Can Exercise Actually “Turn Off” Pain?

Opiate receptors are tiny pieces of brain tissue that have multiple functions including, binding to pain-relieving chemicals naturally produced in the brain, as well as binding to non-natural, pain-relief chemicals such as morphine and other potent medications. Scientists studying these chemicals have found that the more opiate receptors a person has in his brain, the more resistant the person’s body will be to experiencing pain.

Further research, however, has now shown that people with chronic pain from diseases like arthritis, have more opiate receptors than those without any disease, and are therefore more resistant to pain as a whole. The body’s pain system is now being noted as flexible and adaptive in order to help the body cope with different degrees of pain.

These findings have excited the medical field as scientists are studying new ways to naturally increase pain-relief receptors. One of the promising ways of doing this is to use exercise as a way of increasing these receptors. Exercise has already been known to activate the body’s natural pain-relieving system, but researchers are hopeful that exercise can be used to actually increase the number of opiate receptors in the brain and make people more resistant to pain. If this is successful, it would greatly decrease the risks for addiction, and dependency, on strong medications, often prescribed for pain relief.

SimpleTherapy has several different programs that are already offering pain relief for various conditions and routine aches and pains!