Psychological Treatment: How Brain Changes Can Heal The Body - AI Podcast
Dr. Joseph Mercola - Take Control of Your Health
Briana Mercola
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 21 June 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Story at-a-glance
- Two-thirds of chronic back pain sufferers became pain-free or nearly pain-free after just four weeks of pain reprocessing therapy
- Psychological therapy rewires how your brain processes pain, reducing activity in brain regions that amplify fear and threat
- A large clinical trial found that belief shifts — specifically learning that pain isn’t a sign of injury — were strongly tied to lasting relief from chronic back pain
- Functional MRI scans confirmed that therapy changed not just symptoms, but the brain’s physical pain networks and emotional circuits
- You can begin retraining your brain at home using CBT-based strategies, guided movement, and tools that target fear-pain loops
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Dr. Mercola's cellular wisdom. Stay informed with quick, easy-to-listen |
| 0:06.1 | summaries of our latest articles, perfect for when you're on the go. No reading required. Subscribe |
| 0:11.2 | for free at Mercola.com for the latest health insights. What if the source of your chronic pain |
| 0:17.0 | isn't damage in your back, but a false alarm in your brain. That's what new research is |
| 0:21.7 | revealing, and it's changing how people are getting real, lasting relief. Welcome to Dr. Mercola's |
| 0:27.9 | cellular wisdom. I'm Ethan Foster, joined by contributor Ilara Sky. Today we examine pain reprocessing |
| 0:35.1 | therapy, or PRT, and related cognitive behavioral strategies that |
| 0:39.8 | calm your nervous system's danger alarm so you can reclaim daily life. Chronic pain often isn't |
| 0:46.4 | a lingering injury. It's a brain-generated false alarm reinforced by the default mode network, |
| 0:52.2 | the set of regions that hum when your mind drifts into |
| 0:54.8 | worry or self-protection. |
| 0:57.1 | When that network stays hyperactive, harmless sensations register as threats, and pain becomes |
| 1:02.9 | the constant background noise of your day. |
| 1:05.5 | The Lancet review on psychological treatments explains that therapies like CBT interrupt those fear loops by helping you recognize |
| 1:13.1 | automatic reactions, bracing, flinching, or catastrophizing, and replace them with calmer, more |
| 1:19.7 | accurate thoughts. Over time, that mental shift reduces pain intensity and restores function. |
| 1:26.1 | What's striking is the physical evidence. Functional MRI scans in the J-A |
| 1:30.3 | psychiatry trial show decreased activity in brain regions that amplify fear and threat, |
| 1:36.3 | alongside stronger communication between sensory areas and executive control centers. |
| 1:42.3 | In plain terms, the brain learned that everyday movement no longer |
| 1:46.0 | signals danger. |
| 1:47.0 | Let's look closer at that study. Researchers enrolled 151 adults, ages 21 to 70, whose back pain |
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