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Substance P is a key neurotransmitter required to produce moderate to intense pain. Here's a natural method you may be able to use to help neutralize this pain-transmitting chemical.

To appreciate the importance of substance P in the pain process, it's helpful to review the three stages by which pain signals are transmitted to the brain:

• In Stage 1, a pain signal is generated in the body (the lower back, the joints, or other location of a pain stimulus) and is sent to the spinal cord. In Stage 1, substance P can trigger the inflammation that starts the pain signal on its way.

• In Stage 2, the signal is increased and sent to the pain processing center in the brain, the thalamus. In this stage substance P can be decisive in increasing the strength of the pain signal to a new level.

• In Stage 3, the signal is sent from the thalamus to the cortex, at which point you actually feel the pain.

Causing Inflammation In Stage 1

Normally pain signals are carried towards the brain, but in chronic pain the signals can get reversed and be carried back down into the body. This occurs in some types of neuropathic pain (nerve pain) when the central nervous system itself begins generating pain with no external stimulus involved.

If this process applies to you, you could be releasing substance P in some locations of the body, powerfully inflaming nerve endings in those areas. This creates highly painful inflammation even though nothing external to the central nervous system is causing it to happen.

Activating NMDA In Stage 2

A second problem is that substance P helps to activate NMDA (N-methyl D-aspartate). This is a powerful protein that ratchets the pain signal up to a new level.

A normal pain signal reaching Stage 2 does not trigger the release of NMDA. But if the signal is strong, and enough glutamate and substance P is present in the NMDA receptors on your Stage 2 nerve cells, NMDA is activated and the pain signal is seriously increased.

Visualization and Substance P

Through visualization statements it may be possible to focus your subconscious on reducing the impact of substance P in the pain process. This could be true for back pain or pain in the neck or other extremities, arthritis pain, fibromyalgia pain, or neuropathic pain (nerve pain).

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.

• On one hand, the subconscious may indicate that it's possible to reduce the chance of inflammation in Stage 1 by restricting the release of substance P outside the central nervous system into the periphery of the body. It will probably suggest a visualization statement to help produce that result.

• On the other hand, your subconscious may also indicate that it's possible to reduce the likelihood of NMDA activation by limiting your release of substance P within the central nervous system itself. If so, it will probably provide a visualization to help achieve that effect.

Programming the Subconscious

The subconscious is quite powerful. When programmed through the very visualizations that it suggests, it may be able to turn episodes of uncontrolled pain caused by substance P into events over which you have a degree of control.

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.