Turn your pain into a distant memory and forget about it

Do you know a big part of the reason something hurts is that your body remembers how it felt to hurt in the first place?

It’s true.

But not only that, the memory of the pain can cause anxiety and even worse pain when you feel it again.

Here’s why and what you can do about it…

How pain memory becomes pain reality

A research team from McGill and University of Toronto Mississauga performed an experiment using both mice and human subjects.

They were taken to a specific room (or put in a testing container) where they experienced low levels of pain caused by heat delivered to their hind paw or forearm – like how you would feel if you accidentally bumped your arm against a hot coffee pot – and the pain they felt was rated.

They then were immediately subjected to a much more intense level of pain.

According to the scientists, this was to condition them to think of that low level of pain as much worse than it truly was.

And, guess what…

It worked (well at least partially)!

You see, the next time that low-level heat was applied, the men rated it as far more painful than they did the first go round – but not the women.

“We believe that the mice and the men were anticipating the cuff, or the vinegar, and, for the males, the stress of that anticipation caused greater pain sensitivity,” said Jeffrey Mogil, the E.P. Taylor Professor of Pain Studies in McGill’s Department of Psychology and Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain.”

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Confirming the theory

However, this only went so far to prove their theory that pain perception was based on a memory of previous pain – at least in men – so the scientists had to take it a step further…

To do this, the researchers injected the brains of male mice with a drug that is known to block memory. When the researchers ran the same pain experiment with low-level heat, the same mice showed no signs of remembered pain.

This is significant because it shows that if you can block or change the memory of that previous pain, you could overcome more long-term pain.

As Loren Martin, the first author on the paper and an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga said, “If remembered pain is a driving force for chronic pain and we understand how pain is remembered, we may be able to help some sufferers by treating the mechanisms behind the memories directly.”

Processing trauma to forget the pain

But, how do you do this (especially without taking a drug to block your memories)?

Well, luckily there is an answer and it’s proven to be effective in chronic pain – Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing or EMDR which combines bilateral eye movement with the recollection of traumatic memories.

For over three decades, EMDR has been a therapeutic approach to treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and it can now help you overcome chronic pain.

It can help you recall the traumatic memory that led to your pain, such as an injury, and process it, taking away the hold it has over you so that you no longer perceive the pain in the same way.

Related: 4 types of chronic pain you can relieve naturally

In fact, a 2002 study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that all patients treated with EMDR reported substantially decreased pain levels and increased ability to control their pain following treatment.

So, despite the findings of the study that the memory of pain only affected men, it could help women with chronic pain too.

To find an EMDR therapist in your area to help you work through the memories behind your chronic pain and get back to living pain-free, you can search online, or use this link from Psychology Today.

Sources:

1. Men and women remember pain differently — EurekAlert!
2. Why EMDR Should Be a Part of Your Chronic Pain Treatment — Linda K. Laffey, MFT
3. EMDR in the treatment of chronic pain — Journal of Clinical Psychology