An End to Chronic Pain? Surprising Science is Getting Us Closer. | Dr. Rachel Zoffness
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stop the cycle of chronic pain by fixing the signals in your brain. We’ve been told for decades that pain is purely a physical problem, born of bones and body parts. But the latest neuroscience proves that’s only one piece of the puzzle.
Dr. Rachel Zoffness is a pain scientist, assistant clinical professor at UCSF, and author of the new book Tell Me Where It Hurts. She lectures at Stanford and is revolutionizing how we treat chronic suffering by moving beyond the outdated biomedical model.
- The 65-year-old neuroscience secret that proves how pain is generated by your brain.
- A specific biological "recipe" that allows you to lower the volume of your pain signals in real-time.
- Why 96% of medical schools are missing the most critical tool for treating chronic conditions.
- The surprising link between your social life and the actual physical inflammation in your joints.
- A simple pacing strategy to return to the activities you love without triggering a flare-up.
If you’ve been told you just have to "live with it," this conversation provides the roadmap to take your power back. Play the episode now to discover the whole-person solution you’ve been searching for.
You can find Rachel at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So you know that feeling when you wake up with that same old ache in your back or your knee or maybe |
| 0:04.9 | your head or your neck? And maybe you've been told by a string of doctors that it's just a part of |
| 0:11.2 | getting older, that you have to learn to deal with it. There's no clear reason. Or maybe they point |
| 0:16.4 | to a clear reason, but dealing with that, it's just not helping at all. It feels like your body is |
| 0:22.8 | failing you, but what if the real failure is actually in how we've been taught to think about pain? |
| 0:27.8 | Today's guest is doing something pretty remarkable. Dr. Rachel Zoffinis is a pain scientist |
| 0:32.8 | and clinical professor at UCSF, who also lectures at Stanford. She's the author of the new book, |
| 0:38.9 | Tell Me Where It Harts, and she is on a mission to show us that pain is never just about a body |
| 0:44.1 | part. It's a whole person problem that requires a whole person solution, what she calls |
| 0:49.9 | a biopsychosocial approach. In this conversation, we explore why a twisted spine doesn't always lead to a hurting back, |
| 0:58.3 | how your brain actually manufactures pain through a specific internal recipe, |
| 1:03.5 | a powerful tool called biofeedback that lets you see your thoughts |
| 1:06.5 | literally change your physical body in real time, |
| 1:10.5 | and how even social challenges can lead to |
| 1:13.7 | physical pain and what to do about it. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan |
| 1:19.4 | Fields and this is Good Life Project. I have been really curious about the mind-body connection. |
| 1:29.7 | I feel like it's actually doing a disservice to actually use the phrase mind-body anymore |
| 1:33.7 | because they aren't separate things. |
| 1:37.1 | But, you know, one thing that is a fairly common experience for so many people as we get older |
| 1:42.7 | is the experience of pain, either acute or |
| 1:45.1 | chronic. And oftentimes we're kind of told, it's just a part of the process of getting older. |
| 1:51.7 | This is going to ache more. This is going to hurt more. Like, and just kind of deal with it. |
... |
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