Think of that very stressful time in your life (projects and high-pressure deadlines at work/house move/new puppy etc.) – anything that pushes your coping capabilities. That can include uncertainty that we ask for and like, e.g., work, sport, challenges we enjoy achieving and overcoming; and then there’s uncertainty we didn’t ask for, e.g. more work and more deadlines than we’d prefer, losing out on six new houses and the puppy doing a poo on the kitchen floor every morning!!!!)

Swearing was just one of this man's habits of getting out of bed every morning after playing golf. So I asked him to look at a few more, and he listed five that involved him, his wife and his workmates.

Think of that very stressful time in your life (projects and high-pressure deadlines at work/house move/new puppy etc.) – anything that pushes your coping capabilities.

That can include uncertainty that we ask for and like, e.g., work, sport, challenges we enjoy achieving and overcoming; and then there’s uncertainty we didn’t ask for, e.g. more work and more deadlines than we’d prefer, losing out on six new houses and the puppy doing a poo on the kitchen floor every morning!!!!)

In these stressful situations, we use the skills to deal with fighting these fires that have proved successful to use in the past.

Interactions with medical practitioners are pivotal in determining how that medical problem will progress. For example, it doesn't matter what treatment occurs if the relationship between the patient and therapist is not grounded in trust, compassion and a sense of safety. In this post, I describe one such interaction between and patient and a spinal consultant where the scenario involved the patient receiving news regarding a recent MRI scan.

Pain is a danger signal. It's a message for you to attend to yourself and investigate why you have a painful experience. First, you must determine if you need to change those circumstances or continue with the perceived risk. The unconscious system senses and manifests that process to your conscious reality as pain.

There are times when pain is less in someone's life. Holiday time is one of these moments when someone who suffers from persistent pain sees a change in their pain pattern. It is puzzling to them, so to reconcile that phenomenon, they have to gain some understanding of what is happening to them.

It is funny how the memory of pain can be exact and yet blurred. Dave presents his story about his low back pain, which he felt had been an issue for five years when we first discussed it.

You might have heard many people describe how their pain worsens at different times of the year or relates to various weather conditions. For example, it is common for people to say how their arthritis is terrible in the winter or their pain is worse when it is cold. There are many variations of this, and for the person experiencing their symptoms, the changes are genuine.

Here is an exercise that you can use whether you are in pain or working with people experiencing pain. It gives evidence to the individual experiencing pain. It is fascinating to use in a clinical setting when you’re looking for a way to start to help people interpret the foundation of their pain and get buy-in when looking to reverse the process.

When we feel pain or have to assess patients with pain, there is a default mechanism to search out damage, injury or pathology. It is sometimes a prejudice that blights western medical practice, and it is a viewpoint that I have been guilty of over the years.

An extinction burst is a common experience when someone is starting to recover from persistent pain, but what is it? This is when there is a ‘flare’ in someone's pain without a significant noticeable trigger that the patient recognises. Often it appears when the person has a gap in their symptoms and feels like they are doing well.

Jennie tells her story and recollects decades of pain. The story has a happy ending with her description of how she learned to recognise the cues to her pain and the route of reversing it. It is liberating to hear and can inspire others on their own journey and recovery from pain.

Pain or fatigue is contextual. It affects the system overloaded through the stress response or the system neglected during the stress response. Warnings appear before pain or fatigue, but our focus is so intent on what we are stressed about that we miss, ignore, push past, or fight the earlier sensations.

Heather describes a double whammy of persistent pain with it affecting her shoulder and her wrist. She meets people along the way who inspire her to see that recovery can be possible. In this case, it was her physiotherapist and she inspired her so much that Heather now coaches others on their recovery from pain. A great story of an amazing recovery.

It can be tricky to even see a way past the experience of persistent pain. That hawk-like analysis of why it is impossible is natural. It represents our neurological wiring to look for danger to remain safe, and the pain keeps us safe. When you notice the mechanism behind breaking the cycle of persistent pain, it can feel liberating.

Here’s a technique used for anxiety by motivational speaker Mel Robbins that can help flip that sensation and situation and can be used with pain.

What do you do when you wake up, or you're not doing anything, in particular, your pain just comes on suddenly without you understanding why that is happening?

After 20 years of thoracic pain which eventually lead to surgery, Karen felt that she would have to live with her pain for the rest of her life. This video explains her path to recovery and the steps she took to do it. Take inspiration from the changes demonstrated in Karen and hold on to the smallest amount of belief you can muster that it can be possible for you.

A patient started to talk about the situation in her life, and the more she described, the sadder she got. The unfortunate details included close family members with health conditions that she felt responsible for as their last remaining carer.

Recovery is possible when sometimes it is thought to be impossible. Margaret describes how what was a minor injury, turned into a nightmare that physical and psychologically limited her far more than she could ever imagine. It took her on a journey of discovery that although incredibly painful, was one that became enlightening.

See if you can work out why someone would have pain on the way somewhere but not on the way back. I’ll describe this patients situation and see if you can see why this phenomenon may occur. When we understand this in others, it can sometimes help us see similar situations in ourselves and our own experience of pain.