3 Habits that Keep You in Chronic Pain and Symptoms

Ever wondered why, despite trying countless treatments, your chronic pain and illness persists? The answer might be hiding in your daily habits. Tanner and Anne reveal how our lifestyle patterns can keep us trapped in cycles of pain and symptoms—even when we're doing everything else "right."

The MindBodyCouple hosts dive deep into three critical habits that maintain chronic pain. First, they explore high-intensity living—that relentless cycle of overworking, perfectionism, and ignoring basic needs that keeps our nervous systems stuck in fight-or-flight. Tanner shares his personal experience of how this pattern preceded his own chronic pain journey, feeling initially productive but eventually crossing a threshold where his body couldn't sustain it. The solution isn't abandoning intensity altogether but finding balance—slowing down, creating space for play, and blending purpose with safety.

Equally problematic is low-intensity living—withdrawal, isolation, and avoidance that many fall into when pain and illness becomes overwhelming. While it seems protective, this pattern actually sends danger signals to the brain, perpetuating symptoms. Anne and Tanner offer practical strategies for mobilizing a shut-down system through purposeful action, reconnection, and gradual exposure to movement and the outside world.

Perhaps most fundamental is the third habit: lack of embodiment. This disconnection from bodily sensations keeps many stuck in chronic pain cycles, constantly thinking rather than feeling and viewing the body as an unsafe place. Both hosts relate personally to this pattern, acknowledging how threatening it can feel to tune into a body experiencing pain and illness. Through gentle somatic practices and daily embodiment exercises, we can rebuild a compassionate relationship with our physical selves.

Ready to transform your relationship with chronic symptoms? Start by identifying which habits resonate most strongly with you and make one small shift today. Remember, healing isn't just about removing pain—it's about changing how you live, feel, and relate to yourself.

Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson are therapists who treat neuroplastic pain and mind-body symptoms. They are also married!

In his 20s, Tanner overcame chronic pain and a fibromyalgia diagnosis by learning his symptoms were neuroplastic, not structural. Post-healing, Tanner and Anne have dedicated their lives to developing effective treatment and education for neuroplastic pain and symptoms.

Listen and learn how to assess your own chronic pain and symptoms, gain tools to retrain the brain and nervous system, and make changes in your life and health!

The Mind-Body Couple podcast is owned by Pain Psychotherapy Canada Inc. This podcast is produced by Alex Klassen, one of the wonderful therapists at our agency in Calgary, Alberta. https://www.painpsychotherapy.ca/

Tanner, Anne, and Alex also run the MBody Community, an in-depth online course that provides a step-by-step process for assessing, treating, and resolving mind-body pain and symptoms. https://www.mbodycommunity.com

Check out Tanner's YouTube channel for more free education and practices: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Fl6WaFHnh4ponuexaMbFQ

And follow us for daily education posts on Instagram: @painpsychotherapy

Disclaimer: The information provided on this podcast is for general in...

Transcript

Introduction to MindBodyCouple Podcast

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the MindBodyCouple podcast.

Speaker 2 0:03

I'm Tanner Murtaugh and I'm Anne Hampson. This podcast is dedicated to helping you unlearn chronic pain and symptoms.

Chat GPT Story Time

Speaker 1 0:12

If you need support with your healing, you can book in for a consultation with one of our therapists at painpsychotherapyca or purchase our online course at or purchase our online course at embodycommunitycom to access in-depth education, somatic practices, recovery tools and an interactive community focused on healing. Links in the description of each episode. Hello everyone, hi everybody, welcome, welcome, welcome. We have a pretty good topic today, I think, which is pretty important, so it's called three habits that keep you in chronic pain and symptoms.

Speaker 2 1:05

But before that, a little story time. Yeah, a little story time. So you know, a few days back, me and Anne were on chat GPT Did I say it wrong which essentially, if you don't know, it's artificial intelligence. So what we were doing for fun is we were just searching questions like, for example, you can be like what's the best chinese restaurant in calgary?

Speaker 2 1:31

yeah or who's the richest actor in the world. So me and ann are asking these questions, and what chat gbt, gpt, gpt does is it basically searches everything on the internet in like seconds and it gives you an answer yeah so then we ask the question who's the best pain reprocessing therapist in canada. Now I want to be so clear here I don't actually think I'm the best.

Speaker 2 1:59

I don't because there's probably some really epic therapists out there. But but in my mind, you know, based on what artificial intelligence goes off of, it's like what's posted online.

Speaker 1 2:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:10

And I think I'm posting probably, if not the most close to the most.

Speaker 1 2:16

Yeah, we put a lot of like media content out there.

Speaker 2 2:18

Yeah, like we got our podcast.

Speaker 1 2:20

I do.

Speaker 2 2:20

YouTube on my own. So in my mind I'm like, oh, it's going to say me. So we searched the question and he said that. I said that.

Speaker 1 2:28

And he was like what if it says someone else, as it's like searching? And I was like, oh, it's Hannah.

Speaker 2 2:35

And then? So the answer to this question the number one PRT therapist in Canada is Anne.

Speaker 1 2:43

It's me. And Tanner was like so shocked. He's like what? How could you show?

Speaker 2 2:51

up as number one, so he thought it was just, like you know, random. No, no. Well, in my mind I was like maybe it's alphabetical. But then I scrolled down and it gave all the reasons that Anne was better than me, like in detail.

Speaker 1 3:04

And they were pretty true, you guys. So I just have to say, if you're like listening and you're thinking of booking in for therapy, think you know chat GPT was right. And it pinpointed me as the best, so if you're like, should I choose Anne or Tanner? Hopefully this helps you make your choice.

Speaker 2 3:24

You should pick Anne.

Speaker 1 3:25

That's what it's saying.

Speaker 2 3:26

According to AI.

Speaker 1 3:28

Then we looked up some of our other colleagues our producer, alex and they were lower down on the list. I just have to say. Paul LaPointe, another therapist, on the team he made the list, Paul, he's so mad.

Speaker 2 3:39

I told Paul. I was like hey, oh, you told him. It's like Paul, you're number four. Yeah, it was pretty good. Yeah, so we're going to dive into this topic. What if we told you that it's not your body keeping you in pain, but it's your habits and your lifestyle patterns?

Speaker 1 3:58

We understand that when we're dysregulated in our nervous, system.

Speaker 2 4:00

We understand that when we're dysregulated in our nervous system, fight, flight, freeze or fawn if we're constantly in any of these states, it's going to shape your chronic symptoms.

Habit One: High-Intensity Living

Speaker 1 4:13

And in this episode, what we want to talk about is these habits that keep people stuck, because many people don't realize the way they're living day to day can keep them stuck in pain or move them towards healing Totally. And so it's this full package of like maybe doing somatic practices and starting to kind of create safety, but a lot of the time it's looking also at the or like our life that we're living and how that might be perpetuating symptoms.

Speaker 2 4:43

Yeah, it's such an overlooked thing because I think a lot of people when they learn about a brain and nervous system approach, for good reason they dive into the education and they dive into kind of these micro strategies such as like somatic tracking or emotional work. And what I mean by micro is like internal, like focused in changing the way we work with sensations in the body. But your lifestyle really matters, your habits matter, and today we're going to unpack three habits that fuel chronic pain and illness and what to do instead.

Speaker 1 5:21

Yes, and so we'll start with habit one high intensity living high intensity yeah, tanner and tanner to their teeth, just like me um maybe that's why you're not number one, like you're too intense ai gives that the reason.

Speaker 2 5:35

It's like tanner's too intense in his videos we see too much intensity in tanner.

Speaker 1 5:40

Go to add more.

Speaker 2 5:42

We're getting a side note here, but one of the reasons Anne was above me is it listed that her empathy is really high. It did. Yeah, like your empathy was. It was something about like very empathetic or something of that nature.

Speaker 1 5:55

Wow, it knows me really well.

Speaker 2 5:57

It does know you well, it's true, you guys. Anne is empathetic.

Speaker 1 6:00

I know more than Tanner.

Speaker 2 6:12

Okay, we're getting sidetracked, we get it, you're number one, all right. High intensity living. So what? This looks like constant obsession and overworking, hyper focus, competitiveness, comparison, like we were doing with our list. You have things like ignoring basic needs. So I see so many people do this where they don't rest, they don't eat, they don't spend time connecting. Or it can look like perfectionism people pleasing. This can be excessive pressure that people are living under or self-criticism. And with high intensity living, for a lot of people it can look like anger, frustration, aggressiveness. Lot of people, it can look like anger, frustration, aggressiveness. And this nervous system, these nervous system states are often like fight, flight or fawn. Now for myself, leading up to the development of my chronic pain, my widespread chronic pain, I would say, probably the three years prior, my high intensity, just rose and rose and rose, Like I was in my undergrad and at first it felt good, it felt exciting, like I'm doing something, like I'm really.

Speaker 1 7:12

You know, I'm committed to something I'm doing well Like.

Speaker 2 7:15

I felt proud, but it crossed this line where all those traits I just described, that's what I was lost in.

Speaker 1 7:23

How, when you think back on it, Tanner, I know you didn't quite know what was happening, but do you remember how you felt inside?

Speaker 2 7:30

Well, I remember and later on, like probably like six months prior to my first pain symptom coming on, which was my knee and my shoulder, I remember doing school and I was doing really well. I think I was in year like two or three and I was doing really well and I was getting great marks. But I remember not feeling very good, like when I was first starting to like excel and do well. It felt great, I felt proud, but now I was doing well and I just felt terrible inside, like I just felt really dysregulated, like these wins I was having in life weren't feeling good anymore and, yeah, like it was a mix of kind of fight or flight. But I was also having these periods of like lowness Because I think my nervous system just couldn't sustain this high intensity for that long.

Speaker 1 8:25

Well, yeah and that's a really great way of describing it, tanner Because, like, it's almost like pushing yourself and your body to the max, and we can only do that for so long.

Speaker 2 8:35

We can only do that for so long. We can only do it for so long and people need to really start to become aware of if you're lost in this high intensity living, the awareness is key at first All those traits we described. Be on the lookout for those because we get so used to it. I've seen people lost in this for decades and they're so used to it that they don't even realize it's happening.

Speaker 1 8:58

Right, and I think it's like and we talked about this in other podcast episodes but it serves a purpose the high intensity living so maybe we see it, but we don't want to see it too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:09

And people get lost in their goals or wanting to be successful in a certain way that's happened to me and losing sight of what's important to them, what they value or their own basic needs. And so the solution here we'll give some tips Slow down People need to slow down, Slow down their speech, Slow down their movements.

Speaker 1 9:33

Slow down your mind.

Speaker 2 9:35

Slow down your minds. It's such a simple thing. When I start to feel anxious, this is the first thing I do. I talk about it as healing happens in slowness, and another thing you can do is take the pressure off. Could you remove one task from your day? I do this all the time. If I wake up in the morning and I'm feeling a little fight or flighty, I'll look through my calendar and I'll move things that do not need to be done that day, because I know if I have all these pressures and expectations, it's not going to go well.

Speaker 1 10:10

Reducing perfectionism and people pleasing.

Speaker 2 10:12

Yes, and so this kind of ties into what we're talking about, of, you know, taking the pressure off of trying to be perfect and no longer people pleasing.

Speaker 1 10:25

I was just going to say, Tanner, both of those things are things we have to practice that are going to feel hard.

Speaker 2 10:30

Yeah, it's exposure You're going to have to practice reducing and for people, pleasing. We've done whole episodes in the past, but this can look like starting to express yourself more openly to others or setting a boundary. It's kind of the magic word say no, yes, say no to things.

Speaker 1 10:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 10:47

And by doing that you are going to lower your intensity level. I think a great thing that people can do and it's such a simple technique. Think a great thing that people can do and it's such a simple technique is just create space for free time and play.

Speaker 1 11:02

Yes, and this one also. I. Sometimes I talk with people and there can be a bit of pushback of like, well, why should I do that?

Speaker 2 11:08

but there's so many benefits to it there really is, and I have to practice this actively yeah because I know I can go into high intensity so quick that free time play, spending time with friends like I really need to make sure I'm staying consistent with that.

Speaker 1 11:26

And this whole approach of slowing down free time, taking pressure off, can get us like way, in a way, better way, where we want to go in the long run. So all of this can impact or hopefully help reduce pain and symptoms.

Speaker 2 11:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1 11:42

And provide nervous system regulation.

Speaker 2 11:44

Yeah, and it's not going to be instant, but you just need to stay consistent and your brain and nervous system will start to get the message oh, we're safe now.

Speaker 1 11:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2 11:53

The other thing that's really vital is just focus on your basic needs. This is the starting place. Make sure you're getting enough sleep. Don't wake up three hours early to work, like I used to do. Make sure you're eating, make sure you're connecting, make sure you're resting. Now a side note that I like to say the solution to high intensity living, it's not always about lowering your intensity. So we talk about these blended states. You know these blended states of purposeful action or play. They are still high intensity to some level, but we have some of that safe and connected energy in the mix.

Speaker 1 12:33

Yeah, so those might look like drive and motivation, leadership and assertiveness, passion and creativity, productivity balanced with rest, connection with others and energetic movement.

Speaker 2 12:48

Yeah, and so it's. I think this is such an important piece because I've seen people where they're lowering their intensity level so much that they lose purpose or meaning in their life. Right, and so some high intensity energy is really key. Not fight or flight, but this purpose and this playfulness can be this really safe high intensity energy that we can practice.

Speaker 1 13:18

And in a lot of ways it's about finding balance with it and knowing okay, when am I kind of going over the line here?

Speaker 2 13:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 13:30

Habit two low-intensity living.

Speaker 2 13:33

The opposite, yes. So as you listen to this podcast, some of you will relate more to high-intensity living. The opposite, yes. So as you listen to this podcast, some of you will relate more to high intensity living, others will relate more to low intensity living, or you might alternate. That's also a thing. But what this can look like? Limited or no movements, almost like a lack of exercise.

Speaker 1 13:53

Overuse of electronics and media.

Speaker 2 13:56

Avoiding the outside world.

Speaker 1 13:59

Yes, Withdrawal, isolation or little motivation or purpose.

Speaker 2 14:04

This can also look like people pleasing, where there's like a lack of self-expression and we're kind of just in this like low state pleasing everyone around us.

Speaker 1 14:14

Yeah or non-assertiveness, low sense of self.

Speaker 2 14:19

And the nervous system is really going to look like kind of this freeze or shutdown response here. Yeah, now for myself. I just explained how. I was high intensity just as my symptoms were starting. That lasted for a couple of years. I was still kind of in fight or flight. By about year two I went into low intensity, I shut down, I started to avoid going out of the house. We lived in a basement suite at the time this was a decade ago almost but I just didn't see friends anymore. I wasn't able to work. For a period of time I stopped doing all the hobbies and part of it was just high pain levels and so I thought I just need to stop doing anything in terms of movement or activity. But it actually worsened things over time and I feel for anyone with debilitating chronic pain or chronic fatigue or symptoms, because it makes sense we start to avoid anything and everything that can trigger it. But avoidance, it makes sense. We start to avoid anything and everything that can trigger it, yeah.

Speaker 2 15:18

But avoidance it's just a danger signal to the brain. So the more you avoid, the harder it is going to be to undo that avoidance. I got to this place of just being withdrawn, almost dissociative and disconnected, like Anne would be in the house and I wasn't even sure if she was home. And the solution here is we need to begin using purposeful action.

Speaker 1 15:44

Yeah, and I think we really want to emphasize the purposeful action piece of this.

Speaker 2 15:48

Yeah, things that are meaningful bring value to you. We want to mobilize our system and bring a little bit more energy back into it. Now you don't need to overshoot here, like if you've been off work for two years and you go back to working 60 hours a week. That's a big jump. I mean like small meaningful steps. Yeah, starting to do a hobby, like for, for example, when I was first healing, probably in the first year or so, I was doing some drawing, some art and there was small meaningful actions that started to mobilize my system.

Speaker 1 16:29

This can look like kind of this reconnecting to others and seeking close connection now this one might be difficult, and again our instinct when we're feeling this way or we want to isolate and we want to withdraw. So reconnecting with others might feel a bit hard, scary and overwhelming at first.

Speaker 2 16:49

Yeah, just start small. Maybe it's calling a friend for 20 minutes. Like I started to go out for coffees with my friends yeah, not for a long period, but just short ones or I started to practice I remember doing this practice actually connecting with Anne, because I was so shut down that we'd be around each other but I was never present and so there was a practice of could I enjoy these next five minutes with ann or listen to what ann's saying to me, like there was trying.

Speaker 1 17:22

I was trying to like actually actively connect with you well, and there's something that you're saying here, tanner, about doing it with intention. So it's like I am going to, purposefully or with intention, pit in this action, even if it's short or small.

Speaker 2 17:36

Now another way you can mobilize your system play. Increase that energy in a playful way. And I know this feels far off for people when we have debilitating, chronic symptoms, but play is a powerful medicine that we can use. For myself. I remember this was before we had kids, when I had pain, but I remember just actively trying to joke around with Anne and like play with our cats.

Speaker 2 18:05

Yeah, we had our two cats who have passed away now but we would just practice like playing with them or like throwing their mice around, like that kind of thing, and I couldn't sustain being playful for hours at a time at that point. But all those little moments they did matter.

Speaker 1 18:21

Well, and I think animals can be super helpful for that. So if you are listening and you have an animal, that's a great place to start.

Speaker 2 18:30

This can also look like graded exposure.

Speaker 1 18:33

To movement social interaction and the outside world.

Speaker 2 18:36

Yeah, we need to slowly. And the outside world? Yeah, we need to slowly start to widen our world. This is what's going to pull us out of this low-intensity living.

Speaker 1 18:45

Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:46

And start small. You know, for myself I started to walk Okay two minutes a day, then five minutes a day, then I'd be outside walking for 15 minutes and that was scary and hard but it was a really key part of my healing Past episodes. If you're interested in graded exposure, me and Anne have done many episodes on a breakdown of how to do that. But we need to do this. You cannot heal by just continuing to avoid movement activities or the world and they're like.

Speaker 1 19:17

As we go towards there might be an increase in sensations or dysregulation. That's a part of the process yeah also you can spend time in nature and actually this one has been big for me over the last couple years. I I've never been a huge outdoors person but, as some of you know, I have a horse and since I started kind of entering into that world I spend so much more time in nature and there's something hugely regulating about it.

Speaker 2 19:45

Yeah, there really is. I find for a lot of people with low intensity living, there is this disconnect from nature. Yeah, because in the people I've worked with, myself included, they're kind of just locked in their house or locked in their apartments and never leaving, and so connecting with nature is a great way that we can start to regulate.

Speaker 1 20:06

Totally.

Speaker 2 20:07

Now the other thing just how we talked about these blended states for high intensity, there's blended states for low intensity that are really valuable. This can include stillness and connection instead of full shutdown. So we're practicing being in low energy, low kind of nervous system response, but with some safety and connection.

Speaker 1 20:30

So that might look like deepening relationships and intimacy. Rest, relaxation without guilt, attending to sensations, contemplation and mindfulness, and observation of self and environment.

Speaker 2 20:46

So I think this is really key. I think when people have low intensity living, they really start to view any kind of low nervous system response like shutdown as really threatening, and so we need to practice teaching our nervous system hey, stillness, close connection with others. This is safe. This is a valuable way that we can have low energy and function in this way.

Speaker 1 21:25

Habit number three yeah, lack of embodiments. Uh, yes, I think this is kind of a big one many of us, myself included, can struggle with.

Speaker 2 21:28

Yeah, this can look like always thinking over feeling You're almost stuck in your head, ignoring body cues for rest, nourishment, safety. A lot of people, they just feel their body is unsafe or unreliable and avoiding sensations altogether pain, symptoms, emotions, nervous system state people just run away from all sensations inside.

Speaker 1 21:55

And we talk about this so often. But it's such a big piece of it that we all in some ways, a lot of us get used to just living in our heads and just ignoring any signals from our body, kind of not even thinking much about them.

Speaker 2 22:09

Yes, now for myself. When I was at the end of my pain journey, about three and a half years in, I was so disconnected and dissociated from my body. My body felt so threatening to me. So I feel for anyone who is lacking this embodiment. I get why we get there. Everything felt overwhelming inside and what occurred is because I was so scared to drop into pain or emotions. I just would be obsessed and lost in worry and catastrophizing in my mind. That's what was driving everything and I had to shift that. I did a lot of somatic work as we talk about in our approach and on this podcast. I did a lot of that to actually start to heal and to teach my nervous system hey, I'm actually safe to be in my body.

Speaker 1 23:01

And we have so many practices that we talk about on previous episodes, our YouTube channel and our course as well, that really can help with this.

Speaker 2 23:12

Yeah, people are ready to really dive into their healing, like our digital course. It was painful for our producer, alex, because he had to edit all the meditations. Yeah, good work, alex, because there's like 60 plus meditation semantic practices, like there's a whole buffet people can pick from.

Speaker 1 23:32

But we did that because we know starting to kind of become embodied can feel a bit overwhelming and confusing, so we did that to hopefully guide people into it.

Speaker 2 23:41

Yeah, so this is the solution. We need to start to move towards embodiment. We begin to gently expose ourselves to attending to sensations in the body, starting to focus on body sensations and cues. You can use somatic safety signals, breath work, somatic touch, any type of grounding practice we have like a tapping and massage routine, like some of those things we use with people and you want to practice daily embodiment. Don't just check in with your body once a week. That's not going to be enough. We need to reconnect, slowly and gradually, to being in our body as we live life and shift behaviors and thinking based on your body sensations.

Speaker 1 24:29

This is so key Our sensations, they're kind of like the first line of order.

Speaker 2 24:34

Yeah, and this ties into the first two habits we covered, because if you drop into your body and you're like whoa, there's a lot of flighty, anxious energy, maybe you do need to lower your intensity, maybe you do need to slow down, take the pressure off.

Speaker 2 24:51

If you drop in your body and you feel low, you feel heavy, you feel shut down, there's too much low intensity taking place and maybe you need to go and do some purposeful action, mobilize your system. So it all comes together in this way and just generally, we just want people to build a relationship with their body that feels safe, compassionate and trustworthy. So, again, healing is not all about removing the pain or symptom. Yes, we want to get there eventually, but in order to get there, we need to start changing how we live, how we feel, how we relate to ourselves. So we want to invite the listeners to reflect on which habit you resonated with the most and start to actually make some small shifts. Yeah, just become aware of why are you kind of struggling, what habits is really dragging you down, and start to make some small shifts and changes.

Closing Thoughts and Invitation

Speaker 1 25:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:54

So thank you everyone for listening.

Speaker 1 25:56

Thanks for listening, and if you're looking for a therapist, I'm number one.

Speaker 2 26:02

Oh my goodness, I just had to remind people.

Speaker 1 26:05

You know just had to say that.

Speaker 2 26:07

Anne's number one.

Speaker 1 26:08

Talk to you next time. Bye, Thanks for listening. For more free content, check out the links for our YouTube channel, Instagram and Facebook accounts in the episode description.

Speaker 2 26:27

We wish you all healing.