Is All Pain Created Equal?

Have you ever been presented with the circumstances where you are without-a-doubt confident that the person in front of you, agonizing in pain, is faking it because you know "nothing happened" to cause it. Or, maybe you just classify them as selfish, needy, or a "drama queen" because any negative news sends them into mourning. According to a new study, you may want to rethink your assumptions about pain and how it works.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science showed that emotional pain and physical pain might not be that different. In this study, researchers form the University of Michigan found that the brain processes and responds both types of pain in a similar fashion. Subjects of the study were given both a physical pain stimulus and later a stimulus for emotional distress, and researchers found that in both cases the same centers in the brain were activated.

"We found that powerfully inducing feelings of social rejection activate regions of the brain that are involved in physical pain sensation, which are rarely activated in neuroimaging studies of emotion," Kross said. "These findings are consistent with the idea that the experience of social rejection, or social loss more generally, may represent a distinct emotional experience that is uniquely associated with physical pain.", said Ethan Kross, lead author of the study.

The fact that emotional and physical pain create similar outcomes reveals a lot about how our body truly works, and for that matter what pain truly is. Pain, from a physiological standpoint is simply a feeling; something our mind perceives and is a result of information it received from our body. In other words pain isn't "real" in the sense that it can be objectively measured. It's only the result of a nerve impulse... a message sent to the brain from a stimulus somewhere else in the body. In fact, the immeasurable aspect of pain makes it a poor measuring stick for what's really happening internally. Now don't get me wrong; to the person experiencing the pain, it is very real, but I'm sure you've heard the expression, "I have a high pain tolerance." It's that subjective variable of pain that allows a woman with a broken leg to walk into the hospital without assistance, while her husband may have needed a wheelchair for his ingrown toenail.

The truth is, we have the ability to control pain (our perception that damage has happened) in many more ways than we know. There are a number of lifestyle choices that play a role in how our body experiences what we perceive in our environment. For example, proper nutrition, adequate sleep, and exercise all have anti-inflammatory effects on the body and have been shown to reduce physical pain levels. Meditation and prayer, a good friend, or even better, a counselor can also be a vital part of managing any painful times in life. Health care providers (chiropractors for example) work to return your body to a normal, natural state of health and healing, which can result in no pain stimulus in the first place. Not only that, chiropractors specifically work to maximize the function of your nerve system- the very system that transports pain messages to your brain.

In fact, since the inception of our profession, chiropractor have acknowledged that emotions, chemicals, and traumas have a profound effect on our physical body, and these stressors can and will drive us to a state of disease. Therefore, if health is our goal, all three of these areas need to be addressed. Are you neglecting any of them?


University of Michigan. "Study illuminates the 'pain' of social rejection." ScienceDaily 28 March 2011. 30 March 2011 .