SPP 1: What is pain?

In order to understand how strengthening is beneficial for pain, it is important to first understand where pain comes from. I will preface this explanation of pain with the fact that pain is a complex experience that we do not fully understand. That being said, here is a brief synopsis of what we do understand about pain.

current understanding of pain

You feel pain when your brain perceives a threat. The more your brain thinks you are threatened, the higher level of pain you will feel. You have no doubt felt a variety of intensities of pain from time to time. A dull ache, a sharp shooting pain, and all the sensations in between are all outputs from the brain in response to a perceived threat.

Here’s how it works:

1. You experience something (let’s say you place your hand on a hot stove)

2. The nerves in your hand carry a message to your brain (“Hey brain, there is something hot on our hand” - the nerves)

3. The brain interprets whether or not the message is a threat to your survival based on:

   • Similar past experiences (What happened the last time we touched a hot stove?)

   • Your current environment (Are there other threats around us or are we safe right now?)

   • Your beliefs (Does touching a hot stove have meaning in our culture?)

   • Your thoughts

   • Your emotions

4. Nerves from your brain carry the interpretation back down to the body and we experience a sensation

   • The sensation might be pain if the brain determined we are under threat

   • There might be no sensation at all if the brain determined no response was needed

   • The output might be any number of other sensations or responses depending on what the brain deems an appropriate response

[If you’re interested, here is an entertaining synopsis of this explanation from one of the world’s leading pain researchers.]

The most important thing to take away from this discussion and understanding is that pain originates in and lives inside your brain. To tackle pain, we have to take an approach that trains your brain just as much as it trains your body.

Next blog post: How strength training is the BEST way to re-train the brain’s pain response