Thread by @iamkimianora

85% of chronic pain isn’t physical—it’s psycho-emotional.

They called Dr. John Sarno crazy. Now, cutting edge neuroscience is showing he was right all along.

Here’s the truth about chronic pain and the mind-body connection:🧵

Dr. John Sarno predicted an epidemic of chronic pain in the 70s.

Today, over 50 million Americans suffer from it. And it’s the #1 cause of disability worldwide.

Yet, most mainstream treatments completely fail:

• Opioids • Injections • Surgeries • PT

Dr. John Sarno (1923–2017) noticed a disturbing pattern.

His patients had severe back pain—but their MRIs showed no physical damage.

He asked a radical question:

What if the pain wasn’t coming from the body at all?

Sarno developed the concept of TMS—Tension Myositis Syndrome or Mind-Body Syndrome:

Repressed emotions like anger, fear, and guilt keep the brain on high alert—so it creates pain as a distraction from painful emotions.

The pain is not imaginary. It’s very real.

But, it's caused by a brain under stress and not by damage to the body.

Physical injuries heal after 3 months and wounds don't hurt once healed.

So, why do some people develop chronic pain after an injury has passed?

If pain lasts more than 3 months, it's likely being caused by the brain and not by tissue damage in the body:

Neuroplastic pain = pain created by learned neural pathways in the brain.

It’s not caused by damage. It’s caused by repetition, emotion, and memory.

The brain gets stuck in a loop of protection—and creates pain to keep you “safe.”

But, why isn't the new science of pain taken seriously?

These ideas challenge the foundation of modern medicine.

If doctors were trained to treat chronic pain through the brain, pharmaceutical companies would lose billions.

Chronic pain is a $635 billion industry in the United States alone.

Besides that, what other health conditions are caused by the brain that we overlook?

Common neuroplastic conditions include:

• Chronic back, neck, or joint pain
• Migraines
• Fibromyalgia
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Chronic fatigue
• Anxiety-Depression
• Long Covid

These conditions are real. But they are caused by the brain and not damage in the body.

It turns out:

Certain personality types are more susceptible to mind-body conditions.

These traits put pressure on the brain and cause hypervigilance. A brain under stress can produce a variety of symptoms.

And these personality traits often shift after treatment:

The science is finally catching up.

In 2022, Dr. Yoni Ashar, neuroscientist, ran the largest brain imaging study on chronic pain to date.

The treatment wasn’t anything physical, it was emotional.

Pain Reprocessing Therapy—a brain retraining approach for rewiring pain signals.

• 70% of participants became pain-free or nearly pain free after 30 days
• The placebo and usual care groups barely improved
• Brain scans showed reduced pain activity in the brain

The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry. This was real, peer-reviewed science.

A brain stuck in a loop of fear.

I was one of these people:

• I had chronic pain that lasted 7 years
• Depression (since age 12)
• Anxiety and trouble focusing

Turns out it was all in my brain—And completely reversible.

I’ve been completely pain-free and symptom free for more than 3 years now.

I've built a community to share the science and the practical exercises behind brain retraining.

It's a live community with access to me and other coaches as well as mind-body physicians.

Check it out here: kimia.brainbasedhealing.org/brain-based-he…

Let me know if you have any questions.