Anxiety is one of the biggest emotions I see that creates physical symptoms in the body. Anxiety feels the same as fear but the major difference we always need to remember is that anxiety is not real fear. Meaning it’s based on perceived danger vs real danger ( a car is going to run me […]
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dr. Yonit Arthur, Aud, known as ‘The Steady Coach’. We had a great discussion about the mind-body connection, emotions, and stress and how they play into physical symptoms in the body. Have a listen! I’m looking forward to interviewing Yonit in the near future about her work […]
When we are dealing with chronic symptoms or symptoms that have no physical structural origin, we are likely dealing with stress or emotional symptoms in the body. The approach to treating these symptoms is different than if we are treating let’s say a fracture or acute physical injury. We want to approach stress or emotional […]
This 2018 study looked at the association between mindfulness and emotion regulation and the best strategies that emerged out of these two approaches. Because a lot of chronic pain has its roots in the emotional limbic brain, strategies that look at how to deal with emotions and also how to mindfully approach your symptoms is […]
Affect tolerance is a term we use to indicate how much emotion or feeling in our bodies we can sit and tolerate with without needing to shut it down. This is a crucial skill we want to learn when we have chronic symptoms. The reason being is that many chronic physical symptoms in the body […]
One of the things you know I talk about is the overlap between emotions and pain or physical symptoms. The very definition of pain has the word ’emotional’ in it. All physical pain or symptoms activates the emotional brain. Other times we know the emotional brain itself can activate physical pain or symptoms in the […]
Had a fantastic trip over to London for the 2022 Chronic Pain SIRPA Conference. Very educational and inspiring to see so many leaders and practitioners in one place. I want to thank my mentor and head of SIRPA Georgie Oldfield for putting this event on. Some takeaways from the conference are that we are moving […]
As many of you know, I am a physiotherapist and mind-body coach. I am also a SIRPA practitioner and trained under Georgie Oldfield, who is the founder of SIRPA (Stress Illness Recovery Practitioners’ Association) and a fellow a physiotherapist. Georgie created this fantastic organization based on the pioneering work of the late great Dr. John […]
Wanted to review a study here showing the impact of emotions on physical symptoms like pain. What the study found was: Conclusion. The experience of both anger and sadness amplifies pain in women with and without fibromyalgia. A stronger emotion-induced pain response was associated with more emotional reactivity. No convincing evidence was found for a […]
Many people have a hard time believing their brains can generate physical somatic symptoms in the body. Studies around what’s called the ‘nocebo effect’ prove the brain is capable of producing all sorts of real physical symptoms. The nocebo effect is when there is a negative expectation of having a symptom and then experiencing that […]
