Did you know that what you believe about pain and why you feel pain impacts your healing and health? It's true. Your understanding and beliefs can either help or hinder you!
Understanding some of the neuroscience behind why we have pain can reduce fear, encourage movement and active participation in life, and even change the amount of pain you experience. Why? Well, that's complicated, but simply put because we only have pain because we have a brain. Everything is processed through the brain. It is your brain that decides whether you feel pain or not. And as we all know the brain is complicated!
I am a big fan of the "Explain Pain" book by the NOI group (Neuro Orthopaedic Institute) out of Australia and have attended a number of their trainings for healthcare professionals. The better I understand pain, the better I can explain it to you! They wrote this book with patients in mind. You are their audience, so they've written the book without medical mumbo jumbo. Instead it is written in familiar terms with easy examples and illustrations that the average person can understand.
Understanding why you have pain can be truly liberating. Interpreting people's pain for them is a large part of how I spend time educating my patients. The Explain Pain book is a super tool to help you get on the inside track to health.