Pain is in the Brain

If you’ve been training with us at Integral for any amount of time, you’ve heard us tell you to not take things to a painful point in your body. We don’t mean you should avoid mild discomfort but rather that you don’t want to be in pain.
For those of you who don’t train with us; the reason is that the perception of pain is in the brain and it’s only function is to assure the survival of the organism, so it can reproduce. Pain is regulated relative to the perceived threat to the body’s survival. The more the threat the greater the pain.
When we create a chronic pain/avoidance condition the brain will take measures to avoid that condition/state to promote survival. Therefore, if we are lifting a weight and it is painful the brain will prevent us from lifting that weight in the future, by governing our strength, for as long as the event is painful.
Over the next few posts I’ll be talking about the nervous system and how it contributes to what seem to be painful “body” sensations. In the meantime I thought you’d be interested in this TED Talk, as a starting point.