Tell Me About Your Pain

Alan and Alon discuss the science behind the “pain-fear cycle" and speak with real chronic pain sufferers to examine how it plays out in the real world. Amber, who suffers from chronic neck pain, calls in to share her fears and worries about how her pain dominates her life. Meanwhile, Emily struggles to let go of the idea that her pain is purely physical in nature. Alan and Alon guide their guests to let of go these fears to break the cycle of chronic pain.

Alan and Alon introduce somatic tracking, the most effective technique they’ve found for overcoming chronic pain. Somatic tracking teaches your brain to reinterpret signals from your body through a lens of safety, thus deactivating the pain. Alan talks to Stephen (chronic back pain), Amber (fibromyalgia), and Felicia (chronic neck pain). Alan guides each of them through somatic tracking exercises, helping them to neutralize their fear and alleviate their symptoms. Then, Alan and Alon break down the different components of somatic tracking, and explain how you can use this technique to eliminate your own pain.

Living with chronic pain means living with chronic worry. But it's actually this fear, frustration, and despair around the pain that keeps your pain signals activated. Even once you know how destructive these thought patterns are, it’s so hard to keep your mind from going there. In this episode, Alan and Alon explain why your brain keeps pulling you to pain, and how you can break this habit. Alan talks to Chris, a chronic pain sufferer with so much fear and frustration around his pain, he can think of little else. Alan teaches him a new technique to calm these thoughts, cutting off the fuel source for his pain. Then Alan and Alon describe how you can use this same technique to overcome your own pain.

In this episode, Alan and Alon explain how you can use your left brain and your right brain together, to overcome pain. The left hemisphere of the brain is generally looked at as our logical side. We use our left brain to think rationally and gather evidence. The right brain is considered to be more emotional and intuitive. Alan talks to Amber, who suffers chronic pain in multiple parts of her body. She has a lot of fear around her pain and a lot of doubt that she'll recover. Alan works with Amber on two fronts: First, he uses a left-brain approach to help her see that her pain is coming from her brain and not her body. This calms her fear and her pain fades. Then he uses a right-brain technique to solidify those pain-free neural pathways. In other words, her left brain gets her out of pain and her right brain helps her stay that way. Finally, Alan and Alon give guidance on how you can use these two parts of your brain to overcome your own pain.

In this episode, Alan and Alon explain how making your brain feel safe deactivates chronic pain. Alan talks to Laura, a pain sufferer who's been in "danger mode" for many years. Due to her past experiences (getting bullied as a child) as well as the way she treats herself (pressure and anxiety), her brain feels very unsafe. Alan guides her through a somatic technique that calms her brain and puts it in "safe mode." Finally, Alan and Alon explain how you can use this technique to make your own brain feel safe, and overcome your pain.

Alan and Alon talk about the role of emotions in chronic pain. They discuss the benefits of tapping into difficult emotions, and provide a simple and effective technique for doing so. Alan talks to Ginger and Chris who are having trouble connecting with their feelings, and he helps them feel their emotions in a safe way. Finally, Alan talks to Mandi and reveals the one emotion that every chronic pain sufferer needs to address.

Alan and Alon talk to Christie Uipi, Director of the Better Mind Center, who recently participated in a groundbreaking study on the treatment of chronic pain. Christie explains how they treated the patients in the study and what the results mean for the future of chronic pain. Christie also talks about her own struggles with chronic symptoms (knee pain, wrist pain, stomach issues) and how she overcame them. Alan, Alon, and Christie discuss the power of 'No' - a word that's difficult for many chronic pain sufferers. And finally, Christie reveals what she thinks is the single most important thing for overcoming pain.