How workers’ perceptions on early soreness drives injuries and what you can do about them

manager-and-warehouse-worker-discussing-over-white-EP9EBJN

Whether it’s your child or one of your production employees, the question both parents and supervisors dread asking is, “How bad does it hurt?” We ask this question almost subconsciously and are left trapped, sitting and waiting for a potentially deadening answer.

“It’s a 6/10 when just standing but a 10/10 when moving.” Great, now what do I do?

Contrary to what many people think, today’s pain is not a simple result of an event or injury. Our lifelong relationship with pain begins the moment we’re born. All events, both physical and emotional, are responsible for shaping   our pain story. From the first time we fall off our bike, touch a hot stove, or get stung by a bee and experience the reaction from those around us, we are developing our understanding of pain and how it affects us. More importantly, we are beginning to learn how to avoid it.

But in many cases, what we’re taught about pain and the science behind it is misleading and inaccurate.

What we’re taught about pain

We all generally share a dislike of pain and do our best to avoid it. For decades, even in healthcare, we were taught that pain happens at a point in our body and that our nerves send feedback to the brain. We create the correlation between pain and injury – that something is wrong, and it caused me to hurt. In many instances, that paradigm fits just fine. For example, if I stub my toe, it hurts and its origin is clear and straightforward. That’s a pretty similar experience for all of us.

This explanation of how pain works, however, does not paint an accurate picture of where pain truly comes from or of how it’s perceived. The field of pain science has conducted many studies to illustrate that the reality is far more complex than that in most cases and understanding the basic tenets of this complexity is helpful when it comes to creating safer work environments and preventing injuries.

The truth about pain

You can have pain without any injury. Which means that pain and damage to part of your body are not always correlated. Further, and most people can relate to this, an injured body part can fully heal but still leave you in pain. And inversely, you could have a significant injury without any pain at all. How is this possible?

We used to think pain was just a response to some form of damage. But the reality is that pain is produced entirely by the brain as a direct response to a threat to your general health and safety. A stick lightly grazing your arm shouldn’t cause you any painful sensations. But, what if you were walking through a dark area late at night with strange shadows and noises in the distance? Because your nervous system is in overdrive at that time, the smallest scrape of a branch along your arm could startle you and cause an intensely painful sensation. In other words, you experience an outsized pain response to a minor threat. 

Now apply this to the industrial setting. You lift a box and feel some soreness. Nothing you haven’t experienced before. But now you are working in a new warehouse where the production demands are intense. You don’t totally click with a few of your supervisors and furthermore, because your employer is short-staffed, you are working overtime six days a week. You want to quit but you need this job as things are tight at home. You have a lot riding on this; you cannot afford to be hurt. Your mind races and you start to worry that this soreness could be the beginning of the end. And suddenly, just like the stick poking you while walking through the spooky woods, your nervous system is also in overdrive in this work environment, setting the stage for seemingly little threats to be perceived as bigger threats. Simply put, our perception of the threat drives pain.

Life factors have also been shown to elevate the perception of threats. What is your scary night trigger? A stressful week? Fear of relationship failure? Loss of a family member? Surgery and medical bills? Anxiety or depression? Our worst realities can place what seems to be an unbearable weight on our shoulders. Pain science research has finally explained how the same injury is felt so differently between two people because of these factors.

VS Ramachandran – a neuroscientist known for his studies on behavioral neurology and pain – says that pain is an opinion of our own state of health rather than a reflective response to an injury. This isn’t to say pain can be entirely controlled and eliminated just by ignoring or denying its existence, but it does mean the brain plays the most important role in our perception and management of pain – and in how it affects our workers.

So, knowing the impact of how work-related injuries are driven by how threats are perceived by the brain, what can you do to control the threats?

Helping your workers understand pain

In helping your workers understand the origins of pain and the role their brain plays in the greater pain landscape, we can more effectively manage the healing process to help them lead happier and healthier careers and lives. It all starts with education, and with safety managers and members of leadership learning to distribute easy, actionable information to the rest of the team. 

For instance, this can be as simple as making people aware you can be “sore but safe.” With that mindset, you shift the paradigm from “soreness = damage” to “some soreness is part of a normal existence here on earth.” And when you couple that with preventative services such as Early Intervention, where an ATC, OT, or PT is able to provide medical credibility that indeed those sorenesses are not in need of an increased level of care, you can dramatically shift the level of threats that exist in your facility. 

Fit For Work is here to help lead that process.

Fit For Work’s role in normalizing pain

We partner closely with safety specialists and supervisors to help relay information to the team that will have a maximum impact on the workforce. This includes material that is embedded into your operational communications, leadership training on what words harm and what words have been shown to heal, and optimizing the symptom response processes with these pain science principles. 

This proactive approach to injury prevention helps to systemically create working environments where the opportunity for outsized perceptions of threats is dramatically reduced and allows other injury prevention methodologies such as Early Intervention to provide unmatched results.

Contact Fit For Work today to start educating yourself and your team on their ability to impact pain and thus reduce injuries of those around them. 

Moseley L. Combined physiotherapy and education is efficacious for chronic low back pain. Aust J Physiother. 2002;48(4):297-302. 

Moseley GL. Reconceptualising pain acording to modern pain sciences. Physical Therapy Reviews. 2007;12:169-178. 

Louw A, Diener I, Landers MR, Puentedura EJ. Preoperative pain neuroscience education for lumbar radiculopathy: a multicenter randomized controlled trial with 1-year follow-up. Spine. Aug 15 2014;39(18):1449-1457. 

45dcc5de832bd105fdf75e9c9a0a8eab
fit for work podcast

Work Injury Prevention