Tension + time leads to disordered function and ultimately a change in structure. Place a muscle under tension and it will slowly deform its muscular shape. Distorting how it interacts with other muscles and joints. Place a bone under tension and eventually there will be a bony growth. Spinal vertebrae are bones that provide a nutrient flow to spinal discs, through a bony mesh called an end plate. End plate changes on MRI are an early warning of developing spinal disc disease.  

Function Better, Feel Better.

  Muscular ‘Training Effect’ is constant Read more about positively employing the Training Effect here. Chronic pain as an experience is layered when compared with acute pain. A chronic pain experience can outlast a disorder of structure or function and over time experiencing pain can become your experiential normal. What is Pain..? Pain, is defined as a sensory emotional experience (1). Pain comes from Latin and Greek meaning penalty and later from French to include suffering. Recently pain experiences have been explained in terms of psychological injury and moral injury in English Law. Typically Back pain involves the physical, psychological, social and fiscal aspects of life. A pain experience is an unresolved emotional state of being. Emotions are a complex of psychological states containing thoughts bound to bodily sensations. A pain experience does not definitively mean you have pathology or damage. Pain could be caused by: Difference – The neurological signal returned to the brain is different to that expected (like a hiccup of motion that can develop into habit). Dysfunction – Muscles and Joints are imbalanced, movement compensated, over time accumulated. Damage – an injury has changed how your body can work Danger – A Perceived Threat to Me (My Body / Person) Trauma – e.g. Adverse Childhood Events, Adult Psychological Trauma Tension – held tension within your body, unknown to you holding and ‘armoured spine’.  

Continuing Pain An experience of reoccurring or chronic persistent pain can be generated initially through difference, dysfunction, damage, danger, trauma, tension, yet perpetuated through changes, challenges and complexities in life. We can habituate our experiences through life’s repetitions. However because Psychological, Moral and Physical injury are all registered in the same part of the brain, called the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC), consciously recognising how changes, challenges and complexities of life all coalesce to deftly ‘train’ you, is practically impossible. In addition from a simple perspective there is the habit of having pain. People can habituate through any repetitions, intended or unintended. Furthermore, when repeated enough sensations can become ‘background’ aspects of Me.   Reference:

1. International Association for the Study of Pain (2016); Terminology; Pain