On my Netherlands trip, I mentioned that my relationship to pain changed after I had a huge knot in my neck disappear after the psilocybin trip.

I see a few doctors here and there, and they’d given me the gift of names for why I feel so crappy: Hashimoto’s, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Carpal Tunnel. Fatigue? Achy joints? Blame one of those pesky autoimmune things you’ve tested positive for.

Before the trip, I was wearing wrist braces to bed every night because of  pain in my wrists and hands. It used to make me anxious when I had to launder the braces, that I wouldn’t get them washed, dried, and find them again before bedtime.

They’ve been in one of the four laundry baskets of unfolded laundry in my living room for days now and I’m totally cool with it. I wear them a couple of nights a week now. I’m not doing anything differently with my hands during the day. I just hurt less.

I was going to the chiropractor every two weeks for months before the trip, and if I didn’t go, I felt it. The week leading up to my appointment, I would be increasingly stiff and creaky.

I tried to go back to the chiropractor once after I got back. I was a little leery of messing up the reduced pain I’d experienced since my trip. But I thought I would enjoy the heat and massage part of the visit. It fit neatly in the self care category, and it felt like a couple of bones could crack. I actually felt worse when I left than when I got there. I haven’t been back.

Then there were a couple of days that were really stressful. I started waking up with the inside of my mouth sore because I’d been grinding my teeth at night. And the pain was back.

I recognized when the anxiety melted away on the trip, that it was stress exacerbating the pain in a way I never imagined. It was kind of shocking to me how much worse it made me feel.

Have you heard about the monks who sit in their underwear in the Himalayas and melt the snow in a huge radius with their own body heat while meditating? I read about them in After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, by Jack Kornfield. Then, I read about a Dutch athlete named Wim Hof in an NPR article on their health blog. Hof, too, melts the snow with his nearly bare butt and meditation.

In fact, Hof claims that he can consciously suppress his immune system, and he proved it using actual science (this link will take you to the journal article, but they explain it in the NPR link above). That got my gears cranking. A lot of my pain issues (all of them?) stem from autoimmune issues, so if I could settle my immune system down… with meditation… that would be amazing. And helpful.

Stress makes pain way worse. When we’re stressed, our bodies literally ache because of it. At least, mine does. Maybe for you, it’s a tension headache that starts in your temple, or that tight spot between your shoulders, your lower back, or the side of your neck.

Have you thought about how much stress might be worsening or creating pain in your life? What do you think about generating enough heat to melt snow – or pain – with your brain?