Why We Pursue a stronger ego to address these three issues. Survival Reactions and Emotional Triggers Our survival responses trigger unpleasant emotions like anxiety and anger to indicate potential threats. In nature, once a danger passes, animals can relax and recover. However, humans often continue to ruminate, keeping the body in a state of tension. This can blur the line between our survival instincts and our identity, leading us to believe that these reactions define us. Lifetime Programmin...
Jan 31, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 53
Dr. Les Aria and Dr. David Hanscom explore the intertwined nature of physical and emotional pain, emphasizing their shared neurological pathways, distinct characteristics, and the need for holistic approaches to address both types effectively. Les Aria, PhD – pain psychologist and founding member Menda - www.menda.health. David Hanscom, MD – orthopedic spine surgeon and author – www.backinconrol.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 03, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 53
A fundamental concept in neuroscience and human consciousness is that our judgments and views of the world often reflect our internal state. In other words, when we judge others harshly, we are frequently projecting aspects of ourselves onto them. This cyclical nature of self-judgment and external judgment perpetuates negativity in both directions. Connect with David Hanscom, MD Connect with Les Aria, Ph.D Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 18, 2024•43 min•Ep. 52
We tend to view our life view as the correct one and become upset when confronted with conflicting evidence. This perspective becomes embedded in our nervous system with repetition and time, and we develop mental rigidity. Quote: Here are some thought-provoking quotes that address the impact of mental rigidity on life perspective and overall quality of life: Albert Einstein: “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Define Mental Rigidity Mental rigidity is a cognitive state charac...
Oct 29, 2024•46 min•Ep. 51
Joy is at the core of living a good and rewarding life. In order to achieve this state you must learn to be vulnerable, which we inherently don’t tolerate well. A major defense against feeling vulnerable (anxious) is mental rigidity. You cannot feel and maintain joy unless you feel safe. Join David Hanscom, MD and Les Aria, Ph.D as they explore ways to increase the joy in your life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 20, 2024•33 min•Season 4Ep. 50
This podcast looks at gratitude as a powerful tool in regulating your flight or fight physiology to that of safety. You are allowing your body to heal itself. However, gratitude is not a bypass to counteract threat physiology, which has to be addressed as a separate, but linked effort. To have a good life, you must live a good life. It takes practice and nurturing gratitude is one of the core concepts. Catch the Gratitude wave! Sign up to see the film for free https://mindbodyspirit.fm/showcase/...
May 14, 2023•34 min•Ep. 49
In this episode, Les Aria, PhD and David Hanscom , MD are hosting a special guest, Dr. Michael Stein. Michael Stein, MD is an award-winning author of six novels and four books of non-fiction. He is professor of health policy at the Boston University School of Public Health and executive editor of PublicHealthPost.org. The book we are discussing in this episode is Accidental Kindness. He is an internist who has looked at the effects of both positive and negative interactions with their physicians...
Feb 01, 2023•54 min•Ep. 48
Although there are additional demands of the Holiday season there are additional stresses that can contribute to Holiday chaos. Creating an awareness of the triggers allows you to develop strategies to navigate them and enjoy your time with your family and friends. The Holidays are stressful and although we all want to experience peace and joy, it is challenging to do so. So, dashed hopes and expectations make it even worse. There are ways to have a joyful Holiday season and understanding the fa...
Dec 23, 2022•36 min•Ep. 47
Being triggered and stressed is so common during the holidays is so common that it is somewhat normalized. There are many ways to enjoy your family during this time of year regardless of their behaviors and your stresses. It is a season of peace and joy. Keep your perspective! Know you are an adult, and you have choices. Keep focused on who or what is important to you. How do you wish to show up for the holidays? Practicing the skills we discussed, especially noticing when you are triggered and ...
Dec 02, 2022•41 min•Ep. 46
Love is more than a concept. It is a physiological state of safety – profoundly healing. Why? There are many types of love and here are five examples. The common link is being connected to yourself and others. · Passionate love (Romantic love) · Family love · Friendship love · Mankind (human race) and things on this earth · Self Love Essence of chronic mental and physical disease is prolonged exposure to threat physiology. It is well documented that CHRONIC stress kills. Note the chemistry of lo...
Nov 25, 2022•37 min
It is common, if not the rule, for people in mental or physical pain to discuss it with anyone who will listen – especially their family. It wears people out and drives them away. An important aspect of healing is nurturing a close support system – connection and love. Discussing your pain blocks this critical step. David Hanscom, MD Les Aria, PhD Pain Psychologist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 11, 2022•37 min•Ep. 44
It is common, if not the rule, for people in mental or physical pain to discuss it with anyone who will listen – especially their family. It wears people out and drives them away. An important aspect of healing is nurturing a close support system. Not discussing your pain is a major step. Find out more about David Hanscom, MD Les Aria, Ph.D. Pain Psychologist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 28, 2022•38 min•Ep. 43
There are many concepts about the meaning of the word, “love.” However, Anthony DeMello, in his book, The Way to Love, condenses it down to one word, “awareness.” Awareness is “being fully present in the moment you are in.” Anytime you are anxious or angry, you are connected to the past and have lost awareness. However, since we are programmed to survive, mentally and physically, we are always on the lookout for danger. These reactions are not controllable, and it requires tools to process them ...
Oct 14, 2022•39 min•Season 1Ep. 42
All of us need to have a place where we feel safe and nurtured. Home is the place where this needs to happen. How safe do you feel in your own home. How does your family feel? How do your close friends feel around you? But remember, the first place to feel safe is with yourself from your own mind. Once you can create this level of safety, you can create it in other areas. Then as your home and circle of friends feel safe, it works in the other direction. Connect with Dr. David Hanscom Les Aria, ...
Sep 30, 2022•38 min•Ep. 41
This is the final episode of the PRT (Pain Reprocessing Therapy) series. There are many ways of calming down your nervous system, but the real healing occurs as you train your nervous to move into the life that you want. You can learn to create a felt sense of safety versus fear of your pain – mental or physical. “To have a good life, you must live a good life.” David Hanscom REVIEW: What is Pain reprocessing therapy (PRT)? PRT is an approach that trains the brain to reinterpret sensory input by...
Sep 16, 2022•42 min•Ep. 40
Unpleasant emotions are painful and no one wants to hurt. So, your brain represses it (unconscious response), or we suppress it (conscious act). You must first train yourself to feel your own pain before you can reprocess it. Quote: “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” Sigmund Freud Emotional and physical pain share the same neurological circuits in your brain. Emotional pain has a bigger impact on your body in that you can’t esca...
Sep 02, 2022•45 min•Ep. 39
This episode is focused on the third component of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), which gently “leaning into your pain.” We tease out the difference between “mind over matter” compared to “being with your pain.” It is also much different than “accepting your pain.” A central skill in in PRT is called “somatic tracking”, which addresses this specific need to “lean into your pain. The goal of somatic healing is to help the patient attend to pain sensations through a lens of safety. At the same ti...
Aug 12, 2022•36 min•Ep. 38
The second component of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) is gathering and reinforcing personalized evidence for the brain origins and reversibility of pain. One way to combat the belief that there is a “structural”/peripheral cause of the pain is by gathering as much counterevidence as possible – evidence reinforcing that the pain is actually due to central processes, as opposed to a structural problem in the body. Indicators of centralized pain include: Pain originating during a time of stress P...
Aug 05, 2022•38 min•Ep. 35
“Medically Unexplained Symptoms” (MUS) is a term that came into use around 2002 that implied that your medical provider knows you are suffering, he or she is not sure why, and they will try to help you live the best you can with the pain (mental/physical). This is a deadly term in that it further takes away hope and nothing could be further from the truth. There is always a reason for chronic symptoms. They are caused by the body’s stress chemistry. Understanding the nature of chronic mental and...
Jul 29, 2022•38 min•Ep. 36
Understanding the nature of chronic pain and that mental and physical pain are essentially the same entity allows you to create new circuits in your brain and the pain will markedly diminish or resolve. However, there is a sequence that is important to acquire this knowledge and skill set called PRT (Pain Reprocessing Therapy). This podcast presents an overview of the five components that will be discussed in detail in future episodes. Connect with David Hanscom, MD here Connect with Les Aria, P...
Jul 22, 2022•40 min•Ep. 35
Disruptive thoughts are commonly and somewhat lightly referred to as the “monkey mind.” It is not a joke and has a serious impact on our capacity to enjoy life. Since we can’t escape our thoughts, what do we do? There are three core aspects to calming down your racing thoughts – 1) separating/ diverting from them 2) lowering threat physiology 3) moving on. This episode will address ways to lower the threat physiology. There are many ways to calm down the body’s activated threat response by stimu...
Jul 15, 2022•44 min•Ep. 34
Many people are frustrated by experiencing “unpleasant repetitive thoughts” (URT’s). There does not seem to be an endpoint and we feel trapped. There are three critical aspects of dealing with this perverse trickery of human consciousness. 1. Understand that anxiety is protective but not who you are 2. Separate from your thoughts and 3. Calm down your nervous system It is a solvable problem by learning the skills to deal with these factors. There are ways to divert your thoughts, separate your i...
Jun 17, 2022•38 min•Ep. 33
We are delighted to talk to Lynne McTaggart. She is one of the central authorities on the new science and consciousness, is the award-winning author of seven books, including the worldwide bestsellers The Field, The Intention Experiment and The Power of Eight®. Lynne McTaggart is cofounder of the international magazine What Doctors Don’t Tell You , the health expo Get Well, and the architect of the Intention Experiments, a web based “global laboratory” to test the power of intention to heal the ...
Jun 10, 2022•51 min•Ep. 32
Disruptive thoughts are universal and part of human consciousness. For many, they can become intense enough to compromise the quality of life. They arise from human’s need for mental control. Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. Viktor Frankl Disruptive disturbing thoughts are extremely common, and it is difficult to know what percent of the population experience them at a level that disrupts quality of life. They arise from the unco...
Jun 03, 2022•38 min•Ep. 31
OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is a term that has many connotations, and most people feel the term does not apply to them. In fact, many if not most people experience unpleasant and disruptive thoughts that detract from their quality of life. They are a manifestation of chronic anxiety, which is a physiological state of threat. It does not respond to rational interventions, as it all arises from the subconscious brain. There are many manifestations of OCD, with there being both external beh...
May 27, 2022•33 min•Season 1Ep. 30
“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Nothing could be further from the truth and holding onto this concept is damaging. Research has shown that emotional pain is processed in overlapping circuits in the brain, and the physiological response is the same. Thoughts and concepts are sensory input and emotions are the sensations generated by your body’s physiological makeup. Anxiety is an activated threat response and relaxed is what you feel when you are safe. There...
May 20, 2022•39 min•Ep. 29
Our unconscious brain’s primary function is to protect us. Unfortunately for humans, it is manifested in ongoing self-critical voices. To access our inherent capacity to love, these voices must be de-energized, which requires specific approaches. We have discussed that love = awareness, which means being fully engaged in the present moment. Any time you are anxious or angry, something in the present reminded you of some situation from the past that was dangerous or perceived as such. In other wo...
May 13, 2022•44 min•Ep. 28
Love is a physiological state of safety that promotes regeneration and healing. It is the antithesis of anger, a state of threat, that consumes resources and causes illness and disease. You have a choice of how you want to be at any moment in time. Make it a habit to choose love. Discover how to connect to your own healing capacity. Find out more about David Hanscom, MD and his groundbreaking work on chronic pain here Join Les Aria, PhD Pain Psychologist for The Next Remedy Pain Recovery Group f...
May 06, 2022•40 min•Ep. 27
Every person has to deal with unpleasant thoughts, and they are problematic in that we cannot escape from them. In light of all the misery connected with pain and many disease states, disruptive thoughts are a major factor that detracts from our capacity to enjoy our life. Even when physical pain resolves, unpleasant thoughts are often still problematic. Understanding the nature of these disruptive thought patterns is the first step. They arise from our unconscious brain, and we have no control ...
Apr 29, 2022•43 min•Ep. 26
Chronic stress interferes and actually halts the body’s healing process at the cellular level. The problem lies in how you process stress because it is your body’s reaction to it that creates an adverse chemistry. Avoiding stress is even more problematic. Stress is your TOTAL bodily reaction to a physical or mental threat. It is not a “psychological” issue, it is physiological (how your body functions). There are three ways that stress causes damage and is well documented in many research papers...
Apr 22, 2022•48 min•Ep. 25
