Sensory overload during the holidays can hit harder when you live with chronic pain because a sensitized nervous system tends to turn up more than pain. Noise, bright lights, strong…
pain sensitivity
Holiday Family Stress and Your Nervous System: Why Gatherings Can Trigger Fight-or-Flight
Holiday family stress and chronic pain are linked through your nervous system. Before you walk into a family gathering, your body can already be bracing, tensing, and turning up its…
Allostatic Load: What Your Body Is Keeping Score Of (And Why It Matters for Chronic Pain)
Allostatic load is the physical wear and tear that builds up when your body’s stress response systems stay activated longer than they need to. It can also build when those…
Pain That Moves Around Your Body: What Your Nervous System Is Trying to Tell You
When pain appears to move around your body, it’s rarely a new injury. A nervous system that’s been on alert in one area long enough can activate nearby regions and…
How Exercise Helps Chronic Pain Without Making It Worse
Exercise helps chronic pain by activating the body’s built-in pain-quieting pathways, gradually rebuilding the tissue’s capacity to handle load and giving the nervous system new information about what feels safe….
Does Soreness Mean Muscle Growth (Or Are You Overdoing It)
Muscle soreness is often treated as a sign that a workout was effective, which leads many people to assume that the more sore they feel, the more progress they are…