Controlling your emotions could also relieve your pain. An experiment where chronic pain patients learned to turn down negative emotions through a combination of sessions with an online therapist with homework showed significant success easing physical suffering, according to an article in the journal JAMA Network Open.
"Beyond its sensory experience, chronic pain is an intrinsically emotional experience associated with heightened negative emotions, including anger, worry, and low mood, alongside a diminished capacity to regulate emotions,” according to the paper.
The papers’ authors wrote that this may be the first experiment to focus primarily on emotional regulation for pain management.
Pain is officially considered chronic if it lasts more than 3 months. That definition applies to about 20 percent to 30 percent of the population that experiences pain. Although most people first experience pain as a physical sensation, it is also tied closely to emotions.
The question the researchers wanted ...
