mechanism built into your brain. When your brain detects what it perceives as dangerous, it releases stress hormones such as adrenaline. For example, these hormones cause your muscles to tense, your breathing increases and your mind starts to race. When the danger goes away, your muscles relax, your breathing slows down and your mind begins to calm.

If the stress trigger continues over a long period of time you then experience chronic stress. This causes your brain to release a new chemical called cortisol. Studies have shown that increased cortisol appears to be related to depression. Higher cortisol levels also affect many body functions such as higher blood pressure, hyperglycemia, and impaired immune functioning. This is just a sampling of what can go wrong in your body because of increased long-term stress.

Although it is helpful in short-term stress situations, the constant release of cortisol into your blood stream can be a major contributor of disease. In women, too much cortisol can decrease bone density. One study found that 40-year old women with high stress levels had similar bone density to 70-year old women.

Interestingly, when couples have arguments, women release more stress hormones than their partners. When men do experience stress, they tend to return to a more relaxed state quicker.
One of the most physically damaging aspects of stress is how it affects your immune system. The risk of an infectious disease increases the longer the stress hormones remain in your body. Some research shows that chronic stress levels and a diminished immune system can increase the likelihood that you might become infected with viruses linked to cancer. Another study found that when elderly people got flu shots, those with high stress levels received the least benefit from the vaccination.

What this all means is that stress has minimal affect on the bodies of people who practice stress relaxation exercises: Natural Breathing, Muscle Relaxation, and Mind Calming. People who do this are simply stronger in the face of problems! The most recent discovery is that all this takes place at the level of your genes. As you calm yourself, your DNA changes the genetic makeup in your body.

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