Mental images can be used to reduce chronic physical pain

In a way you can say that thoughts are things.  Our brains typically focus on one thing at a time, and where that focus lies is going to affect your feelings.

Typical pain boosters
1.  You dread what’s coming.  Expectations about pain can be self-fulfilling.
2.  You dwell on the pain
3.  You fear that the pain means you have a serious disease
4.  You’re stressed out by what’s going on in your life.

Increase the pain now
We know you don’t want to do this, but learning that you can increase your pain helps you to learn to control your awareness of pain.

Focus your mind on the pain you feel, or the original happening of an injury.  And then imagine that the feeling of pain grows even larger, as if the pain was now fueled by a raging fire.  Then, notice how badly you feel.

Decrease the pain
Now change your thoughts.  In fact, be creative, using your childlike imagination.  For example, one person imagined little men like Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels scooping pain out of her back and carting it away.  Another person imagined a soothing ice pack on his painful back.  A third repeated affirming phrases such as “This is going to get better.”

After doing what works for you, again check how you feel.  For many people the level of pain could go down from say a 9 (on a scale of 1 to 10) to three or four.  That’s much better.

Guided imagery for pain relief
Click here for a definition from Wikipedia.

According to practitioners guided mental imagery teaches you to use your imagination to dramatically reduce stress, relieve pain and stimulate healing processes.  While this is not a practice you can do well on your own without training, it doesn’t involve any kind of drugs or surgery.

The technique involves a practitioner asking a patient to visualize a place or experience that’s pleasant and calming.  “Using guided imagery allows a person to generate a relaxation response,” says Dr. Rossman co-director for the Academy for Guided Imagery.

“After achieving a relaxed state, we can use specific suggestions that are soothing or calming.”  According to Dr. Rossman, virtually every type of pain responds to this type of treatment.  Once you learn how to carry out the process, you can repeat it on your own when you start to feel pain in the future.

Click here to find a practitioner in your state.

The research
According to researchers “It was really exciting to show for the first time that people could direct activity away from a specific region of the brain – in this case, the area that processes pain – and alter their perception of pain at will.”  Among the new findings about pain management:

• You can intensify pain episodes by putting a negative spin on your pain – fearing it, dreading it, considering it the worst thing in your life.
• On the other hand, you can significantly reduce your pain by recognizing and blunting such noxious thinking.
• You can shut down the signals that are responsible for pain by doing relaxation exercises such as meditation, guided imagery, and deep breathing.

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