Why Does Pain Happen?

When we experience pain, sometimes it's easy to forget we aren't just feeling it in our bodies. A sprained ankle makes the foot hurt, but the root of that pain is actually coming from the brain. Pain is simply
our brains processing the fact that our bodies have been damaged. Because our brains all process information differently, we all feel pain differently too. Here are some factors that can increase the amount of pain we feel, how long we feel it or how intense it is:

• Stress
• Poor mental health
• Anxiousness
• Worrying
• Anger
• Poor emotional health
• Focusing on the pain
• Boredom

We already have a good idea of how pain travels through the body. If you burn your finger, the nerves in your finger send a message from the hand up to the brain, making a few stops along the way, and let it know it's been hurt. The brain then gives us the physical sensation of pain.

One idea, called the Gate Control Theory, says we can change our brain's reaction to pain messages from the body and sometimes not even receive them. It says that when the nerves start to talk to the brain, they have to pass through "nerve gates" at every stop they make. If these gates are open, we feel pain more easily. If they're closed, we can keep the pain at bay.

Why gates open

Gates can fly open when we get injured. The more severe the injury or harm, the more likely they are to open. But our emotional health is just as important when it comes to opening the gates. Often the worse we feel emotionally, the more intense our pain is. Here are are few mental factors that can let even the most trivial pain fly to the brain.

• Stress – A tough day at work could cause a minor injury that doesn't normally even hurt to feel terrible.
• Anxiousness – Being nervous about an injury or something else makes it harder for our gates to close and almost impossible to get over our pain.
• Depression – Chronic pain can lead to depression, keeping those gates open and making an awful cycle of pain and poor mental health.

Why gates close

With chronic pain, closing the gates can be difficult. But it can be done. Close the gates through:

• Self-calming/relaxation
• Distraction
• Exercise

You may find additional help through:

• Medicine – When our knee hurts, pain medication recommended by the doctor can close the gates and curb the pain.
• Rubbing – Gently rubbing where the pain is coming from. If the signal your brain gets from the touch is stronger than the pain signal, it blunts the pain.