“Before I can be, I can be a part of…..” - Stabilizing a highly dysregulated system is sometimes the first step toward healing chronic pain
When our internal environment is chaotic, sometimes the first step toward healing comes in the form of seeking a measure of stability by borrowing it from something steady and external to us.
A healthy brain and body system is highly adaptive, smoothly transitioning between states to respond flexibly to life's challenges. The sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system work reciprocally, enabling us to manage stress and return to equilibrium once stressors pass.
However, pain, chronic or traumatic stress can disrupt this balance, causing abrupt shifts in system dominance and resulting in symptoms that lack a clear connection to specific events. When the nervous system loses its ability to regulate smoothly, it defaults to erratic shifts, creating an unpredictable biological rollercoaster. Without the ability to return back to internal stability, minor stimuli can trigger excessive responses, leading to swings from high sympathetic arousal which can be experienced as anxiety, pain flare ups, and panic attack, straight into parasympathetic collapse, characterized by fatigue and a drop in blood pressure.
Triggers can be as minor as bright lights, noise, or slight emotional reactions. While understanding the causes for the pain and removing the triggers is what we most often attempt to do, the real issue lies in the lack of balance between these two systems, leading to cycles of heightened activation followed by shutdown. When this natural balance deteriorates, the nervous system becomes chaotic, confusing medical professionals when no apparent reason can be found to explain the symptoms leaving patients feeling misunderstood and alone in their experience. This instability underlies chronic syndromes affecting multiple body systems, manifesting as chronic pain, digestive issues, emotional instability, and extreme fatigue, all linked to autonomic nervous system dysregulation.
System approach to chronic symptoms and syndromes
Humans operate as open, living systems that adapt to their surroundings to survive. A "system" is a collection of parts working together, each interacting with others toward a shared goal. Within these systems, there are subsystems all functioning interdependently.
Adaptive systems have key traits: irritability, connectivity, and plasticity.
Irritability lets the system dynamically react to disturbances, such as tissue injuries, by temporarily moving away from what caused the injury or by avoiding movements that could create more tissue damage.
Connectivity refers to the vital interactions among a system’s parts, forming patterns and self-regulating feedback such as the ability to change behaviors that were protective in the initial phases of the healing process while dampening outdated protective actions.
Plasticity is a system's ability to alter its structure, behavior, or function to survive environmental shifts.
Supporting the restoration of natural internal rhythms
Humans have an innate rhythm, allowing for self-organization, regulation, and healing when uninterrupted. However, prolonged stress, unresolved pain, or trauma can disrupt these abilities, diminishing rhythmic function and resilience while increasing physiological chaos. Dysregulation occurs when systems can't revert to normal after disruptions, impacting the entire organism due to interconnected systems. This often manifests as disruptions in biological rhythms, such as circadian cycles affecting sleep, appetite, activity, and temperature, as well as hormonal and cardiac rhythms. Since chronic pain often involves multiple systems, effective treatment focuses on stabilizing the entire brain-body system rather than in isolated pain treatments.
How chronic pain create a feedback loop of avoidance that further disrupts the body's internal communication
Chronic pain is closely associated with impaired stress regulation and diminished body awareness. Those suffering from chronic pain often report heightened pain intensity and multiple areas of discomfort, which seem to impede their ability to cope with stress. Furthermore, individuals with chronic pain typically experience a decline in body awareness, which worsens over time. This indicates that the physiological changes linked to chronic pain may interfere with the maintenance of adaptive body awareness. As a result, body awareness plays a dual role; it influences the onset of chronic pain while simultaneously being affected by it.
When faced with persistent pain, the brain begins to perceive normal bodily movements as threats. Through a process known as threat learning, it mistakenly links everyday activities and neutral body sensations to potential harm. Consequently, the individual starts to avoid specific actions or environments to reduce discomfort. Avoidance deprives the nervous system of vital physical input which deprives the brain from receiving sensory information over how the body is moving in space. This sensory deprivation disrupts the communication pathways between the brain's hemispheres, gradually impairing the central nervous system's capacity to integrate complex inputs which worsens the already existing disorganization.
When deprived of movement feedback, lacking body awareness, and overwhelmed by overstimulation, the nervous system struggles to effectively filter sensory information. The brain finds it increasingly difficult to sort and prioritize incoming data which often exacerbates the existing internal chaos and systemic dysregulation.
One of the least appreciated qualities in modern medicine is the human system's innate ability to reorganize itself through connection
Before we can establish sufficient internal stability, we might need to borrow it from external sources. This process allows a chaotic system to begin experiencing small shifts toward a more regulated state, facilitating its reorganization. The key is to make small, gradual changes that don’t overwhelm the system, which could otherwise lead to increased constriction and symptoms as it attempts to maintain some form of stability. Often, what we perceive as problems are actually the body’s solutions for preserving stability.
If a system changes too quickly, the brain interprets this rapid shift as a threat, triggering a defensive contraction that, paradoxically, heightens symptoms. These symptoms are smart adaptations, not failures. Chronic symptoms, pain, anxiety, numbing, and hypervigilance are brilliant solutions by the body to maintain homeostasis and ensure safety when internal stability is compromised.
Once sufficient internal stability has been achieved to support the reorganization of the brain-body system, the next step is to gradually introduce movement. This will aid in rebuilding body awareness and processing sensory information, ultimately allowing us to return to adaptive interactions with our external environment.
Combining gentle body-based somatic exploration with gradual exposure to movement is showing the best results for chronic pain. If you’re ready to stop chasing symptoms and help your body heal itself, see the package: https://app.paperbell.com/checkout/packages/142709
-Ansku
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