Pain: it could be in your head

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- More than 51 million Americans report living with chronic pain. Over the past few decades, experts say increased prescriptions of opioid medicatinos were seen as a quick fix, but it also led to widespread misuse.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Neurosurgeon, says, "All pain occurs in the brain. If your brain doesn't decide you have pain. Then you don't have pain."

Dr. Gupta says he's not diminishing pain, but adds that humans can do almost anything within reason to the body, and even not have pain, if their brain decides its not there. On the contrary, the brain can create pain where it shouldn't exist.

"People who don't have limbs anymore, phantom limb pain, for example, how does that happen? How is the brain creating pain in a part of the body that doesn't even exist? There's a lesson in there, and that is that all pain is in the brain, which is an opportunity I think to try and control it."

Gupta says the first step to managing chronic pain through your brain is to realize it often comes with baggage, like depression, anxiety, poor sleep and loneliness.

"Pain is a truly mysterious bio psychosocial phenomenon. We don't know how to measure it. We don't know how to categorize it, but we know that it comes with all these things sort of intermingled," Gupta says.

To unlock the brain's power of pain relief, Gupta says lifestyle changes may be in order, including an anti-inflammatory diet, moving more, meditation, and prioritizing quality sleep