Pain – 75% is mental, only 25% is physical – Control your pain by controlling your mind

Pain – 75% is mental, only 25% is physical – Control your pain by controlling your mind

Pain... It hurts! I'm in so much pain! How often do we have this feeling of deep discomfort associated with different areas of the body - from the toes to the top of the head. Well, it is scientifically proven that only 25% of the color we feel is the actual physical response to damaged tissue. The other 75% of the experience of pain is the emotional part - our fear of illness, the anticipation of feeling pain, memories of other times when we felt pain, our anticipation of having physical damage or an abnormal appearance, etc. The actual physical pain, the 25%, is very manageable even in extreme cases of illness. Often we don't feel this pain because the injury is still "warm". Let me give a real example: A few weeks ago I was cutting a tree with a chainsaw when the chainsaw accidentally broke and the chain “touched” my left hand. The middle finger and index finger were cut quite deeply and there was a lot of blood spurting and it took a while for the bleeding to stop. But I haven't felt the pain for a good two hours. There were some expectations of pain, but I have to play bravely in front of my child: “It’s nothing, just a scratch.” After a few hours the cut hurt and the intensity slowly increased, but the pain was manageable. Interesting, I slept well that night and didn't feel the pain. But in the morning it started hurting as soon as I got out of bed. The pain was so severe that I had to take painkillers. During the day, the pulsation in the hand provoked images and valleys of pain. During the most intense periods of pain, I used a very simple technique to relax the body - breathe in deeply, breathe out slowly. Relaxation and anxiety cannot coexist, and pain creates anxiety in the body and mind most of the time. Reducing anxiety and increasing relaxation will result in pain levels decreasing to 25% or less.

A very good method when we feel pain is self-hypnosis or heterohypnosis. 75% of the emotional part of pain comes from our subconscious. As soon as we communicate with your subconscious and we can bring about a deep state of relaxation in our body, the 75% of the pain is gone.

Find an area at home or at work where you have about five to ten minutes to yourself. After practicing a few times, you can reduce the time to just a minute or two. You can use a chair or a couch. It is a good idea to record the script below so that you don't have to activate too much of your conscious mind, you want to relax as much as possible and open the gate to the subconscious mind so that the suggestions come straight in and change the script.

Sit straight in the chair with your feet flat on the floor, right arm on the right leg, left arm on the left leg. Choose a point of fascination in front of you, somewhere on the wall or furniture. As you focus on this point, notice how your breathing becomes deeper and your body needs more oxygen. Breathe in deeply and slowly. And your concentration shifts, your mouth, lips and throat become a little drier and you feel like you're swallowing. This is normal because you have allowed yourself to feel this. And in a moment or so you feel the eyelids getting heavier and heavier and have a tendency to close, but don't close them yet. And with each breath as you concentrate on this point, the eyelids become heavier and heavier. Now take three deep breaths and exhale slowly, breathe in deeply and exhale slowly. Excellent! And on the third exhale, let your eyelids close. Very good! Now focus on your feet, from your toes to your ankles, relaxing with each breath. And the relaxation moves down to the ankles, calves, knees, relaxing completely with each breath. If there is still tension in the legs from the tips of the toes to the hips, release it now and become completely relaxed. You bring your focus to your solar plexus, across the chest area, and the shoulders relax completely and completely. And the relaxation shifts to your upper back muscles to relax the middle and lower back muscles. And your attention is on your arms, hands and fingers, which are now completely and completely relaxing with each breath. You now focus on your neck muscles, up to the back of your head, scalp, eyes, facial muscles and jaw muscles relaxing completely and completely. With every breath, relaxation embraces your body and you feel that there is no tension. You are completely relax!. Now I want you to count from 5 to zero in your head, and each count prepares you to enter deeper into the hypnotic state... and now 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and zero... deep sleep!

Now you can give yourself suggestions to relax and feel less and less pain. In fact, you can feel that the pain has already disappeared. And if you feel pain again, you can suggest to your subconscious to move that pain to more manageable areas, such as the little finger of the right hand.

Before you return to everyday life, don't forget to move yourself from the hypnotic state to a non-suggestible state by counting from 0, 1, 2, 3 and 5 while wide awake.

Inspired by Aurelian Georgescu