Why We Need To Take Our Livers For A Walk

If your heart is filled with pain, it is like walking around in a cage. The pain you feel can’t be released in any other way. If you can’t release the pain, you won’t feel the pain.

Our body is part of an intricate system of organs, fibers, and blood vessels that communicate to each other through a complex network. We may not realize this, but our organs, muscles and bones are designed to do their jobs with precision and efficiency.  When we experience pain, our organs send signals to the brain and tell it how we feel.   That’s not pain. Pain is a symptom that tells us something is wrong.  Pain doesn’t tell us how we feel.  In fact, pain is usually a sign that we need to be examined.  Let’s make sure our doctors and care providers are treating pain correctly.  Let’s start by taking a moment to examine our body.

Our Bodies, Part 2

Before I explain how our cells work to create sensations, let me examine what makes us feel.  

When we think or feel, our brain sends signals from our spinal cord to nerves which go down into our muscles, tendons, muscles, and nerves.  The brain communicates these messages to these nerves via the vagus nerve.

Let’s examine some of the signals our body sends when we experience pain.

1. The Brain Tells Our Nerves: Pain can make us feel physical pain.  We feel it in our chest or in our abdomen and our body starts to ache.  We can’t shake that feeling though.  

Pain tells the brain to send signals down from our spinal cord and our nerve endings in our muscles.  The brain interprets these signals to tell our muscles that they need to contract.  This makes our muscles move; it makes us feel.  Pain tells us that we need to take a step or two to alleviate this pain.  We know, after some painful experience, that we’ll be able to contract our muscles less, and we’ll feel less and less.  But this doesn’t make the feeling any less real.

2. Pain Tells Our Body: We can’t have pain if pain is not occurring in our body.  Pain tells the body that a painful thing has occurred.  Our body knows to stop any activities that aren’t for its health and safety.  This includes walking and eating.  We know to do these things because we felt sensations in our muscles or in our stomach, where we are most sensitive.  Pain also tells us that something is amiss in the way we feel.  Our body feels as though its not working at all, which it isn’t.  If we don’t feel pain, the body tells us that we have become weak.  So, as much as we feel like this is a bad thing that should be fixed, it’s going to be the body telling us that we’ve become weak and needs help.    

3. An Overstimulating Environment In Pain: It sounds like no one wants to get hurt.  But sometimes we will get hurt as a result of overstimulation!  Our own bodies have built-in pain systems and a body may not take to pain very well.  When this happens, we may react in a way that creates more pain.  I’m not saying that this particular combination will always happen, but you may see this happen in your own body.  That’s why you may need to use drugs, be prescribed pain medication, or work with a therapist to heal.  Our bodies and brains are set up for pain, and that fact is our body’s “warning” that more pain is coming.  It’s telling us that it needs help.  When we get a warning, our bodies and minds want to heal and get back to normal and pain is our first response.  Pain may even make us more prone to stress.  That’s when other issues start to occur.