Pain and Emotions: an East-West Approach
Written by John Montes, LAc.
Everybody has had pain at some point of their lives and we can safely say that everyone has felt anxious or sad. Sometimes all those experiences can happen simultaneously. When pain is stubborn or chronic is not a big stretch to see how physical pain can affect our emotional and mental health. A relationship that is not commonly thought of is how our emotional and mental state can affect our pain.
Over millennia of clinical observation, practitioners of Chinese medicine have clearly established causal relationships of how pain affects us emotionally but also how emotions and mental health can affect your overall health, including pain. In the field of pain science, the amount of research trying to understand the link between physical pain and mental health has increased dramatically over the last decade, particularly attempting to understand how emotions can modulate intensity, duration and perception of pain.
In traditional Chinese medicine it is understood that anything that does not flow with ease creates stagnation, and pain is the most common consequence of such stagnation. The old classical books mention five basic emotions: joy, anger, fear, worry and sadness which have correspondences with different acupuncture channels and therefore different areas of the body. When the stagnation persists the problems go deeper. They went as far as explaining how not just excess of those emotions but also how a lack of those emotions have important effects and
figured ways of transforming them from a dysfunctional state to one that is useful and beneficial in their life.
While research has seen relationships between many of those emotions and pain, it is not nearly as specific. Still, due to the large amount of research in the field we can ascertain how working with the emotions can help us feel better physically.
What increases pain?
Over worrying
Social rejection
Failure to express anger
Increase of Stress
Increase of Anxiety or Depression
What reduces pain?
Listening to pleasant music
Physical intimacy
Increase of positive emotions
Talking or writing about it
Learning how to decrease emotional outbursts
When we see all the data coming from pain and emotions research, the findings fit quite easily with information that we know in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine. This is fascinating as it not just starts to validate relationships that were thought of and put into practice more than two thousand years ago, but expands the body of knowledge in medicine and helps us explore more and better ways to help people address their pain.
Chinese medicine is a whole body of knowledge that includes a wide variety of diagnostic and treatment modalities including acupuncture, massage, herbalism, nutrition, movement and energy therapies. It takes into consideration the relationships of physical pain and emotions from both the diagnostic perspective but also in treatment allowing people to not just alleviate their pain but also to transcend the emotions that we associate with the pain. This emphasis allows practitioners to guide patients into a place of dynamic balance, where they can observe themselves and their environment, gather inner strength and when necessary let go.
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John Montes is a Licensed Acupuncturist and Clinical Massage Therapist. His area of expertise is Acupuncture Orthopedics where he combines an evidenced-informed approach to pain management with Traditional Asian and Caribbean healing arts. He loves growing herbs and vegetables, hiking and all things Nature.