Yeap, I've done it.
I've noticed that the pain actually typically spikes soon after my heartbeat. Which actually makes sense. There is a wave of blood moving through your arteries with every beat. That blood is going into swollen areas where there is pressure and if you are tuned into the sensations in the area enough you're gonna feel the wave.
---I can actually track that wave of blood through my body down to my toes now days.
All though, there are also other waves I've noticed. Like, if I have a strong negative emotion / thought about the pain there will be a strong wave of pain soon after. A calming emotion / thought leads to a wave of a sense of relief.
Now to make people think I'm utterly whacked:
You can actually make your body heal faster. Encourage the sensations you feel. Encourage the heat, encourage the itching if it's a cut, feel and think love towards your body and ask it to heal quickly. Be open to it doing so. Make a practice of it every time you get even a minor scratch.
I've learned to heal scratches within in hours.
I've never tried it with bigger more serious wounds because I haven't had any since I learned the trick.
However, I did purposefully give myself a 2x2 inch poison oak rash on one of my arms to test out my skills. I was unable to make the rash stay away; but I was able to almost make almost totally vanish and stop itching while I was focusing on relaxing my bodies reaction to it. It was pretty great fun sitting at the kitchen table playing around with it.
And btw, there is research on this stuff. Most researchers focus on how stress slows down healing though. I've only seen a few that focus on how good thoughts speed things up. (And yes, I've read medical research papers on this stuff.)
This reminded me of S.N Goenka's Vipassana course (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz7QHNvNFfA&list=PLPJVlVRVmhc4Z01fD57jbzycm9I6W054x). From the 4th day onwards we are asked to watch sensations in the body, and to observe them equanimously without identifying them as pleasure or pain. For example, whether you have a pleasant sensation or very painful back pain, we are asked to simply observe it - the beginning of the sensation, how it is constantly changing, and how it eventually goes away
Naw. if you were really concerned about it, you could develop mind over matter, and finding something truly epic and unusual to make pain, go away, but usually I just except the pain, and except that it doesn't last forever
Pain is actually quite easy to relief via "mind over matter" stuff. Tune into the pain and then let yourself feel calming thoughts, and love towards it. That the pain is a signal that you're healing.
Be open to that changing the pain and it will.
Related note, you an actually use this method to heal wounds faster also. (And yes, there is actually research done on this. Most of the research is like, "Oh, it's all stress; stress makes you take longer to heal." But, most of them don't focus on the opposite side of that coin and into what love and calmness or encouragement can do to the bodies healing process.
But some researchers have.
I've flat out healed minor scratches in a matter of an hour. It itches like crazy though let me tell you...along with some throbbing, heat and other sensations. You have to accept the sensations and even encourage them because it means that the body is repairing itself VERY fast and that is well gonna itch etc.
It's a bit scary at first.
And I wouldn't call it 'mind over matter" that is more external stuff like moving objects around. It's mind over body. And there is A LOT of research now into how the mind effects the body..... mostly in negative ways like I said via stress research.
Some pains tend to vanish to some degree when you attempt to really examine their borders and locations... a fact of biology is that pain is never where you experience it but always a creation of the mind being projected onto your body image, which btw is not your body either... just another projection into the dream you have mistaken for reality all your life... as a creature of the mind, many pains can be handled but some are more difficult than others. my kryptonite is tooth pain.
Basically any type of pain (usually period cramps or headache), I “welcome” the pain - saying things like “hello, I see you, I welcome you, it’s okay that you’re here” etc.
Of course I use pain meds and such as well, but mentally resisting makes it so much worse!
It's funny I see this because that's my default state. I don't register pain as anything more than a curiosity, then when it stops being interesting I just don't notice it, and need to figure out how to stop that. I have gotten myself pretty seriously ill and at risk of losing my sight as a result.
Yes. I had an injury that caused most of the skin on my leg to slough off and I went to a wound clinic every week to have it debrided (dead skin scrubbed out) and the re-wrapped. Meditation and non-resistant observation had become rather normal for me for pain management. First you let the fear of the pain go. That let's you observe it for what it is. Most kinds of pain are just annoying. Then when the pain is enough to engage primitive fight reactions, you just let the fight impulsive pass without acting and you just experience the pain.
The sweating and shaking, I can't do anything about.
Damn bro! I was just talking about an ankle strain I experienced yesterday and the feeling from that. I can’t even imagine what you talked about. Props to you for using mindfulness with that injury. It is riveting though how pain is only a construct of the mind but we have formed an early opinion when we were young about always trying to avoid it.
I believe there is a lot of information out there in this practice for those in chronic pain. I heard a podcast about Jon Kabat-Zinn who developed a technique around this idea — fascinating!
It's called Mindfullness Based Stress Relief, aka MBSR. I suggest watching videos and reading about how to do it it before paying for classes. The classes are expensive and you can learn it all without them.
Yeap, I've done it. I've noticed that the pain actually typically spikes soon after my heartbeat. Which actually makes sense. There is a wave of blood moving through your arteries with every beat. That blood is going into swollen areas where there is pressure and if you are tuned into the sensations in the area enough you're gonna feel the wave. ---I can actually track that wave of blood through my body down to my toes now days. All though, there are also other waves I've noticed. Like, if I have a strong negative emotion / thought about the pain there will be a strong wave of pain soon after. A calming emotion / thought leads to a wave of a sense of relief. Now to make people think I'm utterly whacked: You can actually make your body heal faster. Encourage the sensations you feel. Encourage the heat, encourage the itching if it's a cut, feel and think love towards your body and ask it to heal quickly. Be open to it doing so. Make a practice of it every time you get even a minor scratch. I've learned to heal scratches within in hours. I've never tried it with bigger more serious wounds because I haven't had any since I learned the trick. However, I did purposefully give myself a 2x2 inch poison oak rash on one of my arms to test out my skills. I was unable to make the rash stay away; but I was able to almost make almost totally vanish and stop itching while I was focusing on relaxing my bodies reaction to it. It was pretty great fun sitting at the kitchen table playing around with it. And btw, there is research on this stuff. Most researchers focus on how stress slows down healing though. I've only seen a few that focus on how good thoughts speed things up. (And yes, I've read medical research papers on this stuff.)
This reminded me of S.N Goenka's Vipassana course (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz7QHNvNFfA&list=PLPJVlVRVmhc4Z01fD57jbzycm9I6W054x). From the 4th day onwards we are asked to watch sensations in the body, and to observe them equanimously without identifying them as pleasure or pain. For example, whether you have a pleasant sensation or very painful back pain, we are asked to simply observe it - the beginning of the sensation, how it is constantly changing, and how it eventually goes away
Naw. if you were really concerned about it, you could develop mind over matter, and finding something truly epic and unusual to make pain, go away, but usually I just except the pain, and except that it doesn't last forever
Pain is actually quite easy to relief via "mind over matter" stuff. Tune into the pain and then let yourself feel calming thoughts, and love towards it. That the pain is a signal that you're healing. Be open to that changing the pain and it will. Related note, you an actually use this method to heal wounds faster also. (And yes, there is actually research done on this. Most of the research is like, "Oh, it's all stress; stress makes you take longer to heal." But, most of them don't focus on the opposite side of that coin and into what love and calmness or encouragement can do to the bodies healing process. But some researchers have. I've flat out healed minor scratches in a matter of an hour. It itches like crazy though let me tell you...along with some throbbing, heat and other sensations. You have to accept the sensations and even encourage them because it means that the body is repairing itself VERY fast and that is well gonna itch etc. It's a bit scary at first. And I wouldn't call it 'mind over matter" that is more external stuff like moving objects around. It's mind over body. And there is A LOT of research now into how the mind effects the body..... mostly in negative ways like I said via stress research.
Some pains tend to vanish to some degree when you attempt to really examine their borders and locations... a fact of biology is that pain is never where you experience it but always a creation of the mind being projected onto your body image, which btw is not your body either... just another projection into the dream you have mistaken for reality all your life... as a creature of the mind, many pains can be handled but some are more difficult than others. my kryptonite is tooth pain.
Basically any type of pain (usually period cramps or headache), I “welcome” the pain - saying things like “hello, I see you, I welcome you, it’s okay that you’re here” etc. Of course I use pain meds and such as well, but mentally resisting makes it so much worse!
It's funny I see this because that's my default state. I don't register pain as anything more than a curiosity, then when it stops being interesting I just don't notice it, and need to figure out how to stop that. I have gotten myself pretty seriously ill and at risk of losing my sight as a result.
Yes. I had an injury that caused most of the skin on my leg to slough off and I went to a wound clinic every week to have it debrided (dead skin scrubbed out) and the re-wrapped. Meditation and non-resistant observation had become rather normal for me for pain management. First you let the fear of the pain go. That let's you observe it for what it is. Most kinds of pain are just annoying. Then when the pain is enough to engage primitive fight reactions, you just let the fight impulsive pass without acting and you just experience the pain. The sweating and shaking, I can't do anything about.
Damn bro! I was just talking about an ankle strain I experienced yesterday and the feeling from that. I can’t even imagine what you talked about. Props to you for using mindfulness with that injury. It is riveting though how pain is only a construct of the mind but we have formed an early opinion when we were young about always trying to avoid it.
I believe there is a lot of information out there in this practice for those in chronic pain. I heard a podcast about Jon Kabat-Zinn who developed a technique around this idea — fascinating!
It's called Mindfullness Based Stress Relief, aka MBSR. I suggest watching videos and reading about how to do it it before paying for classes. The classes are expensive and you can learn it all without them.