Ensure a physician has carefully evaluated your pain history and ruled out any structural problems, infections, inflammatory conditions, or tumors before concluding your pain is due to neural circuits.
Recognize that most chronic pain is not due to structural damage but is a real sensation created by the brain’s neural circuits, often in response to stress or emotions, as a protective mechanism. This understanding is the first step to turning off the brain’s danger signal.
Shift your perspective to see chronic pain not as a problem, but as a ‘blessing in disguise’ or a solution from your brain alerting you to something amiss in your life that needs attention or care.
Investigate your pain patterns by noting when it turns on or off, goes away on vacation, or is triggered by stress or weather, as these inconsistencies are strong clues that your pain is a neural circuit problem.
Actively work to reduce fear, worry, excessive focus, fighting, frustration, and constant attempts to ‘figure out’ or ‘fix’ your pain, as these responses send danger signals to the brain and intensify the pain.
For non-structural pain, gradually reintroduce movements or activities that typically cause pain while simultaneously affirming to your brain that you are safe and not in danger, allowing neural circuits to change.
Practice mindfulness by first reframing pain as a brain-generated sensation or ’thought,’ then observe it without judgment or fighting, allowing you to step back and change your relationship to the symptom.
Use journaling as part of emotional awareness and expression therapy to process unprocessed emotions, which can be a significant underlying cause of chronic pain and contribute to inner healing.
Consult Dr. Howard Schubiner’s book, ‘Unlearn Your Pain,’ for practical exercises and research-backed insights to guide you through the process of understanding and resolving chronic pain.