How to Heal a Sensitized Nervous System
By Kim Deschamps
MPT, BKin, PYT, BDN | July 10, 2023
Many of our clients walk through our doors for the first time without knowing what a sensitized nervous system is or how it relates to the levels of pain we experience. With an estimated 7.63 million, or one in four Canadians aged 15 or older, living with chronic pain, it seems like we should be talking more about the root causes of pain.
What is a sensitized nervous system? It occurs when our central nervous system becomes highly sensitive to anything it perceives as a threat to the body, which leads to more frequent and intense pain. Anything that triggers pain in your body can be seen as a threat. For example, moving your body a certain way, a change in your daily routine, or a certain level of physical exertion.
When the nervous system is sensitized, it’s as if your personal alarm system that is responsible for alerting you to any threat is operating at a higher frequency - sounding that alarm at a higher pitch and with greater frequency than is perhaps warranted. This pain response is designed to be protective, but with a sensitized nervous system, there’s too much pain, meaning it has become over-protective.
In its simplest terms, pain is created by the brain and the nervous system. All pain - from a paper cut or a splinter to chronic pain that is unrelenting. That pain is real, but there are ways to calm the nervous system, reduce the ‘high alert’ threat level, and reduce the frequency and intensity of any pain you are experiencing.
When acute pain caused by an accident or an injury lingers, our bodies get really good at creating the sensation of pain. By ‘practicing’ this ‘skill’, the nervous system becomes more and more efficient at producing pain until it becomes chronic and sometimes, sadly, debilitating.
There are a lot of factors that can also contribute to our pain experience, acting as threats or further sensitizing our nervous system. Stress can wreak havoc on our bodies, as can a poor diet or sleep habits, illness, too little or too much activity, and our mental state at any given time.
When you come to Holistic Physiotherapy & Wellness, our job is to help eliminate that pain that you shouldn’t have to live with. We offer a wide array of services to help you start to feel safe and well so that your nervous system can be calmed and the body can let go of pain. One of those services is a Lifestyle Medicine + PhysioYoga Assessment.
This assessment allows us to take a deep dive into your whole health history, covering everything from nutrition and exercise to sleep hygiene, hormonal health, relationships, injuries, and illnesses.
Through this holistic approach, we can identify the root cause of any persistent pain. Once we are armed with that information, we can create a care plan that is specific to you and your wellness goals. Ultimately, that might look like physiotherapy, chiropractic care, massage therapy or therapeutic yoga. We will use all the tools in our toolbox to envelope you in our circle of care so you need not live with pain any longer.
A sensitized nervous system can be calmed through a variety of modalities. The key takeaway here is that chronic pain is caused by your brain and central nervous system. By finding the right approach to soothe those nerves, we can get you back to a safe place where your body feels better.
Kim Deschamps
MPT, BKin, PYT, BDN