September is Pain Awareness Month
Let’s Rethink How We Understand Pain
“Pain is the sensation of threat,” explain David Butler and Lorimer Moseley in Explain Pain.
Pain is also the number one reason people seek help from the medical profession. However, pain is not a straightforward indicator of tissue damage, but rather a protective output of the brain—an alarm system meant to warn us of perceived danger. Sometimes that alarm system can become over sensitized causing difficulty with movement and function.
How Physical Therapy Can Help Reduce Pain
Physical therapy offers scientifically backed pain education and graded movement. Through gradual exposure, manual therapy, and pain science-informed guidance, therapists help patients build new, safer movement patterns.
By pairing education with movement, PT transforms fear into confidence. Patients learn that their nervous systems are malleable: pain becomes less dominant, function improves, and quality of life is restored. In honoring Pain Awareness Month, we recognize that understanding pain is the first step toward mastery—and physical therapy is a cornerstone in guiding that journey.
How Do You Treat Chronic Pain?
In the treatment of chronic pain, physical therapists can integrate techniques that target both the body and the nervous system to reduce sensitivity and promote healing.
- Relaxation techniques—such as diaphragmatic breathing and progressive muscle relaxation—help lower the body’s stress response, which can amplify pain when left unchecked.
- Therapists may incorporate mindfulness practices and guided meditation to calm the brain’s threat response and rewire patterns of pain perception.
- Yoga-based movement, tailored for chronic pain, focuses on gentle stretching, body awareness, and breath control, reinforcing safety in motion.
- Breathing techniques like box breathing or paced respiration are used to regulate the autonomic nervous system and reduce tension held in the body.
- Graded motor imagery and mirror therapy are emerging techniques that retrain the brain’s perception of movement without provoking symptoms.
These approaches work in harmony to decrease central sensitization—the nervous system’s heightened sensitivity to pain—and empower patients to regain control over their movement and quality of life.
Here are three gentle, evidence-informed exercises commonly used in physical therapy to help individuals with chronic pain begin moving safely and confidently:
1. Body Scan with Diaphragmatic Breathing
- Purpose: Calms the nervous system, promotes awareness, and reduces fear around movement.
- How to do it: Lie on your back or sit comfortably. Inhale slowly through your nose, letting your belly rise. Exhale gently through your mouth. While breathing, mentally scan your body from head to toe, noticing any tension or discomfort without judgment.
- Why it helps: This activates the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) system, reduces pain intensity, and builds internal body awareness.
2. Shoulder Rolls or Gentle Joint Circles
- Purpose: Encourages safe, non-threatening movement and improves mobility.
- How to do it: Sit or stand comfortably. Gently roll your shoulders forward and backward in slow, circular motions. Start with 5–10 repetitions. You can also do small, pain-free wrist, ankle, or neck circles.
- Why it helps: These low-load movements help “retrain” the nervous system to see movement as safe, improving motor control without increasing symptoms.
3. Mini Squats or Sit-to-Stand from a Chair
- Purpose: Restores functional strength and confidence in movement.
- How to do it: Stand in front of a sturdy chair. Slowly bend your knees and hips as if beginning to sit, then return to standing. Keep the movement small and within a pain-free range. Perform 5–10 reps.
- Why it helps: This mimics everyday movement, reinforcing the brain’s safety signals and building tolerance for more activity.
These exercises are typically paired with pain education to help patients understand that movement is safe and beneficial—even in the presence of chronic pain. Many individuals disregard the impact of how closely interconnected our systems are. How we feel when we move can change how we move. Physical therapists are movement experts and our clinicians spend years learning about how the body works and how to help it function efficiently after an injury or due to a condition.
Our expert therapists spend up to one hour in a private treatment room with our patients to help them meet their medical goals and return to doing what they love. Reach out to us with your questions. We offer a complimentary phone call with one of our expert physical therapists and can answer questions you may have about how we can help you.
References
Butler, D. S., & Moseley, G. L. (2013). Explain pain (2nd ed.). Noigroup Productions.
