What is Pain? - Understanding Your Body’s Alarm System.

Pain is complex. There are many myths around pain which should be discussed and explored.

Pain is a common experience, but what is it exactly? Many people assume pain means injury or damage, but modern science shows it is far more complex. As an Osteopath and rehabilitation specialist, I often explain that pain is not just a signal from the body – it is the nervous system’s protective response.

Pain as a Protective Response
Pain is often described as the body’s “alarm system”. It is produced by the brain when it perceives a threat, based on information from the body, past experiences, and the surrounding environment. As Professor Lorimer Moseley, one of the world’s leading pain researchers, explains: “Pain is a protector, not necessarily a damage detector” (Moseley, 2007).

This means that the level of pain experienced does not always equal the level of damaged caused. For example, if you sprain your ankle, pain makes you stop and protect the area while it heals. But in some cases, pain can persist even after tissues are fully recovered, because the nervous system has become extra sensitive (Moseley & Butler, 2015).

Different Types of Pain

• Acute pain – short-term, often linked to an injury or sudden event.

• Chronic pain – lasting beyond normal healing time, often due to nervous system sensitivity rather than ongoing tissue damage.

• Referred pain – pain felt in one area but originating elsewhere, such as leg pain caused by nerve irritation in the back.

Pain Is Influenced by More Than the Physical Body
Research shows that pain intensity is influenced by many factors beyond physical injury. Stress, mood, fear of movement, and even past painful experiences can increase or decrease how pain is felt (Moseley, 2007). This explains why two people with the same injury may experience very different levels of pain.

Managing Pain Through Movement and Understanding
A key part of modern pain management is education. Moseley’s work highlights that understanding pain reduces fear and can actually decrease pain intensity. Alongside this, approaches such as Exercise therapy, Osteopathy, and Rehabilitation help retrain the nervous system, restore movement confidence, and reduce sensitivity. Gentle, progressive exercise in particular has been shown to improve outcomes in chronic pain (Geneen et al., 2017).

Conclusion
Pain is not a simple message of damage – it is the brain’s way of protecting you. By learning about how pain works and combining education with movement, we can calm the nervous system, reduce symptoms, and rebuild trust in the body to promote management and recovery.

References

• Geneen LJ, et al. (2017). Physical activity and exercise for chronic pain in adults: An overview of Cochrane Reviews. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (4), CD011279.

• Moseley GL. (2007). Reconceptualising pain according to modern pain science. Physical Therapy Reviews, 12(3), 169–178.

• Moseley GL, Butler DS. (2015). Fifteen years of explaining pain: The past, present, and future. Journal of Pain, 16(9), 807–813.

• Wiech K. (2016). Deconstructing the sensation of pain: The influence of cognitive processes on pain perception. Science, 354(6312), 584–587.