Podcast - Trigeminal Neuralgia Association Australia

Posted on July 19, 2023 by Lynette Donnelly — Leave a comment

Podcast – Pain and Executive Function How To Get Things Done

This podcast produced by Deanna Tsiapalis from Pain2Possibilities titled “Pain and Executive Function how to get things done“, describes how the brain can prevent you from completing tasks and to feel motivated which increases stress. Our community living with chronic pain, often blame themselves for not achieving what they had hoped, be that small daily tasks or a much bigger picture.

This podcasts discusses the science behind these blocks and offers practical solutions.

Executive functioning is the ability to get things done, to control our focus and to manage our emotions.

For years now, research has shown that pain is processed in many parts of the brain including the area of the brain responsible for executive functioning.

So if you have ever felt:

✅ difficulty in controlling your emotions

✅ difficulty focusing on anything other than the pain

✅ difficulty getting inspired/motivated to get things done

✅ Overwhelmed

You are not alone!

When the brain is processing pain, focusing on the pain and all the difficult emotions that go along with it like…

👉 anxiety, depression, fear, anger, overwhelm

it leaves little to no energy/resources left to do all the other, life giving things like…

👉 joy, optimism, contentment, setting goals and achieving them, core values (so much more I could add here)

Good news is, there is hope..

Pain And Executive Functioning – How To Get Things Done

Posted on July 6, 2023 by Lynette Donnelly — Leave a comment

At The Crossroads Of Grief And Pain

At The Crossroads Of Grief And Pain created by Pain 2 Possibilities

July 5, 2023 – Deana Tsiapalis

Life with chronic pain often leaves you with a deep sense of grief though the loss of limb or the loss of the life you once had, having to relearn as you navigate the world around you while adapting to the changes you are left to deal with often with little to no guidance.

Grief is the normal and natural response to loss and loss comes in many forms. When it comes to chronic pain, these are just some of the losses our community experiences:

👉 Loss of mobility
👉 loss of control
👉 loss of identity
👉 loss of purpose
👉 loss of meaningful relationships
👉 loss of living their values
👉 Loss of safety
👉 Loss of the life they once knew
👉 Financial losses, employment and career losses
and worst of all…
Loss of hope.

In this episode we’ll delve into the key components of grief as it relates to the chronic pain experience. Join us as we explore the interconnections and commonalities between the two as we offer insights and tools to inspire those who are doing their very best to navigate the crossroads of chronic pain and grief.

Listen Here

Posted on April 7, 2023September 6, 2023 by Lynette Donnelly — Leave a comment

What a Pain in the Brain – mind and body

“What does it matter what we think?” That’s the question Dr. Tor Wager has spent years in the research lab trying to answer.

Listen as he breaks down the placebo effect, explains the neuroscience of chronic pain, and shares stories of just how powerful the mindbody connection is.

Read part of the interview below

Dr. Tor Wager & Laura Seago

This interview is from the Like Mind, Like Body podcast.

How do you explain what you do to your 9 year old?[Laughs] Ok. My 9 year old is very interested in brain science by the way, he wants to know all the parts of the brain, how things work. [laughs] Sometimes he wants to be a scientist like his dad.We use brain imaging. So we record images from a living human brain and I study what the effects are of thoughts, feelings and emotions on the body. Especially on pain and health related outcomes.I’ve been interested for years on “What does it matter what you think?”And what’s the biggest revelation you’ve had in your study of brain imaging, does it matter what we think?Yes. [laughs] I think one of the revelation for me, is we do a lot of studies on placebo effects. So one of the first controlled studies of what happens when you get a fake medication and you believe it’s real, especially to your brain. When I got into doing this work, I really didn’t know whether placebo treatments were going to be effective at all. People are pretty reliable on how they rate pain, its experience. I didn’t think it was going to work. But, it did work in the sense that getting a sham treatment relieved people’s pain. Sometimes substantially. We saw a number of changes that go along with that in the brain systems that seem to encode pain and emotions and decisions around pain. So the idea of placebo treatments, just the idea of being treated and engaging in treatment can actually be effective has been one of the biggest revelations for me. Because I am naturally a skeptic, I’m always looking for evidence for when they work, how, for whom, and why.

What’s the most shocking example that you have seen through out your research of the placebo effect taking place in someone?

Most of our studies are really focused on the basic mechanisms and not on improving people’s clinical conditions right now. Although the new study we are starting is aimed at that. So maybe I’ll have more to say about that later on. But I think that some of the most dramatic results that we’ve seen in our lab is if you take a sham medication, you release opioids in the brain. So the brain has its own internal pharmacy. We take morphine, or Fentanyl, or Remifentanil, or any of those different things, Codone, Oxycodone, Hydromorphone, etc. and those drugs are external drugs that act on receptors in our brain that are intimately linked with pain relief, but also with feeling good and engaging in a positive way in life events. The reason we have those receptors is because your brain makes its own.

So the brain has its own internal pharmacy so to speak that you can engage, and the reason that that internal pharmacy exist is to translate your knowledge about where you are and what’s happening to you and the bigger picture into lower level changes in your brain. Where you brain is saying, “How much pain should I be feeling now? Should it be more or should it be less? Given what I have to do and where I am.” So opioids help to implement that. And so getting sham treatments can cause endogenous opioid release.

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Tag: Podcast

Podcast – Pain and Executive Function How To Get Things Done

At The Crossroads Of Grief And Pain

Listen Here

What a Pain in the Brain – mind and body

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