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Chemical reactions move pain signals along a pathway from your body to your brain. By using visualization statements to focus your subconscious on potential weak points along that pathway, you may be able to reduce the signal enough to get relief.

Visualization statements represent the specific language that your subconscious wants you to read back to it to help ease your pain. They're simple and are targeted directly at the main factors that could bring you relief.

You can obtain these statements by learning how to communicate directly with your own subconscious mind. The process is straightforward and can be done at home by working with a facilitator over the telephone. You you need no special skills and no previous experience in working with the subconscious.

Working with Brain Chemistry

Over one hundred different neurotransmitters are known to exist and to interact with one another in extremely complex ways.

? Four of these chemicals directly increase the pain signal. Glutamate, substance P, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine are pain transmitters that all play a role in sending or magnifying the signal.

? Four other chemicals directly reduce the pain signal. Endorphins, GABA, serotonin, and dopamine are pain relievers that counteract the effects of some or all of the above four pain transmitters.

These chemicals operate in back pain or pain in the neck or other extremities, arthritis pain, fibromyalgia pain, or neuropathic pain (nerve pain).

In our work we've found that the subconscious usually suggests that you visualize a decrease in the levels of the four pain transmitters, and an increase in the levels of the four pain inhibitors. It then provides the specific visualization statements that it believes are adequate to attain those results.

Devising A Strategy

Reducing pain involves more than simply striving to reduce or increase the levels of the above neurotransmitters. It also involves using the subconscious to try to strategically reduce the pain signal as these chemicals help to pass it through three different stages on its way to the brain:

? Stage 1: The pain signal begins in the skin, the joints, the lower back muscles, or anyplace else that receives a painful stimulus. Level 1 nerve cells pick up the signal and send it to the spinal cord for processing.

? Stage 2: In the spinal cord, Level 2 nerve cells modify the signal. This stage is where radical increases in the signal take place. The Level 2 neurons send the modified signal to the thalamus, the pain processing center in the brain, but at this point you don't yet feel any pain.

? Stage 3: In the brain, Level 3 nerve cells move the signal from the thalamus to the cortex, where it you actually experience it as pain.

Each stage contains numerous chemical weak points that we call leverage points where it may be possible to use visualizations to reduce the pain signal.

Engaging the Subconscious

If you can learn to engage your subconscious, you most likely will be able to identify which neurotransmitters and leverage points apply to you. You can then try to use visualization statements to give your subconscious the daily reinforcement it needs to possibly take the edge off your pain.

Ben Plumb is CEO and President of The Visualization Group, Inc. The company's service is delivered by people like himself who personally suffered from years of chronic pain, and used the visualization method described in this article to obtain relief when nothing else worked.