Julie Hopkins Proven Pain Solutions - Chronic Pain & Nutrition Therapist.

27/11/2024

“Extensive research demonstrates that our expectations [around our health and wellbeing] can AND DO create changes in our physiology”

“Positive expectation has been shown to accelerate the cure of many physical conditions like asthma, Parkinson’s, heart disease and chronic pain…”

I strongly recommend⭐️⭐️this BBC podcast mini series by medical science journalist David Robson (whose latest book is of the same name - “The Expectation Effect”).

He talks about the placebo and nocebo effect which, traditionally inferred that a person must’ve not had a bona fide illness in the first place (ie it was ‘all in their head’🙄). Now we know it’s much more than that - the illness is real alright but, our positive or negative beliefs around our illness/wellness can actually create physiological changes which can either make us better… or not.

“The mindbody connection is real”🤩 Oh yes, it most certainly is!!

11/07/2023

13/04/2023

“You can not have pain without knowing it”
- Prof. Lorimer Moseley

Is that stating the bleedin’ obvious?!⬇️⬇️

Maybe…

If you live with chronic pain, do you ever find that, sometimes, every now and then, however fleeting… that it goes away, or it dies down. Perhaps when you had that really bad cold, or when you were super-stressed about something, or you were having just the best time, or on holiday, or were totally engrossed in a film …?

If we don’t feel pain, it’s because our brain simply isn’t producing pain. It’s not because you were distracted or had ‘more important things’ to think about, or you just ‘forgot’ for a moment because there was so much going on.

The sole purpose of pain, is to protect us (that’s science speaking, not me).
So, in the above examples, your brain decided that you didn’t need protecting and so elected not to produce pain. It made a choice; a decision.

This is one of many tell tale signs that you CAN absolutely influence the pain you’re experiencing, by re-educating your brain around how much protection [pain] you actually need on a day-to-day, ongoing basis 🤯🥳🙌🏼

16/10/2022

LIVING PROOF:
Such an uplifting, compelling, heart-warming, tear-jerker of a documentary about a wonderful fibromyalgia recovery story❤️💕

Around 12 mins to watch and worth every second.

Enjoy..... And please share with anyone you think may benefit🥰



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol2vCYXPRAY

Fiona lived with ME for 14 years, until finally discovering a route to recovery through science which taught her that her symptoms were caused by her brain a...

04/10/2022

For all the wonderful, life-saving discoveries of medical science, chronic pain and all of the various, baffling ‘chronic’ syndromes are on the rise.

It’s getting worse year on year. So what’s going on??🤔

In the event of a physical injury, the body will heal itself. Broadly speaking it takes the body approximately 6 to 8 weeks to heal major tissue damage. So why are sooo many of us (estimated at 20%+ of the UK population!) living with chronic, painful symptoms?

Physical pain is actually generated by the brain🧠, as a danger signal; like an alarm🆘. It’s designed to tell you (scream at you sometimes!) that you are not safe and need to take urgent action. We know now from a wealth of research, that physical pain (danger signal/alarm) can be caused not only from physical ailments but, also psychological ailments caused by chronic stress.
Stress might be:
▶lingering emotional traumas (big or small) from childhood
▶low self-esteem, angst and insecurities
▶unrelenting pressures, expectations and worries

Make no mistake that your pain; your symptoms are all REAL. Your pain is not ‘imagined’. It hurts; it can hurt so much it is hard to entertain the fact that there's no physical cause. The pain or symptom can be so debilitating and create so much misery by the limitations and restrictions they place on your life, relationships, dreams and aspirations.

BUT it need not be forever. It CAN be resolved and you CAN absolutely get your life back!🥳
I’ve done it, thousands of others have done it, and you can too!

This approach is an effective, powerful and long-lasting method of recovery and can be life changing for those who are open to the possibility of change and are prepared to do the work....

29/09/2022

So... Who am I to be advising you about chronic pain? Allow me to give you a little more context on that ▶️

I've spent my entire working life within the field of medicine and health. Starting out as a registered nurse working in Trauma Orthopaedics and Intensive Care before entering the world of medical underwriting spending many years talking with customers and patients about their health.

Medicine is amazing. It saves lives and is nothing short of miraculous - thank god for modern medicine... but, it's from those years of experience and training which has enable me to both appreciate it and also recognise it's limitations.

And so, over the years, I've acquired a passion for natural methods of treating the body and mind.

As such, I'm a registered Nutritional Therapist. I'm also SIRPA trained (Stress Illness Recovery Practitioners’ Association); the training which enabled me to overcome my own chronic pain symptoms.

I'm currently in the midst of qualifying in Embodied Processing (trauma therapy) and booked in for my Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) training with the amazing Dr Schubiner; one of the leading experts in the chronic pain arena.

I've enjoyed getting great results working with my clients and would love to help you too.

If you’d like to have a chat and learn a bit more about what I do and how I do it, drop me a DM or let me know in the comments. No obligation, no pressure - just a chat😊

27/09/2022

Let's have a little look at this info again.....🧐

My previous post garnered a fair bit of interest (thank you so much for sharing by the way - this helps massively with exposure to this crucial information!🙏) so I want to reiterate these MAJOR findings from a huge study that was done many years ago.

It's fair to say that 'most' people have some kind of disc degeneration or disc bulging. Likewise, 'most' people will have spinal arthritis, to a greater or lesser degree. The findings of these so say 'abnormalities' is so, SO common place... that there is nothing abnormal about them. Suffice to say, they are in fact normal. We are all walking around with some sort of anomaly in our backs... but only some of us have pain...🤯
I can vouch for the fact that even 'a bit of metal work' need not cause pain.

It's no secret. Any decent medical professional working in the field of chronic pain (including spinal surgeons and the like), know that pain is not created in the body. It's created in the BRAIN.

ALL pain, is created in the brain🧠.... and so, unless there is some kind of medical emergency or disease state that needs addressing, the brain is where we need to be looking for the solution.

21/09/2022

I have lived with debilitating chronic pain.

I’ve experienced the daily fear and despair, the mental and physical battle just to get through each day, and I know how that existence steals your joy. I have been diagnosed with degenerative, bulging discs, facet joint syndrome, scoliosis, instability and arthritis of the spine. I have been through the gamut of different mainstream and alternative therapies with minimal effect and I have been led to believe that there was nothing to be done but accept and try to manage it.

The specialists and experts could not fix me and painted a very bleak picture.... but they were wrong.

This is what my spine looks like these days🧐and I have practically no pain.

13/09/2022

THE SIRPA CONFERENCE 2022 🔥🔥🔥

I am SO looking forward to this!!

If you work in the Mindbody field or are a medical professional who works with chronic pain patients… Or perhaps you yourself are living with chronic pain - I highly recommend attending this if you possibly can.

It’s a great opportunity to hear from the physicians and pain scientists in person (or livestream).

Learn about:

🌟 the cutting edge research

🌟 the countless success stories and studies

🌟 the practical, proven methods that work!

Tickets can be purchased at www.SIRPAconference.com

20/07/2022

Oh my god, how lush is this….💓

WHAT IS MEDITATION, REALLY?

Meditation is not about getting yourself into altered states. Altered states do not last. It’s about becoming intimate with this state – this present moment, this day, this Now, its textures, tastes, vibrations, contractions and aches.

Meditation is not an out-of-body experience. It’s the opposite. It’s a full experience of the body and its ever-changing sensations, its amorphous clouds of shivers, tickles, undulations and pulsations, throbbings, fizzles, its pain and its pleasure, its opening and closing, its ever-changing form.

Meditation does not always make you feel “good”. In meditation, you feel exactly as you feel, and you learn to love that, or at least to allow it, or at least to tolerate it a little more than you did yesterday. Meditation makes you feel more like… you.

Meditation is not about getting anywhere. It’s about discovering that there is nowhere to get to. That you are already home, and your body is the ground of all grounds. It is about discovering true safety in the feet, in the hands, in the pit of the belly. It is about finding a sanctuary in your chest, a sacred shrine between your eyes, a loving friend in the breath, a mother in the motherless places.

Meditation is not something that you do with your mind. In meditation, the mind relaxes into the heart, seeking relaxes into finding, and even the most intense anxiety finds its home. You cannot make it happen, but you can fall into it.

Meditation is not for experts, or the ones who know. Meditation is for absolute beginners, those who are willing to face their present experience with wide open, curious eyes.

Meditation is a field of love, an ever-present ground of safety, presence and stillness, that you remember, or forget, or remember again.

Meditation never leaves you. It whispers to you in the stillness of the night. And even in the midst of an activated nervous system, a full-on panic attack, suffocating claustrophobia or the urge to get out of your body… meditation is right there, holding you, loving you, gently kissing your forehead, willing you on.

It will not abandon you, and ultimately, you will not abandon it.

And closing your eyes to sleep at night, meditation is there, snuggling right up to you.

Your soft pillow, the rising and falling of your own delicious breath, a light breeze coming in from the window, that billion-year-old sense of Being...

You are safe in your own body, my love. You are safe.

- Jeff Foster