Philip A. Gonzales
The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.
– Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean, Dir. (1962)
Brain Your Pain. Mind Your Pain.
I woke up this morning with a headache; about a ’4′ on the pain scale. I thought, Ooh, I have a headache.
I felt afraid that it would get worse. The headache got worse. Then I stopped thinking about it, and my headache got better.
Pain does not just happen, we have to perceive it. In modern pain management clinics, it is well recognized that our usual thought patterns and emotions affect how much we feel our pain. Biochemistry can affect the perception of pain, for example, the release of adrenalin in an emergency can effectively mask the perception of pain. When the emergency is over and the adrenalin gets resorbed, then the pain returns.
This morning, my brain registered pain from sinus pressure. I brained
my pain. When I put my preconception of pain into thought, words, and emotion to my pain, then my pain felt worse; I felt my pain more acutely. In that way, I minded
my pain. Minding my pain did not increase the pressure that was causing the pain in my sinuses, but the pain increased. When I let go of my assumptions about the pain, that did not lower the barometric pressure that caused the differential that registed pain in my head, but I did not feel the pain any more. My mind cannot change my circumstances. Neither can my brain. In fact, my brain cannot alter the fact that pain reports are coming in from my nerves. Only my mind can choose the amount and type of attention to pay to my brain when it is receiving pain signals. My mind can modify how I perceive my circumstances.
Okay, so let’s not get all bionic about this. I’m not trying to say that creating your ideal world involves ignoring your pain. Quite the contrary; let’s always start by paying attention to pain. When you brain
pain, your first step should be to mind
your pain. But how you mind it makes all the difference. Let’s look at how your mind and your brain work together for your survival.
The purpose of pain is to signal your body that something is wrong. Of course, the range of problems that can cause pain is pretty broad. Is it a mosquito bite, or have you just been hit by a bullet? It’s a survival skill to be very quick about sorting out the genuine dangers from the minor invonceniences. Mosquito? Firearm? Sure, it seems simple, but the process is a complex blend of raw nerve signals and biochemistry, in negotiations with your thoughts and emotions. A mosquito bite can infect you with a crippling disease. But most of them don’t. And what about people who get shot without knowing it? Some report later that it felt like a bee sting.
If your central nervous system is relatively healthy, then you brain
the pain; it registers in your brain. Your nerves have no judgement about pain; they’re just reporters, faithfully sending the story to your brain. It might be an urgent story – a high-intensity nerves impulse – or a low-level signal for minor pain. Your brain can usually identify the origin of the pain in your body. After that, your pain story gets more complicated at the hands of the editor: your expectations and emotions. The way you experience pain takes shape after your brain has received pain signals.
Mind your pain in a healthy way. Start by paying attention to it. Your attention may be captured easily to identify the source of the pain, judge the intensity of the pain, and try to place the pain in the context of the moment. Ow! A mosquito. Oh, yeah, It’s summer, and I’m in the forest. Quick and easy. But in other circumstances, interpreting your pain may not be so simple. Ow! What was that? It felt like a mosquito, but this is my basement, and it’s winter. Once you create an explanation, then you have a choice to ignore the pain or to take action. Your choice could save you the trouble of worrying about nothing, or it could save your life.
In a life-threatening situation, you will mind your pain very differently. Your attention must assay a torrent of information, some of it insignificant, some crucial to your suvival, and some facts that might contradict others. In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, a man found himself trapped in total darkness in the ruins of a building. He was injured, but not pinned down. Using his pain as a springboard for rigorous, analytical thought, he remembered that he had a digital camera. Acting contrary to most assumptions about such a dire situation, he started taking pictures in that pitch-black room. He methodically made a sequence of shots 360° around himself. As each picture showed up on the camera’s display, he was able to identify a way out and crawl to safety. He minded his pain in a way that incited unorthodox thoughts and actions that saved his life.
I disagree with Lawrence of Arabia. The trick is minding that it hurts. Keep your brain and nervous system healthy so you can brain
your pain. Keep your mind and emotions healthy so you can mind
your pain in the ways that make it work for you. No, Lawrence; the real trick is minding your pain in a healthy way: neither exaggerating minor pain, nor failing to act for survival when the pain signals are urgent.
