What is Pain?
Pain is an unpleasant feeling that serves as a warning of our body to prevent damage and may be useful as a warning signal for dangers like fire, an unhealthy way of life (for instance, a hangover after drinking too much), and for over-taxation. "Pain is a challenge for personal growth" according to Roy Maryina. You can also view pain as feedback which can teach us a lot about our life, our body, our actions, and our behaviour. But sometimes, pain is just something that we cannot define and that we cannot understand. Our reaction to pain is dependent on the physical damage involved, the awareness of the pain in our brain, the psychological aspects that determine how badly the pain is felt, and the social environment that also determines our pain reaction. Pain is considered chronic when it lasts longer than 6 months. Some doctors call pain already chronic after three or four months.
How do we experience Pain?
Everybody experiences pain in his own way. The same physical ailments may mean a life of suffering for one person and someone else may experience them as a slight discomfort. Most people seldom experience pain as it really is. Physical pain often causes stress and tension which worsen the pain and increase its intensity. This means that pain often consists of a physical sensation and an emotional one. We often react to pain with irritation, fear, anger, and frustration, and in this process, physical pain becomes a matter of grave suffering. This suffering increases our tension and our stress and as we can read in our Stress section, this does not help us at all. The stress and the tension will worsen our suffering. Our psyche exercises a great influence on how we experience pain. The well-known placebo effect shows that in many cases, the psyche itself can exercise a decisive influence on the way we experience pain. It might be a good idea to call to mind situations in which you experienced pain and when all of a sudden something else caught your attention and you forgot the pain for a while. Our psyche plays an important part and this means that the right approach is different for each individual.
Treatment of Pain
The last few years have witnessed a new development in the way people treat pain. In the first place, it has become easier to diagnose pain by means of medical techniques and pain can be observed and measured by studying changes in brain activity. Another new development is that doctors do not just treat the pain, but also teach patients to cope with it better. This is often done in special pain centres. Notwithstanding all this the following article from a well-known newspaper shows that pain is still an underestimated problem and there is still a lot to be done.
Chronic Pain is a serious and underestimated problem
(from the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad 13/10/03)
One in five Dutch people suffers from chronic pain as a result of arthritis, rheumatism, or backaches. This is the outcome of research done all over Europe by the International Pain Association. On an average, people suffer six and a half years from these ailments. If hospitals and doctors would pay more attention to pain reduction, this would not be necessary. In the Netherlands, three thousand people were questioned. Arthritis causes 20 percent of all chronic pain. Then come backaches with 13 percent. Twelve percent of pain patients suffer from rheumatism. The consequences are grave. About 75% of people with chronic pains sleep badly. One third has problems with their sex life. About 25% of the people questioned suffer so much that they cannot talk about it with anybody. About 60% think that doctors and hospitals give pain reduction not enough priority.
How can we cope with Pain?
When we experience pain, there are, in our view, four ways to deal with it:
- Ignore and suppress
This approach may work well for little pains like a cut in a finger or a bruised thumb. A dangerous aspect may be that we might overlook or ignore possible serious consequences. Think of a sportsman who ignores his pain completely and then may cause irreparable damage to his ankle.
- Fight
Unfortunately, a strategy that many people use but that seldom works. In our article on stress, you may read that this reaction often results in higher muscle tension, a diminished blood supply, an increased waste of energy, and the production of stress hormones and fear hormones.
- Redefine pain and look for distraction.
Many people are helped by looking for distraction. You can exchange fearful thoughts for positive thoughts. You can look for distraction at moments when you experience terrible pain. You can visualize distraction.
TIP: Read more on Visualization. Meditation, relaxation exercises, or breathing exercises can also help a lot - not only by distracting your attention but also to calm down your body and your mind. Visit our stress section to learn more about the strong effect of these exercises on our health.
- Listen to the pain, accept it, analyze it, and observe it.
This may seem very hard or even impossible, but it often produces wonderful results. Sit still and only pay attention to the pain and listen to it. In the world of Meditation, this technique has been used for thousands of years. Not only to deal with aches caused by meditating, but also to deal with other pains. Read our article How can meditating help with pain? to see how Meditation can help with pain.
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