Pain, Gates & Brain, Oh My!

As silly as this may sound, you have "Gates" in your brain. I know, I was just as surprised when I first learned about them. That's why I am so anxious to share this insightful information with you.

If you are anything like me in your suffering with Chronic Pain, you most likely 'feel' your pain more intensely during the night hours. When you are trying to go to sleep, you're trying to get completely relaxed, then all of a sudden, boom, you really start 'feeling' the pain stronger and in more areas, Yes?

The reason for that is because of the number of competing messages arriving at the "gate" is usually far less at night than it is during the day. Because of no competition many more of those pain messages get through. So what are we to do? Simple really, you have to do something that will excite the nerve center directly, something like acupressure! Acupressure is a lot like Acupuncture with the exception of the needles. Which works better for me, how about you?

The first and most difficult lesson to really grasp is that pain is natural! Don't raise your eyebrows at that statement, read on! It is the response of the body to both external (exogenous) and internal (endogenous) events, signaling us about danger or to take caution, and providing us with a survival mechanism that allows us to respond to an injury, be it a new injury or an old one.

One way to understand the mechanism of pain is to view pain as messages descending from the your brain or ascending to the extremities of your body through this massive highway of nerve fibers. Can you picture it? These nerves meet up at a "GATE" (actually a series of gates) where your spinal cord joins with your brain. Sort of like a 'bottleneck' in rush hour traffic, 'pain' messages crowd in with other messages it has gathered from your body along the journey down that massive highway. Then it sits and waits for a chance to get through, sort of like that person who sits through a green light but is more than willing to go right through the red lights. So what happens is some messages are received and others don't get through at all.

See, every experience you have in life is remembered by your brain. And that experience is attached to the emotion or feelings you had at the time of that experience. (e.g. fear, pleasure, pain, depression, loneliness, worthlessness, etc.).

So when you are confronted with a new situation, your mind attempts to make sense of it by scanning the deep recesses of every corner for similar experiences. Once it finds that experience, it also brings up the attached feelings that goes along with it.

If the attached feeling is uncomfortable or painful, your mind then looks for a way to get rid of the pain. It comes to a quick conclusion about what you should think or how you should act, then it does something really damaging for you, it 'justifies' that conclusion by pulling in evidence to support it.

Then you make a move that is based almost entirely on OLD experiences or things you had previously learned! What is so surprising is ALL of this happens in an instant, BEFORE the logical or rational part of your brain ever has a chance to "think it through".

So learning acupressure is something to be looked at as a NEW experience that can override everything, allowing you to control the opening and closing of your "gates". Wow, that possibility would allow you to be able to get into bed, lay back, get comfortable, and truly enjoy a good nights sleep. Is acupressure the answer for everybody? Probably not, but how do you know if it will work for you if you don't give it a try?

There are several options you have at your fingertips; acupressure, tapping, meditation, exercise, etc., but remember; if one doesn't work for you that doesn't mean another won't, so try and try again. I would also recommend you have someone who is familiar with your choice to help walk you through how it should be done to get the benefits to the fullest.

The secret of a better and more full-filled life is to cast out those old, dead, unhealthy thoughts. Opening those "gates" for the new, vital, nourishing, wholesome, faith based thoughts to come flying in. An intake of new thoughts will remake you and your life!