if you had your leg amputated in the
1700s you didn’t get anaesthetic maybe a
little bit of wine to take the edge off
by 1846 we’d invented pretty effective
anesthetics that would numb your pain
during surgery but people still had
their leg sworn off without anesthetic
do you want to know why because we
thought pain could bring you closer to
God because we thought the nice ladies
might get erotic ly aroused if they were
unconscious and do something they’d
regret later
and because we thought that the
opportunity to show your courage and
strength in the face of pain was
something no surgeon should deny you it
sounds ridiculous
but today what we think about pain is
still as much governed by our societal
norms and cultural beliefs as it is by
any improved scientific knowledge and
the scientific knowledge we have today
that is challenging a lot of our beliefs
is the knowledge that pain is actually
an experience made by your brain think
about the last time you felt pain maybe
you stubbed your toe or hit your thumb
with a hammer
you really felt pain in the toe or your
thumb but actually 100% made in your
brain now pain is actually quite useful
it stops you doing dumb things so how it
works you put your hand in the fire
brain says that’s a little bit dangerous
sends out warning signals like pain and
you take your hand out of the fire it’s
protective but in the area of pain I’ve
dedicated the past 10 years to chronic
or persistent pain this pain response is
not so well calibrated
your nervous system has become
sensitized so that your brain sends out
these warning signals of pain when
things aren’t really that dangerous so
for many people this happens when pain
goes on longer than you would expect
after surgery or trauma but for many
people there’s almost no apparent cause
at all now if this is starting to sound
familiar it really should because one in
five of us experiences chronic pain and
as a country we’re spending thirty four
billion dollars on it every year in
terms of direct costs
that’s more we’re spending more in
direct medical costs than we do on
cancer but actually most about thirty
four billion dollars is the years of
disability and lost work hours from
people with ongoing pain now if your
first thought when you have pain is that
you would take pain medication you might
be surprised at how ineffective they are
one of the ones we’ve been most commonly
prescribing opioids it has according to
some information from pain Australia an
average reduction in pain of 30%
usually with negative side effects and
of course with that small issue of the
risk of addiction plus our beliefs that
pain always equals tissue damage is
making us go for a heap of scans and
tests that aren’t helpful and actually
can make pain worse because they worry
us
so it’s sounding pretty terrible but
there is some really good news and it’s
that if your brain can change to feel
more pain you can change your brain to
feel less pain and the best way that
health care has at the moment to do this
is through a multidisciplinary approach
so you’ll have access to a doctor
physiotherapist psychologist maybe rehab
counselor and dietician to help with the
psychological physical and behavioral
aspects of pain so they’re going to
check there’s nothing wrong with you
that we should be worried about they’re
going to teach you skills to turn down
that dimmer switch so that your pain
starts to reduce and give you skills
like mindfulness and pasting your
activities throughout the day so that
you
can at least keep your quality of life
but there are three really big
challenges with this approach the first
is that we will usually only have these
kind of expert services in a community
or a town or a city that’s big enough to
support it and so that means that if you
live in a country area or outside an
urban center you’re probably going to
have to travel and if you have pain a
long drive will probably make your pain
worse the second issue is that when it
comes to pain early intervention matters
whereas wait lists for public hospitals
can be upwards of 12 months plus people
go to pain clinic and then they leave
and they don’t actually practice the
skills necessarily long enough to get
any benefits so folks I am here today to
tell you about a solution that has
worked for me and many others you can do
it at home you can do it in the seer you
can do it in the country folks I am here
to tell you you can do it in the town
hall or your park it will help you with
the physical aspects of pain the
psychological and even those pesky
habits that are making your pain worse
does it sound good do you want to know
what it is it’s caused
I was gonna say yoga yoga can help with
your experience of pain through its
combined effect on your body your mind
and your perception of the world I had
all over body pain for about ten years
in my teens and my 20s I’d wake up in
the morning feeling like I had been hit
by a bus I suspect that it was brought
on by glandular fever and stresses in my
teens but I don’t really know
epigenetics tells us some of us are
predisposed and something happens pains
triggered maybe but at any rate at 20 I
felt like my body was falling apart
doctors had scanned every part of me
there was nothing they could find wrong
so they gave me vitamins and actually a
heap of really good strategies for
helping me calm things down but there
was only so far that they could take me
the rest was up to me so as you’ve
probably guessed I had a yoga practice
which I had to adapt really considerably
for my new capacity but over time my
practice allowed me to get to know my
body again and kids it get to know
myself and what that meant was that
eventually I would run away to the
circus so 2010 I’m hanging from a
trapeze wearing a pink boa singing cows
with guns and I’m looking out over this
big church in Sheffield over this
audience and I thinking to myself my god
Rachel you just lifted a woman above
your head and you did it on four hours
sleep I think you’re better that’s right
I said to myself but did you know that
lots of people with pain are still being
told the best they can do is managers
that’s terrible I said maybe we could do
something about it yes we should let
everybody know that they can run away to
the circus
if they want so I was going to change
the world help everybody who wanted to
run away to the circus metaphorically
speaking do so and I ran away to France
to study a degree in yogic education
with Madame Marie and lay-by on this
degree helps me learn how to make yoga
accessible to diverse populations it
particularly taught me the value of
keeping yoga as yoga not trying to blur
it not trying to confuse it with medical
care because it’s different and to take
my personal experience and develop it
into a coherent framework that will
eventually turn into a yoga course for
people with persistent pain so to tell
you how we were taking yoga framework
informed by medical information and use
it to improve the lives of people who
need it I’m going to take you into a
very old Texas called the Yoga Sutras
the Yoga Sutras
were written down at least 2,000 years
ago so it’s the real deal
and I think you’ll find this useful
especially if you’re getting your yoga
education from Instagram but the Yoga
Sutras they tell us that our yoga
practice has eight limbs so yoga posture
the one that we’re most familiar with
thanks to Instagram here’s a limb number
three and this gives you your physical
education so specifically for someone
with pain we need to rebuild those
pathways between the brain and the body
but also learn how to move with less
tension that might have come because of
that fear that something’s really wrong
with you
breathing pranayama works on the nervous
system and for people with pain we need
to calm the nervous system down so it’s
not responding to everything as danger
that takes us into pratyahara since
withdrawal where we’re not affected by
external stimuli so much so think about
someone with pain where their nervous
system is telling them everything around
them is dangerous
that then leads us into Dharana
concentration the mind with pain is
often anxious and then meditation and
this stage called Samadhi that we often
call bliss but let me take you into the
very first two limbs of this eight limbs
framework because these are the ones
that I think are really important but a
less well talked about and they’re the
Yama’s and the jnanis and these are some
guidelines around how to be with
ourselves and be with others now because
I want you all to be able to leave here
and impress your friends over drinks on
Friday night with your knowledge of
yogic philosophy and Sanskrit I’m going
to talk you through two of them so the
two I want to speak to are our hymns o
non-harming and such a truthfulness so
they sound pretty straightforward you
don’t tell any lies you don’t hurt
people you’re honest with yourself we
need to get really practical what are
these concepts mean in practice and so
with someone with pain I want them to be
able to move without making their pain
worse but for many people that’s not
even something they can conceive of
start your truthfulness am i being
honest with myself about how much I do
today so that I don’t do too much but
also that I don’t do too little and hold
myself back when it’s really time to
progress when you have pain or illness
your whole world changes and this
philosophical contemplation allows you
to examine some of the beliefs you hold
about your body and your life and to try
out some new ones and thank you to this
you know this practice we now have a lot
of research that shows that yoga a
regular practice can in fact reduce your
pain including the related symptoms like
fatigue and anxiety even the stress
level the stress hormone cortisol which
is often high when you have chronic pain
so with this evidence now doctors are
sending it sometimes it seems like
everyone with pain to yoga which is
really great right we can just all do
yoga save the world but a lot of people
with the very conditions that research
says yoga can help our going to yoga and
it’s not changing things for them in
fact some of them are saying Rachel I
went to restorative yoga and it made my
pain worse and I see three interlinked
reasons why this is happening first of
all we’re sending people to yoga as a
last resort their nervous systems are so
sensitized and their sense of hopes so
diminished that they don’t do it
regularly enough to get any of the
benefits so clearly we can improve the
way we’re offering yoga as a pain care
modality but I also realize that those
three issues are the same ones that face
health care professionals on a daily
basis with their pain patients for the
healthcare system as a whole we are
spending more and more on pain and yet
as many people as ever hurt pain is set
to get worse as our population ages so I
realized that to do something that would
actually make a difference
we would have to bring the healthcare
profession along provide something that
wasn’t just a pain solution on a
psychophysical level but that helped
with this bigger socio-economic
challenge that ears pain and that’s why
I started bringing yoga teachers and
health professionals together not to
work together but to learn together and
through that they can offer pain
sensitive yoga in their communities
which means people don’t have to drive
across town or into the city to get some
kind of care they’ve got almost
immediate access to some pretty good
pain management strategies and
importantly it’s a normal enjoyable
activity that encourages you to do it
often enough to get progress the kind of
progress that makes more progress
possible but the really exciting thing
in all this is actually the kind of
learning that is taking place because
when we have our different fields sired
by size it makes us question our beliefs
and challenge what we think about pain
and what the best thing is to do to
actually have a difference
in the world so the partnerships and
knowledge sharing that happens between
these practitioners means that they can
work nimbly with very specific local
communities in a way that a big system
just can’t you know doctors farmers with
back pain in their 60s I’ve got
different needs to kids with arthritis
we can’t go to school there programs for
these different groups will have a time
and a place and we don’t need to spend
billions rolling them out across the
country but for that community at that
time that program will be what enables
them to move forward thank you
[Applause]
1700s you didn’t get anaesthetic maybe a
little bit of wine to take the edge off
by 1846 we’d invented pretty effective
anesthetics that would numb your pain
during surgery but people still had
their leg sworn off without anesthetic
do you want to know why because we
thought pain could bring you closer to
God because we thought the nice ladies
might get erotic ly aroused if they were
unconscious and do something they’d
regret later
and because we thought that the
opportunity to show your courage and
strength in the face of pain was
something no surgeon should deny you it
sounds ridiculous
but today what we think about pain is
still as much governed by our societal
norms and cultural beliefs as it is by
any improved scientific knowledge and
the scientific knowledge we have today
that is challenging a lot of our beliefs
is the knowledge that pain is actually
an experience made by your brain think
about the last time you felt pain maybe
you stubbed your toe or hit your thumb
with a hammer
you really felt pain in the toe or your
thumb but actually 100% made in your
brain now pain is actually quite useful
it stops you doing dumb things so how it
works you put your hand in the fire
brain says that’s a little bit dangerous
sends out warning signals like pain and
you take your hand out of the fire it’s
protective but in the area of pain I’ve
dedicated the past 10 years to chronic
or persistent pain this pain response is
not so well calibrated
your nervous system has become
sensitized so that your brain sends out
these warning signals of pain when
things aren’t really that dangerous so
for many people this happens when pain
goes on longer than you would expect
after surgery or trauma but for many
people there’s almost no apparent cause
at all now if this is starting to sound
familiar it really should because one in
five of us experiences chronic pain and
as a country we’re spending thirty four
billion dollars on it every year in
terms of direct costs
that’s more we’re spending more in
direct medical costs than we do on
cancer but actually most about thirty
four billion dollars is the years of
disability and lost work hours from
people with ongoing pain now if your
first thought when you have pain is that
you would take pain medication you might
be surprised at how ineffective they are
one of the ones we’ve been most commonly
prescribing opioids it has according to
some information from pain Australia an
average reduction in pain of 30%
usually with negative side effects and
of course with that small issue of the
risk of addiction plus our beliefs that
pain always equals tissue damage is
making us go for a heap of scans and
tests that aren’t helpful and actually
can make pain worse because they worry
us
so it’s sounding pretty terrible but
there is some really good news and it’s
that if your brain can change to feel
more pain you can change your brain to
feel less pain and the best way that
health care has at the moment to do this
is through a multidisciplinary approach
so you’ll have access to a doctor
physiotherapist psychologist maybe rehab
counselor and dietician to help with the
psychological physical and behavioral
aspects of pain so they’re going to
check there’s nothing wrong with you
that we should be worried about they’re
going to teach you skills to turn down
that dimmer switch so that your pain
starts to reduce and give you skills
like mindfulness and pasting your
activities throughout the day so that
you
can at least keep your quality of life
but there are three really big
challenges with this approach the first
is that we will usually only have these
kind of expert services in a community
or a town or a city that’s big enough to
support it and so that means that if you
live in a country area or outside an
urban center you’re probably going to
have to travel and if you have pain a
long drive will probably make your pain
worse the second issue is that when it
comes to pain early intervention matters
whereas wait lists for public hospitals
can be upwards of 12 months plus people
go to pain clinic and then they leave
and they don’t actually practice the
skills necessarily long enough to get
any benefits so folks I am here today to
tell you about a solution that has
worked for me and many others you can do
it at home you can do it in the seer you
can do it in the country folks I am here
to tell you you can do it in the town
hall or your park it will help you with
the physical aspects of pain the
psychological and even those pesky
habits that are making your pain worse
does it sound good do you want to know
what it is it’s caused
I was gonna say yoga yoga can help with
your experience of pain through its
combined effect on your body your mind
and your perception of the world I had
all over body pain for about ten years
in my teens and my 20s I’d wake up in
the morning feeling like I had been hit
by a bus I suspect that it was brought
on by glandular fever and stresses in my
teens but I don’t really know
epigenetics tells us some of us are
predisposed and something happens pains
triggered maybe but at any rate at 20 I
felt like my body was falling apart
doctors had scanned every part of me
there was nothing they could find wrong
so they gave me vitamins and actually a
heap of really good strategies for
helping me calm things down but there
was only so far that they could take me
the rest was up to me so as you’ve
probably guessed I had a yoga practice
which I had to adapt really considerably
for my new capacity but over time my
practice allowed me to get to know my
body again and kids it get to know
myself and what that meant was that
eventually I would run away to the
circus so 2010 I’m hanging from a
trapeze wearing a pink boa singing cows
with guns and I’m looking out over this
big church in Sheffield over this
audience and I thinking to myself my god
Rachel you just lifted a woman above
your head and you did it on four hours
sleep I think you’re better that’s right
I said to myself but did you know that
lots of people with pain are still being
told the best they can do is managers
that’s terrible I said maybe we could do
something about it yes we should let
everybody know that they can run away to
the circus
if they want so I was going to change
the world help everybody who wanted to
run away to the circus metaphorically
speaking do so and I ran away to France
to study a degree in yogic education
with Madame Marie and lay-by on this
degree helps me learn how to make yoga
accessible to diverse populations it
particularly taught me the value of
keeping yoga as yoga not trying to blur
it not trying to confuse it with medical
care because it’s different and to take
my personal experience and develop it
into a coherent framework that will
eventually turn into a yoga course for
people with persistent pain so to tell
you how we were taking yoga framework
informed by medical information and use
it to improve the lives of people who
need it I’m going to take you into a
very old Texas called the Yoga Sutras
the Yoga Sutras
were written down at least 2,000 years
ago so it’s the real deal
and I think you’ll find this useful
especially if you’re getting your yoga
education from Instagram but the Yoga
Sutras they tell us that our yoga
practice has eight limbs so yoga posture
the one that we’re most familiar with
thanks to Instagram here’s a limb number
three and this gives you your physical
education so specifically for someone
with pain we need to rebuild those
pathways between the brain and the body
but also learn how to move with less
tension that might have come because of
that fear that something’s really wrong
with you
breathing pranayama works on the nervous
system and for people with pain we need
to calm the nervous system down so it’s
not responding to everything as danger
that takes us into pratyahara since
withdrawal where we’re not affected by
external stimuli so much so think about
someone with pain where their nervous
system is telling them everything around
them is dangerous
that then leads us into Dharana
concentration the mind with pain is
often anxious and then meditation and
this stage called Samadhi that we often
call bliss but let me take you into the
very first two limbs of this eight limbs
framework because these are the ones
that I think are really important but a
less well talked about and they’re the
Yama’s and the jnanis and these are some
guidelines around how to be with
ourselves and be with others now because
I want you all to be able to leave here
and impress your friends over drinks on
Friday night with your knowledge of
yogic philosophy and Sanskrit I’m going
to talk you through two of them so the
two I want to speak to are our hymns o
non-harming and such a truthfulness so
they sound pretty straightforward you
don’t tell any lies you don’t hurt
people you’re honest with yourself we
need to get really practical what are
these concepts mean in practice and so
with someone with pain I want them to be
able to move without making their pain
worse but for many people that’s not
even something they can conceive of
start your truthfulness am i being
honest with myself about how much I do
today so that I don’t do too much but
also that I don’t do too little and hold
myself back when it’s really time to
progress when you have pain or illness
your whole world changes and this
philosophical contemplation allows you
to examine some of the beliefs you hold
about your body and your life and to try
out some new ones and thank you to this
you know this practice we now have a lot
of research that shows that yoga a
regular practice can in fact reduce your
pain including the related symptoms like
fatigue and anxiety even the stress
level the stress hormone cortisol which
is often high when you have chronic pain
so with this evidence now doctors are
sending it sometimes it seems like
everyone with pain to yoga which is
really great right we can just all do
yoga save the world but a lot of people
with the very conditions that research
says yoga can help our going to yoga and
it’s not changing things for them in
fact some of them are saying Rachel I
went to restorative yoga and it made my
pain worse and I see three interlinked
reasons why this is happening first of
all we’re sending people to yoga as a
last resort their nervous systems are so
sensitized and their sense of hopes so
diminished that they don’t do it
regularly enough to get any of the
benefits so clearly we can improve the
way we’re offering yoga as a pain care
modality but I also realize that those
three issues are the same ones that face
health care professionals on a daily
basis with their pain patients for the
healthcare system as a whole we are
spending more and more on pain and yet
as many people as ever hurt pain is set
to get worse as our population ages so I
realized that to do something that would
actually make a difference
we would have to bring the healthcare
profession along provide something that
wasn’t just a pain solution on a
psychophysical level but that helped
with this bigger socio-economic
challenge that ears pain and that’s why
I started bringing yoga teachers and
health professionals together not to
work together but to learn together and
through that they can offer pain
sensitive yoga in their communities
which means people don’t have to drive
across town or into the city to get some
kind of care they’ve got almost
immediate access to some pretty good
pain management strategies and
importantly it’s a normal enjoyable
activity that encourages you to do it
often enough to get progress the kind of
progress that makes more progress
possible but the really exciting thing
in all this is actually the kind of
learning that is taking place because
when we have our different fields sired
by size it makes us question our beliefs
and challenge what we think about pain
and what the best thing is to do to
actually have a difference
in the world so the partnerships and
knowledge sharing that happens between
these practitioners means that they can
work nimbly with very specific local
communities in a way that a big system
just can’t you know doctors farmers with
back pain in their 60s I’ve got
different needs to kids with arthritis
we can’t go to school there programs for
these different groups will have a time
and a place and we don’t need to spend
billions rolling them out across the
country but for that community at that
time that program will be what enables
them to move forward thank you
[Applause]
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