Something’s been rubbing me the wrong way lately about how migraine and chronic pain are often viewed in the “mind-body” field.

When I’m talking about the “mind-body” field for chronic pain, I’m talking about the approaches that have popularized the idea of neuroplastic or “TMS” pain- basically persistent pain that does not have a structural source, but more of a psychological one.

This mind-body industry has evolved from the work of Dr. John Sarno whose book “Healing Back Pain” gave rise to alternative strategies to healing chronic pain like the Curable app, the book “The Way Out” by Alan Gordon, and the JournalSpeak method by Nicole Sachs, just to name a few big names in the field.

Now don’t get me wrong, on the outside I probably look like the poster child of working with migraine using a mind-body approach- I’m a yoga teacher certified in Pain Reprocessing Therapy for chrissakes.

But I often feel like the odd one out among other yoga teachers and mind-body coaches because…

I ♥️ science and critical thinking, too.

As much as I love yoga and mind-body approaches like Pain Reprocessing Therapy, it’s also healthy to question and apply critical thinking to some of the assumptions that underlie these practices.

We risk being dogmatic when we fear doing so.

So here’s what has been increasingly bothering me about the talk I often hear in the mind-body world about chronic pain:

There is a heavy reliance on belief to “cure” chronic pain.

Now I get it- belief is soooo friggin’ powerful.

The placebo effect is actually so powerful that a study showed not only do people’s migraine symptoms improve when they knowingly take a pill labeled placebo, but they felt even better when they took a placebo labeled as the medication Maxalt.

The study estimated that, “the placebo effect accounted for at least 50% of the subjects’ overall pain relief.”

So yes, belief can make a huge impact on our perception of pain.

One of the first things we are trained to do as Pain Reprocessing coaches and therapists is to help our new client believe that their pain is neuroplastic.

We are supposed to help them find evidence that there is nothing structurally wrong with them and that their pain is due to their brain’s inaccurate processing of danger.

In Nicole Sachs’ new book, “Mind Your Body” the first step in overcoming chronic pain is simply to Believe.

Nicole Sachs encourages her readers to believe by highlighting numerous client success stories and bringing a tremendous amount of confidence that your chronic pain can be cured.

We have many levers to pull when managing chronic pain, and belief is a powerful one.

But not the only one.

And when we solely rely on any one lever to treat migraine, whether it’s changing your medication or changing your beliefs, problems can arise when our symptoms don’t improve as we had hoped.

When it comes to meds that don’t help, maybe we can move on to the next one without taking it personally (maybe 😅).

But when we only focus on changing our beliefs about migraine and we still have symptoms (or god forbid they get worse), that can really mess with your head.

“Am I not believing hard enough?”

“Have I not been putting enough effort into excavating my repressed emotions?”

“Am I not really facing my fears about migraine?”

You can feel like you have personally failed if your symptoms persist, especially if all you are focusing on is changing your beliefs.

So what makes me different from many mind-body coaches for chronic pain out there is that I don’t ask you to believe anything.

I don’t ask you to believe that your pain is neuroplastic instead of structural.

I don’t ask you to trust me because I’m the expert.

I don’t ask you to put your faith in a one-size-fits-all system that supposedly works for everybody with chronic illness from back pain to fibromyalgia to migraine .

I just ask you to be curious and open about your unique experience living with migraine.

Open to running little experiments and seeing the results for yourself.

What happens if you adjust your bedtime?

What happens if you take your acute med sooner?

What happens if you practice yoga regularly to reduce your stress?

And together, like scientists, we can adjust a variety of levers (not just one!) that affects your migraine to see which ones make the biggest impact in your life.

That means working from a biopsychosocial perspective- not just psychological, which can negate the real biological underpinnings of migraine.

It means finding your unique “pain recipe” as Dr. Rachel Zoffness puts it- the right combination of meds and devices, lifestyle tweaks, and mindset shifts to turn down your migraine symptoms most effectively.

If this resonates with you and you’d like support decreasing your migraine symptoms with this comprehensive multi-layered approach, I’m offering my complimentary 15 minute Migraine Lifestyle Audit Calls again for a limited time.​

With empathy and understanding, I’ll help you identify which strategies to try first for the greatest reduction in your migraine symptoms.

​Book your Migraine Lifestyle Audit Call today to get complimentary support and a renewed sense of hope that your migraine can get better.

Believe it or not. 😜

Adriane

PS I’d love to hear from you- have you too struggled with these mind-body approaches to chronic pain and their emphasis on belief? Especially if your symptoms did not improve?

Hit Reply and share your two cents, even if it’s just a quick sentence.