Category Archives: Anatomy

Anatomy, Chronic pain, Mindfulness, Wellness topic, Yoga

Why Does My Body Perceive Pain the Way It Does?

Last week, we explored the question “What is pain?”
This week, we’re addressing an equally important question:

Why does my body perceive pain the way it does?

Understanding how pain works can be incredibly empowering — especially for people living with chronic pain. Pain is not just a message from injured tissue. It is a protective signal created and regulated by the nervous system.

Pain Is a Nervous System Response

Pain can be understood as a decision made by the nervous system to alert us that something may need attention or protection. When the nervous system senses danger, it turns up the volume on sensation.

This is helpful when you’re injured and need to rest or protect your body.
It becomes problematic when the alarm system stays on long after healing should have occurred.

When that happens, pain:

feels more intense

lasts longer

spreads more easily

This can occur even when tissue damage has not increased.

Why Tension, Fear, and Resistance Amplify Pain

Three key factors are known to amplify pain signaling:

  • Tension
  • Fear
  • Resistance or avoidance

All three increase nervous system threat detection and reduce the brain’s ability to dampen pain signals (often called pain inhibition).

How Muscle Tension Maintains Pain

When the body perceives threat, muscles tighten reflexively to protect vulnerable areas. While this is adaptive in the short term, chronic muscle tension can increase pain.

Sustained tension:

  • reduces blood flow
  • limits oxygen delivery
  • increases metabolic waste

These changes activate nociceptors (pain receptors), sending more pain signals back to the brain.

This creates a self-reinforcing loop:

More pain → more guarding → more tension → more pain

Importantly, tension does not just result from pain — it also maintains pain.

When muscles soften, even slightly, the nervous system receives a message of safety, which can help reduce pain intensity.

How Fear Increases Pain Sensitivity

Fear activates the body’s threat system, including the sympathetic nervous system and limbic brain. When the brain perceives danger:

  • pain sensitivity increases
  • the pain threshold decreases
  • survival becomes the priority over comfort

When this state persists, it can lead to central sensitization, where the nervous system becomes overly reactive to pain signals.

A helpful way to think about this is:

If the brain thinks you’re in danger, it wants you to feel it.

Research shows that pain intensity often correlates more strongly with fear and catastrophic thinking than with findings on imaging studies.

Catastrophizing Thoughts and Chronic Pain

In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), we often address catastrophizing thoughts such as:

  • “This pain means I’m permanently damaged.”
  • “It’s only going to get worse.”
  • “I’ll never live a normal life.”
  • “This flare means I’ve lost all my progress.”
  • “If I move, I’ll injure myself further.”
  • “My body is failing me.”

These thoughts are understandable — but they increase fear and nervous system activation, which can worsen pain.

CBT helps by identifying and challenging these thoughts, replacing them with more balanced and accurate ones.

In acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), the focus shifts slightly. Instead of debating whether a thought is true, we ask whether it is helpful. If a thought pulls us away from what matters, we practice letting it be and choosing actions aligned with our values.

How Resistance Keeps the Pain Alarm On

Resistance to pain often looks like:

  • bracing or guarding
  • holding the breath
  • tightening against sensation
  • mentally trying to push pain away

Neurologically, resistance:

  • increases sympathetic arousal
  • keeps cortisol and adrenaline elevated
  • reduces parasympathetic (vagal) tone

This suppresses the brain’s natural pain-inhibiting pathways and keeps the nervous system in an alert, defensive state.

In short, resistance tells the nervous system:

This is not safe.

This helps explain why pain can persist after healing, flare during stress, or spread to new areas.

Turning the Pain Volume Down

Pain is not a personal failure. It is adaptive biology — a protective system designed to keep us safe.

With chronic pain, however, the alarm is often louder than necessary. The goal of therapy is not to eliminate pain entirely, but to help the nervous system feel safe enough to turn the volume down.

Through mindfulness, gentle movement, cognitive strategies, and values-based action, we reduce tension, fear, and resistance — creating the conditions for pain to soften.

Key Takeaway

Pain is not just about damage.
It is also about protection, perception, and nervous system safety.

Please sign up for our newsletter to receive or freebie of the week, “3 Ways to Turn Down Pain Volume” (a pdf with specific practices you can do in the moment.)

Bonus Content

Subscribe to our members only page to access our content library including this week’s 10 minute audio of a guided meditation – Turning the Volume Down: A Nervous System Reset for Pain.

Anatomy, brain, Chronic pain, Mindfulness, Yoga

What Is Pain? Understanding the Mind–Body Experience of Chronic Pain

Our next group offering, Managing Chronic Pain through ACT, Mindfulness, and Yoga, is designed to help answer some of the most common—and often frustrating—questions people living with chronic pain ask:

  • What is pain, really?
  • Why does my body perceive pain the way it does?
  • How can I experience less pain, move better, and function more fully in daily life?

Today’s post focuses on the first question: What is pain?

Defining Pain: More Than a Physical Sensation

Merriam-Webster defines pain as:

“A localized or generalized unpleasant bodily sensation or complex of sensations that causes mild to severe physical discomfort and emotional distress and typically results from bodily disorder (such as injury or disease).”

While helpful, this definition still frames pain primarily as a physical symptom.

In July 2020, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) revised its definition to better reflect what research and lived experience have long shown:

“An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage.”

IASP also added several key clarifications that are especially important for anyone living with chronic pain:

  • Pain is always personal and influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors.
  • Pain and nociception (nerve signaling) are not the same thing.
  • Pain cannot be understood by sensory input alone.
  • A person’s report of pain should always be respected.
  • Pain may serve an adaptive role, but it can also negatively affect function, mood, and relationships.
  • Inability to communicate pain does not mean pain is not present.

Pain as a Protective Experience, Not Just a Warning Signal

One of my favorite explanations of pain comes from Neil Pearson, published in Yoga Therapy Today. He writes:

“Pain is both a complex experience and a complex biological process. Pain exists when neural circuits conclude that danger exists and that action is required. As such, it is so much more than a symptom or a message telling us that there is something damaged or diseased in the body. Pain is an experience. It motivates us to stop or change our behavior.”

This perspective helps explain something many people with chronic pain already know intuitively: pain is not a single signal, and it’s not always a reliable indicator of damage.

Why Pain Comes and Goes

We often think of pain as straightforward—like touching a hot stove and instantly pulling our hand away. But chronic pain behaves differently.

For example, imagine sitting quietly on the couch. Your low back starts to ache. You shift positions, maybe take some ibuprofen, and mentally review everything you should be doing to prevent this pain from returning—better posture, better lifting mechanics, more core strength.

Now imagine that a loved one suddenly cuts themselves badly and needs stitches. You’re grabbing your keys, driving to the ER, focused entirely on helping them.

What happened to your back pain?

Did it disappear?
Yes—and no.

Your body didn’t suddenly heal your back. Instead, your nervous system reprioritized. Pain is perceived when the brain decides something requires attention right now. Sitting still gives your system space to say, “Hey, we should address this posture issue.” An emergency tells your brain, “This can wait.”

Pain, in this way, is a decision made by the nervous system, not just a direct response to tissue damage.

Pain and Emotions Speak the Same Language

This is where psychotherapy—and ACT in particular—becomes so relevant.

I often tell clients that emotions are messengers from the subconscious:

  • Fear asks us to protect
  • Anxiety asks us to prepare
  • Anger asks us to set a boundary
  • Joy tells us to keep going

Pain behaves similarly. It delivers information. It motivates action. But—like emotions—we don’t have to obey it blindly.

For example, if you’ve been in a car accident, your fear may insist that driving is dangerous. Therapy helps you gently remind your nervous system that while accidents can happen, the evidence shows you’ve driven safely many times. You acknowledge the message without letting it run your life.

Pain can be approached the same way.

Choice, Language, and Relationship with Pain

What stands out most to me—and what this group is built around—is the idea that there is choice. Sometimes conscious, sometimes not, our bodies decide every day how much pain we perceive and how loudly it speaks.

We already know our thoughts influence emotions. Research now shows that pain is influenced in similar ways. When we develop a new relationship with pain—and the language to communicate with it—we often find that suffering decreases, even when sensations remain.

That is exactly what we’ll explore in Managing Chronic Pain through ACT, Mindfulness, and Yoga:
learning how to listen to pain, respond skillfully, and move toward a life that is fuller and more functional—with or without pain present.

For More:

You’re invited to join our Members-only Bonus Content Library, where you’ll find a variety of PDFs, recordings, and other resources to support your wellness.

A recent addition is an audio version of a guided meditation for cultivating body awareness and breathing through physical sensations with openness and compassion.

If you’d like to explore this meditation, a free PDF is also available through our newsletter. Sign up by Friday to receive a copy. This PDF will be uploaded to our Bonus Content Library next week if you missed it. For $5 a month you can have access to all we send out. (Sign up for newsletter is below or on our home page. Sign up for Bonus Content in the subscribe button on our homepage or in the link above.)

Articles Referenced and further resources on Chronic pain:

Neil Pearson. “Neurobiology of Pain.” Spring 2016.

Adhana McCarthy, et al. “Mediational Analysis of Yoga’s Effect on Chronic Low-Back Pain in Veterans: What Factors Really Matter?” 2022(32).

Peter S. Myers, et al. “Yoga Improves Balance and Low-Back Pain, but Not Anxiety, in People with Parkinson’s Disease.” 2020(30).

Neil Pearson, et al. “Pain and Yoga Therapy: Part 3. When Pain Persists.” Spring 2020.

Neil Pearson, et al. “Pain and Yoga Therapy: Part 2. The Lived Experience of Persisting Pain.” Winter 2020.

Neil Pearson, et al. “Pain and Yoga Therapy: Part 1.” Summer 2019.

Anatomy, brain, research, Yoga

What is Vagus Nerve Stimulation?

The vagus nerve is a very long nerve that carries signals back and forth to your brain, heart, lungs and digestive system. It is the longest cranial nerve in your body. It is said to run from the brain all the way to the large intestines. It also has branches that reach all of our major organs.

I tell clients that the vagus nerve is what people consider to be the “lizard brain” of the body. It is responsible for fight or flight responses and also freeze and hide. It controls involuntary sensory and motor functions like your heart rate, speech, mood and urine output. It is a very complex system of communication with our entire body but it has a very important role in how we respond to stress. The role it plays is regulating the way the body switches from the rational brain (the parasympathetic nervous system – relaxed state) to a fight or flight response (sympathetic nervous system – alert state).

Apparently the vagus nerve can lose its ability to switch back easily to the parasympathetic mode due to factors like stress or age. Also Known as vagal dysfunction, this can put a person at risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, depression and anxiety.

Professionals say that stimulating the vagus nerve will help our body to switch more quickly to a relaxed state. They recommend a variety of things to do to “stimulate” the vagus nerve. These include: 1) meditation, 2) exercise, 3) music, 4)massage, 5)cold exposure and also through 6) a medical intervention, applying an implanted or transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation, VNS/tVNSSo “stimulation”.

These activities create a cascade of events in our body that lead to activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Sensory signals initiate when we participate in one of the above activities. This signal then travels up to the brain stem from the lower part of the body that is participating in the activity/sensation. The brain stem then sends signals to activate certain parts of the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn, decreases cortisol, heart rate, and increases metabolism. This mechanism triggers the release of chemicals like serotonin and anti-inflammatory related chemicals that help our body feel calm and less pain. This series of events isn’t just for experiencing relaxation — it’s a multi-system communication event linking the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. It affects not just an emotional state but the entire body.

The reason that the above activities trigger a response that activates the parasympathetic nervous system is the need for our body to seek balance and recovery. When we shock it with cold our body wants homeostasis, so it activates a series of events to calm us down. This idea of trying to return back to its original state and achieve homeostasis is also at work with activities like massage/yoga/exercise. These activities create specific changes in our body systems that makes the body want to return to it’s original state. Our body registers the sensations and our vagus nerve sends out messages to release chemicals to balance excitement or other changes. These chemicals make us feel calm and “okay”. Breathing/humming/music can also do the same thing. Basically any sensory activity that is not overly stressful or perceived as actual danger, can stimulate the vagus nerve in a healthy manner. The more we do these activities, the more training we do for our system to be stronger and recover quickly from changes and imbalances, ie stress in our environment.

On a side note, a big chemical messenger that is responsible in this process is Acetylcholine (Ach). It’s a little bit more technical for me to explain so for further information on this process, go to this link.

Also for more info on polyvagal theory, click here.

For a quick yoga routine the aids in stimulating the vagus nerve, subscribe to access our bonus content.

Anatomy, Exercise, Yoga

Anatomy – Muscular System

Review of book by Leslie kaminoff and amy matthews

woman doing push ups
Photo by Karl Solano on Pexels.com

On to chapter three of Yoga Anatomy. The muscles around my right hip are always tight. As I mentioned before my right leg is shorter than my left leg by a hair. I usually do not notice this unless I under use or overuse my body. Lately I have been trying to do more cardio and the increase in repetitive movement has aggravated all the muscles around my hip and knee.

This chapter on the muscular system begins by stating the purpose of muscles is to move the bones in the correct place so they can do their job. I’m thinking of how much more my right leg and hip muscles must have to work to keep my bones on that side in the right place to balance my movement. I don’t walk with a limp and usually do not notice much difference but just the bit more they have to do is noticeable when I change my activity.

in reviewing muscle anatomy the book describes the 3 types of muscles, skeletal, cardiac and smooth. It also discusses how muscles actually consist of 4 different types of tissue: muscle tissue, connective tissue, nerves and blood vessels. When you consider how much goes into making a muscle work you can’t ignore how integrated each body system is. Also the concept that they are different types of muscles leads to that different parts of the body govern the different muscles. The skeletal system is govern by our somatic nervous system and for the most part conscious thought. It’s the one we have awareness of controlling. Cardiac muscles and smooth muscles are governed by the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system (through hormones). We don’t have conscious awareness of control of these areas but if you can learn how to influence you autonomic nervous system then you can influence these muscles.

The book goes on in detail to describe how muscles work in pairs through contraction only. This I decided to not review as much because of the technicality and because for me this part is not as relevant at this time as the other information they focused on. This other information is related to the idea of muscle relationships through pairing, layering, and chains.

One of the suggested exercises is lying in relaxation pose and the instruction is to wiggle your fingers and follow the movement up your arm to your spine and then moving the spine to see what other body parts move as a chain reaction. This to me was actually relaxing and somewhat meditative. I felt like I was observing ripples and waves in my body. I like that analogy. It made me think of how fluid my body can be versus how choppy and “crunchy” it feels sometimes walking when I’m feeling pain.

In talking about muscle chains and following movement the book again referenced “Body Mind Centering” and “the Bartenieff Fundamentals”. In looking up “BMC” I found this definition:

“Body-Mind Centering® (BMC®) is an integrated and embodied approach to movement, the body and consciousness. Developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, it is an experiential study based on the embodiment and application of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical and developmental principles, utilizing movement, touch, voice and mind. Its uniqueness lies in the specificity with which each of the body systems can be personally embodied and integrated, the fundamental groundwork of developmental re-patterning, and the utilization of a body-based language to describe movement and body-mind relationships.” –https://www.bodymindcentering.com/about/

In regards to the Bartenieff Fundamentals I found this description from Wikipedia:

“Bartenieff Fundamentals are a set of principles for “corrective body movement”[1] developed by Irmgard Bartenieff, who studied with Rudolf Laban and colleagues in Germany (1925). After coming to the United States in the 1940s and becoming a physical therapist, Bartenieff developed the method in the form of a set of exercises, based on concepts and principles of kinesiological functioning, that can be extended into all types of movement possibilities. Bartenieff in developing this work fused her studies in both Laban movement analysis with Physiotherapeutic principles and the influence of both is a strong component of the Fundamentals.”

I am interested in learning more about each of these and plan to do a bit more research on these. This chapter on the Muscular System ends by saying that if we think all muscles in a body are supposed to work like the corresponding muscles in someone else’s body we are missing the awareness and possibilities of new patterns and new movement that may be possible for the individual. We are all so different and just because a series of exercises work for one person, it doesn’t mean it’s the best thing for another. I do like that when we practice yoga postures as they are described in the sutures we teach ourselves to explore the posture with ease and discovery versus being just performative or for an end result. This approach allows us to grow and learn while we are becoming stronger or more flexible.

Regarding my muscles in my right leg. I have decided to do more exploring in my morning yoga practice which has caused me to rethink what might be good for my body. I realized that as I get older I do feel more brittle and “crunchy” and that if I can create more fluid movement like with good posture when I walk or trying more flow with my yoga postures when I practice I feel better. I also am noticing how proper alignment with my posture makes everything better. It takes practice though which is what I’m trying to be more consistent with.

Anatomy, Yoga

Anatomy – Introduction to My Deep Dive

First book study – “Yoga Anatomy” by Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews

oplus_1048624

During the past few years I have acquired so many books that I keep meaning to read and study. I have decided that I wanted to start a simple book study for my blog. That way not only do I have something to hold me accountable to read these items but also I can share what I’m learning to others. The plan is to basically summarize what I learn and give some ideas of how to put the information into practice, whether it be for the individual at home or for me to to incorporate in the clinic.

Being on the mental health side of things, I do not have a lot of training in anatomy. Therefore, I decided to start my study off with a somewhat deep dive into anatomy with this book by Kaminoff and Matthews. The first chapter is titled, “Anatomy as a Story”. This short chapter introduces the points the authors are hoping to bring home in their book. The main concept they seem to be focusing on is that anatomy through the language of biology and yoga are just two different maps to explore the body. Both are curated and both provide one lens to look through to see the same thing. The authors do want to point out when we do study movement we are not just looking at one body system (muscular/skeletal) but looking at all the systems working together.

The first 3 chapters are devoted it appears to the major systems associated with movement: Skeletal, Muscular, and Nervous. One main reason for working in yoga therapy to my practice is that I know and see on a daily basis how these three systems are intertwined. In trauma treatment especially we are trying to get a person out of their thoughts and to break away from those torture loops in their head. Ironically in traditional psychotherapy we do this with talk and processing thoughts and feelings. Not really getting out of the head huh? Movement of the body is the best way to cut through the thought jails. Moving the body will impact the nervous system in a way just pure communicating and processing cannot. It is something we will tell a client to do as “homework” but there’s usually too many distractions in the average person’s home to accomplish too much meaningful homework. Something so valuable needs to be done in a dedicated session.