#7 COMPARING DIFFERENT SENSATIONS - Stress & Pain Relief

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is going to be a stress and pain relief recording. So this is part of my, like it's a new podcast I've got.

I keep forgetting the name of it, which is terrible. But hey, it's stress and pain relief, that's quite easy to remember. Only listen when you safely close your eyes, if not I've already said that.

This is more of a practical recording than some of the relaxing sleepy stuff that I do. This is more guided visualization, guided, being active, you're actually doing something when I make these recordings. So it's a little bit different.

And the reason why it's both, both stress and pain relief is because the same techniques can be used for both conditions. So the same technique that can reduce stress can reduce the feelings of chronic pain, and vice versa. So that's why I started this new podcast.

And I will also share it on the other podcasts that I have that will maybe be useful as far as relaxing, you know, so hopefully it can. So if you've got a stress condition, but you don't have any chronic pain, first of all, good for you that you haven't got any chronic pain, because it's horrible. And you can still use this don't don't feel that it's only here for people that have chronic pain, it's not.

And it goes the other way as well. However, anyone who's got chronic pain will also have stress connected to it. Without you know, it's impossible not to.

So by reducing the stress, the pain reduces as well. Does that make sense? This is something I discovered many, many years ago, about 15 years ago, when I used to offer a free pain relief service in the town that I lived. And I also studied chronic pain, chronic pain relief techniques, as well as the actual science behind chronic pain and how it operates in the body.

Now, I'm not a qualified person in that, you know, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a physician, I'm not, you know, I'm not here to give advice on chronic pain. The only advice I'd give is, if you've got chronic pain, and you don't know the cause of it, make really do go and see a doctor. Seek medical help, don't rely on the internet or anything like that.

Seek medical help, find out the cause. It might seem obvious what the cause is, but you don't know, you know, just check it first. You know, your health is too important to ignore.

So that being said, I'm going to assume that you know the cause of your chronic pain. Like for example, I've got chronic pain in my back. I had many years of chronic pain in my shoulder due to an injury.

And now the pain in my back is starting to be disabling actually, the last couple of years. And I'm waiting to, I've seen a specialist and everything, but this isn't about me, is it really? But I kind of understand on a certain level what it's like to experience physical chronic pain. And I've also, in the past, not just in the past, even the present, had huge amounts of stress connected, you know, sort of mental health issues and stuff.

So I'm coming from a place of knowing what it's like for me to experience it. It doesn't mean I understand what it's like for you to experience it. And that's, I think that's important to realize, to accept that we all experience things differently.

And when someone says to you, oh, I know how you feel, they don't, but they're trying to be kind. They don't know how you feel. They know how they feel.

But they don't know how you feel because we all deal with things differently. You know, one person can lose their job and bounce back quite quickly, get themselves another job, you know, and do whatever is necessary. And another person, it might devastate their life.

Two very different extremes. But we're just humans. We all have our own ways of dealing with things or not dealing with things.

So I know it's a bit of a long introduction. But what you get with me is I try and be thorough. Maybe I shouldn't, but I try to be real.

I try to be thorough. And what you get with me is, I guess, a degree of consistency and honesty. I try to be honest.

So when I do these techniques with you on the podcast, or if it's on YouTube, the video, this one isn't, but there will be ones on YouTube. I'm doing this technique with you. I'm doing it as I speak it.

As I talk through it, I'm doing it. So even in a relaxation session, if I'm talking about focusing on my left foot, I'm focusing on my left foot. I'm not just sitting here reading a script, thinking about what I'm going to have for dinner.

You know, I'm in the moment doing it. And for me, that's the only way that I can do this. Otherwise, it'd be like acting and I'm not an actor.

I'm a hypnotist. And you know, so unless I can be real, I can't do that. You know, if I'm just sitting there saying, now focus on your right knee.

And I'm thinking, I could have pizza. I did have that pizza in the fridge. I could eat that.

Now focus on your left knee. Yeah, and then there's that Haagen-Dazs ice cream. You may not, obviously, you're not going to know what I'm thinking.

But there's something in my mind that, and I can't get rid of it, is the idea that the energy that comes from me is somehow transferred through the recording. So that almost my body relaxing and my mind calming down is transferred and transmitted almost into your body in a sense. Although it sounds ridiculous, I know, but you'll have a similar experience of feeling calmer.

It's also the other side of if I say, oh, and you're feeling really relaxed. And I'm all up and down, jumping up and down, getting excited because Domino pizza is about to deliver their pizza in 10 minutes. That's not going to, I must be hungry.

I keep talking about food, but do you see what I mean? I try and stick to what I'm doing. Even though I may go around the houses in the introductions, a part of that, and there's a nice dog in the background in the garden. So that's lovely.

But you know what? We don't need it to be silent. Don't need it to be silent. You can have as much sound in the background as possible, not as possible, but as there is, and it makes no difference because your mind is way more powerful.

Your focus is way more powerful than any sound that may have in the past disturbed you. Saying that if a helicopter landed in the garden or space shuttle landed, you know, in the road outside course, you know, it's a little bit too loud, but it's unlikely to happen. So this is a really simple technique, but it's really cool as well.

It's very, very simple. And I want to explain it before we even start. And it's really simple.

It's really easy. Focus on a part of your body. Well, first of all, you know, decide which part of your body you're going to focus on regarding either your stress or the chronic pain or both, you know, if it's both.

And I guess for some people, chronic pain is easier. You might think, well, yeah, it's my, it's my right elbow. That's where the chronic pain is.

But with stress, you may have it in lots of different places. So when I get stressed, I get it in my forehead. I get it in my stomach, the back of my neck.

Sometimes I feel like I get it all over. I sometimes have muscle spasms, not so much these days, but in the past I used to. And I could almost feel it in my brain.

It felt like it was, you know, like there was a tension there. But we're not going to focus on every part of our body. We're just going to focus on one part where either the pain is or the stress currently is.

So once you've chosen that, what would you from one to 10, 10 being like the worst it could be. And one being like absolutely pretty much non-existent. And that's just to give yourself an idea of where it is now.

Although where it is now may be different to where it was 10 minutes ago, before you started listening to me droning on. It may have changed because it's always changing. These feelings don't stay static.

They can't do. The body is continuously growing and changing all the time. The blood's pumping through your body, cleaning out stuff, moving things around, you know, it's always changing, always moving, always changing.

Even just my minute movements can make a difference to how you physically feel without even realizing that you'd made that movement. So for example, if someone's got a, you know, a hand that's in pain, they may have moved their hand slightly and it feels more relaxed and, you know, less tender without realizing that they'd actually moved their hand because it was such a small movement. But in doing so, they'd relaxed maybe one of the muscles that had a chain effect which then relaxed more of the hand.

So we're going to be focused on one part which is either, you know, stressful or painful. The other part we're going to focus on is a part of your body that's really relaxed and completely pain free. Okay.

And we're not going to use those words anymore. We're going to use A and B. A is for the pain or stress. B is for the part of you that's relaxed.

The part of you that is completely pain free. A is for the pain and stress. B is just relaxed calmness.

So I'd like to focus on a part of your body now that you can, first of all, do the pain one. So if you focus on your body, maybe close your eyes if you choose to and just get in touch with that part of your body, wherever it is. So the part that's painful or part of your body that feels stressed, feel tense, uptight.

And then you can gauge what number it is between 1 and 10 on that scale and say the Richter scale. So that's A. B is now to just look for another part of your body that actually just feels, it can almost feel neutral, you know, it doesn't have to be like super relaxed. But if it's neutral, it's going to be relaxed.

It's going to almost like nothing going on there. You know, so right now, my left thigh, it's getting relaxed, but you know, there's nothing going on. Until I focused on it, I wasn't even aware it was there.

So you could perhaps focus on that for B. Focus on a part that really is either neutral or really, really relaxed. Completely calm of any, any physical sensation, really, apart from just standard feelings. We're going to compare and contrast.

We're just going to go between each one. And I'm going to say A and I'm going to say B, and I want you to focus on that part. And I'm going to say the next one, you focus on that part.

We're going to do it slow to start with. And then we're going to speed it up. So I'm going to start off with A, which of course is the pain or the stress.

So A, focus on A. Now, notice how easy it is to get into that feeling, how used to it you've got, how naturally you can just get into the feeling of discomfort, which is a feeling that you don't want, but it feels familiar. It's almost like you've got that forest that you've made a path through, and it's easy access. So what you really need is for it to start getting overgrown again, so you can't access it so easily.

And the only way for that to happen is to stop using that path. So you almost like build a different path. You start to go there and then you move.

So it's a B, for example, focused on B now, that might not be as easy, but it should be fairly, fairly simple. Because if you're just focusing on a, you know, a physical thing, rather than an emotional thing, just focusing on that. And maybe you can hear a pigeon in the background, which is weird.

But hey, that's Herbert the pigeon. He comes to play every now and then. He likes, he wants to do his own podcast, but he can't because he's a pigeon.

So now focus on A again. And just notice that even though there's only small breaks between focusing on A and then B, then going back to A, there's a real, might be some difference and some changes that maybe you're noticing in going back to A again. B, I mean, sorry, there's only two, two alphabet letters.

I should be able to remember them, shouldn't I? B, focus on B. Now one of these is going to draw you to it. You can, you want to, there's one is going to be more pleasurable than the other. And obviously it's going to be B. B has the, it's more relaxing, it's calmer, it's peaceful.

So you're not going to want to go back to A, but we're going to go back anyway, because just in the same way with A, it's almost like you're, you're dipping yourself in a safe swimming pool. And when you get out of a swimming pool, of course you don't take all the water with you, but you take some of it, it's still wet. So you're going over to A again, but you still got some of that, or quite a lot of that relaxation on you as you step into the, going back to A, which makes it feel a little bit different.

A little bit, you know, when you, I don't know if you've ever done this. I've not done it in a, in a health spa, but some people come straight out of the sauna and they jump into an ice cold pool. I've done the equivalent by pouring a cold bucket of water over myself, not on a really hot day.

And it just feels lovely. I say cold, not ice cold, but like out of a tap and it doesn't feel cold, but it feels nice. So there's no kind of shock value.

No, it's more a gentle, even though it's the opposite, it's more gentle as it sort of moves over. So going back to B again, focusing on the comfort, relaxation, pleasant feelings, just staying there for a short while and moving back to A, focusing there for a little while. And now we're going to speed it up, moving back to B again, moving to A again, back to B, back to A, back to B, back to A, back to B, back to A, back to B, back to A, back to B, back to A.

And if you can hear that pigeon in the background, Herbert the pigeon, associating it now with the A, realising that he's going to fly away in a minute.

He's also moving further into the distance. I don't know if he's just moving from tree to tree, moving further away, thinking I can still annoy him, but just from a distance. I never used it, but I did show him a catapult.

So you keep doing that. He says, yeah, you won't do anything. But I think he's wary.

So he kind of does it from a distance. I think he might have a megaphone. Back to B. Really feeling that comfort.

And you can choose right now, which one you prefer to focus on. And as you focus on A again, just notice the changes. What number is that now? What number? How's it gone down? How far has it gone down on that dial of 10 down to one? Just being aware.

And you can redo this and go over and continue, in fact, if you wish to do this as many times as you choose. And each time you do it, you'll find more and more benefit to you. And not only will you relax more during the time that you listen to me, you'll also find that there's those changes in your life, your day to day life, where you find you feel more comfort physically.

And that spreads to your mind, because when you're feeling more comfortable physically, emotionally, you'll also feel more comfortable. You'll have calmer mind, which in turn relaxes your body. The cycle of peacefulness, I guess.

And you can continue to feel relaxed and calm. Continue to feel peaceful as the pigeon flies away.