Rethinking Chronic Pain with Somatic Practices
Chronic pain can start to feel like a battle with your own body. The more you brace, scan, worry, and try to solve it, the louder it can become. That is exhausting, and it can also make the body feel like an unsafe place to live.
A growing mind-body approach asks a different question: what if some chronic pain is being amplified by an overprotective nervous system? Not imagined. Not “all in your head”. Real pain, shaped by a brain and body that have learnt to stay on alert.
This is where somatic safety matters. It means building a felt sense of “I am safe enough right now” so the nervous system can begin to soften this alarm response.
This article is for information only and is not a substitute for medical care. New, severe, changing, or unexplained symptoms should always be assessed by a qualified health professional.
Chronic pain can become an overprotective alarm
Pain is a protective signal. It is meant to get attention. If you touch a hot pan, pain helps you pull away. That kind of signal is useful and helps us survive on a daily basis.
Chronic pain is more complicated. After an injury heals, or when no clear tissue damage explains the level of pain, the nervous system may still keep sounding the alarm. The brain has learnt that certain sensations, movements, places, emotions, or memories might mean danger.
Please know that your pain is 100% real, and what you are feeling is completely valid. Every type of pain—whether it is from a broken bone, an upset stomach, or a chronic headache —is created by the brain.
The question is never about whether your pain is genuine. It is simply about whether your brain’s sensitive alarm system is trying so hard to protect you that it is misreading the situation.
This alarm system is a protective network that connects your body's nerves directly to your brain. When you are hurt or stressed, your nerves send danger signals upward. The main hub processing these signals is a tiny, almond-shaped part of the brain called the amygdala.
The amygdala acts like your body's security guard. Its only job is to watch out for threats and keep you safe. If the amygdala decides you are in danger, it sounds the alarm by creating the sensation of pain.
With chronic pain, however, this guard gets exhausted and stuck on high alert. The system becomes so hypersensitive that it turns the volume all the way up, mistaking everyday physical sensations or stress for actual physical damage.
Dr John Sarno helped bring this idea into public awareness through his work on Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS) called TMS. His central message was that unresolved emotional stress and fear can play a role in persistent pain. Nicola Sachs, influenced by Sarno’s work, has developed this further through mind-body approaches such as expressive writing and nervous system awareness.
Their work can be powerful because it changes the aim. The goal is no longer to fight the body into silence. The goal is to help the brain learn: this sensation is uncomfortable, but it is not dangerous.
The pain-fear cycle keeps the volume turned up
Fear is one of the biggest fuel sources for chronic pain.
A typical cycle might look like this:
A sensation appears in the back, neck, hip, jaw, or abdomen.
The mind reacts with alarm.
The body tightens and breathing becomes shallow.
Attention locks onto the painful area.
The brain reads this as further evidence of threat.
The pain feels stronger.
This loop can happen quickly. It can also feel automatic. Many people do not notice fear as a dramatic panic response. Im sure many of us, myself included have worried when in pain and had thoughts such as:
“Is it still there?”
“What if this gets worse?”
“Did I damage something?”
“Will I be able to work, sleep, walk, or exercise?”
The brain pays close attention to anything it believes could be dangerous. Attention plus fear can turn up the intensity of the sensation. That is why chronic pain often grows when life feels stressful, uncertain, or emotionally loaded.
The good news is that you can guide your brain back to a state of balance. Healing chronic pain through bodily safety begins by interrupting this high-alert cycle with calm, repeated experiences that show your system it is okay to let its guard down.
Gentle listening approaches, like the Safe and Sound Protocol or The Rest and Restore Protocol, are simple and supportive ways to begin this process. Both of these therapies gently speak to your vagus nerve, the main pathway responsible for telling your body it is safe to rest, digest, and heal. By calming this nerve, you can gradually move away from constant survival mode and welcome back a deep, comforting sense of peaceful connection, rest, and repair.
Somatic exercises support the brain to interpret pain differently
Somatic tracking is the practice of noticing body sensations with curiosity rather than fear. It is not forcing relaxation. It is not trying to make pain disappear. It is a way of observing sensatsending signals of safety.
A simple practice might sound like this:
Find a comfortable position.
Notice one sensation in the body.
Describe it gently.
Remind yourself that you are safe in this moment.
Stay with it for a short time, without trying to fix it.
The wording matters. Instead of “What is wrong with me?” the tone becomes “What am I noticing?”
You might observe:
warmth
pressure
tingling
tightness
pulsing
heaviness
movement
shifting edges
The key is to watch the sensation as if it were weather passing through. It may change. It may stay the same. Either is fine.
A short phrase can help:
“This is a sensation. My brain is protecting me. I can meet this with curiosity.”
For some people, tracking pain directly feels too intense at first. In that case, start with a neutral or pleasant sensation. Feel the contact of feet on the floor, the warmth of a mug, or the rise and fall of breathing. Safety grows best when the nervous system does not feel pushed.
Emotional safety matters too
Sarno and Sachs both place strong emphasis on the emotional life beneath pain. This does not mean every symptom has a single emotional cause. It means the nervous system responds to pressure, grief, anger, perfectionism, people-pleasing, fear, and long-term stress.
Many people with chronic pain have spent years being strong. They may minimise their feelings, keep going, and treat rest as something earned only after collapse. The body can become the place where unspoken strain shows up.
How not to feel the stress of Chronic Pain
Chronic pain often leads people to brace, search, and fight. Yet an overprotective nervous system usually cannot calm down through more pressure.
Somatic safety and SSP./ RRP offers another path. They all use help the body to guide back to a place of safety and calm to help the brain update its threat response.
If you would like more information on either protocol or any thing in this article please get in touch.
Michelle Doubtfire is a BACP Registered Psychotherapist, Trauma Therapist, Safe and Sound, and Rest and Restore Practitioner.
She works with Stress, Anxiety, Chronic Health Conditions and Trauma with her clients in her clinic Safe Sound Connected.
For further support and information, please contact www.safesoundconnected.com
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