Every symptom has a purpose. Every reaction in your body has a purpose. Every cell in your body depends on your perception of your environment in order to know how to react.

Now, imagine being in an emergency situation. Whether or not you actually are in danger, here is how the perception of danger influences your pain.

First of all, the filters in your brainstem open. What does that mean? Suppose you are relaxed, sitting in front of your computer reading this article. Do you notice your feet touching the ground? Probably not. Your brain stem filters that and most other non-essential information. But that filter becomes open in an emergency since you need to be on high alert. Anything could come from anywhere any minute, so you need to allow all information into the cortex so you know what is going on.

But, you may ask, if stress opens the filter to the brain, why is it that I do not feel any pain when I get injured during an intense sporting event? Simply put, your body produces endorphins during an emergency. The pain blocking effect of stress prevents pain information from even getting to your filters, even though they are open.

So here is how it is supposed to work. Most of the time, you are not in a stressed mode. Occasionally, something dramatic happens. You become alert and strong. You lift the car off your friend or whatever else you need to do to deal with the situation. You’ll feel the pain the next day, which prompts you to rest until the injury heals. That’s how it is supposed to work.

But that’s not what actually happens in a handful of patients who are ‘running on adrenaline’ all the time. They are producing endorphins chronically for years. Your body cannot possibly operate in that mode, so it eventually has to cut you off of your own hormones. The adrenal glands and pituitary glands just stop producing so much adrenaline and endorphins.

Now, your filter in your brain is still open, assuming you are still in the ‘stress’ mode continuously. As the hormones run dry, you need more and more stress to get the endorphin fix. When you relax you lose the ability to produce endorphins, which means you have more pain. Even though the filters in your brain might close up when you relax, the net effect is that you end up with more pain.

One way to know if this is you is that a relaxing massage does you no good. Also, if you haven’t allowed yourself to stop and completely relax and be a lazy bum for a long time, you fit the profile. You could easily be staying busy and stressed to keep the pain away.

When this goes on for years, your physiology is severely taxed. All kinds of health problems will eventually show up. It is inevitable. There is a tendency to spend a fortune on all the consequences of this pattern, like low thyroid, low adrenals, poor sleep, pain everywhere, etc.

If you really want to fix what is ailing you, something has to be done about this pattern. The easiest way to do so is to get a lot of light, relaxing massages. You won’t know if it is helping after one or two. You might need several massages per week for a few months. The massage will get you started. Eventually you have to understand why this ‘crisis’ mentality has habituated in you. It is not an easy fix, but at least you can begin to look at what is relevant.