By Markham Heid, Prevention
Pain is
personal. No blood test or scan can tell your doctor how much of it
you’re feeling. And what relieves one person's aches might not make a
dent in yours. That’s because pain is, literally, all in your head.
[post_ads]Like feelings of warmth or pleasure, pain is something your brain
creates based on the sensory information it receives from your body,
according to research
from the University of Oxford in the U.K. And a lot of factors can
affect how much pain your brain perceives. Anxiety, fatigue, and even
the expectation of pain can raise or lower your agony, the research
shows.
Likewise, there are lots of ways to relieve pain that have nothing to do with pills. Here are seven of them.
Hanging out with close pals fires up your
brain’s endorphin system, says Robin Dunbar, PhD, a professor of
evolutionary psychology at Oxford. Endorphins
are feel-good neurochemicals that can calm activity in your brain’s
centers, which may explain why that friend-time reduces pain, Dunbar
says.
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On the other hand, social isolation—that is, spending too much time alone and away from your friends and family—is linked to worse lower back pain, per research from the University of Melbourne in Australia.
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On the other hand, social isolation—that is, spending too much time alone and away from your friends and family—is linked to worse lower back pain, per research from the University of Melbourne in Australia.
A 2015 study
from Mayo Clinic is some of the most recent research that suggests a
massage can knock out, or at least knock down, your perception of pain.
[post_ads]Pressure receptors in your skin respond to another person’s touch by activating your brain’s vagus nerve, says Tiffany Field, PhD,
director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami.
Increased activity in your vagus nerve relieves stress, Field says. That
drop in stress (and stress-related hormones like cortisol) mellows your
pain, she explains.
Twenty-five minutes of aerobic exercises such as running, cycling, and swimming reduced pain perception by 28%, per a study in the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development.
Whether you’re grappling with lower back pain, or a chronic pain
condition like fibromyalgia, exercise seems to help, the study authors
say.
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A related study from the journal Pain, found athletes had a higher tolerance for pain than non-athletes. More research has linked weight lifting to similar pain-lowering benefits.
These study teams say exercise activates opioid receptors in your
brain, which calm pain. (Many over-the-counter and prescription
painkillers also work by activating your brain’s opioid system.)
Multiple studies, including this 2016 paper in the Journal of Neuroscience, have linked mindfulness meditation to pain relief.
That study’s authors say it’s not yet clear just how mindfulness works its magic. But their research shows mediation doesn’t
relieve pain by goosing your brain’s opioid system. That means
mediation may help knock out your pain even when painkillers don’t work.
