Today's Article

"All pain 3occurs in the brain. If your brain doesn't decide you have pain, then you don't have pain."

Dr. Sanjay Gupta says he 4by no means is 5diminishing pain, but he says humans can do almost anything within reason to the body and not have pain if their brain decides it's not there.

6On the other hand, he says, the brain can also create pain where it shouldn't exist.

"People who don't have limbs anymore — 7phantom limb pain, for example — how does that happen? How is the brain creating pain in a part of the body that doesn't even exist? There's a lesson in there, and that is that all pain is in the brain, which is an opportunity, I think, to try and control it."

Gupta says the first step to managing 8chronic pain through your brain is to realize it often comes with baggage.

It may be depression, anxiety, poor sleep or loneliness.

"Pain is a truly mysterious 9biopsychosocial 10phenomenon. We don't know how to measure it. We don't know how to categorize it, but we know that it comes with all these things sort of 11intermingled."

To unlock the brain's power of pain relief, Gupta says lifestyle changes may be in order, including an 12anti-inflammatory diet, using movement as medicine, meditation and 13prioritizing adequate, quality sleep.

"I think it's hard for people to sort of 14wrap their heads around that sometimes because it makes sense. 'Oh my shoulder is bothering me. It's waking me up.' But could it be that your poor sleep 15in the first place is causing your pain to get worse? That's where the science is really 16heading."