What if the key to healing chronic pain wasn’t found in a pill, a scan, or even surgery, but in your brain?
That’s exactly what Dr. Afton Hassett explores in her groundbreaking book The Chronic Pain Reset and her conversation with re-origin co-founder Ben Ahrens. This interview dives deep into what chronic pain really is, how it develops, and, most importantly, how to reset the body and mind to support long-term healing.
Whether you’re just starting your chronic pain management journey or have tried everything with limited success, Dr. Hassett’s approach offers a refreshing new perspective grounded in neuroscience, compassion, and real-world strategies.
Understanding the Difference: Acute Pain vs. Chronic Pain
Pain is a survival mechanism. It tells us when we’ve touched a hot stove or twisted an ankle—acute signals that protect us from harm. But when pain lingers beyond three months, even after the original injury has healed, it can become chronic.
Chronic pain is not just prolonged pain. It’s a rewiring of the brain’s threat detection system. In many cases, the brain continues to misread safe or neutral signals as threatening, keeping the body in a constant state of high alert.
This phenomenon, known as central sensitization, is believed to underlie many chronic conditions, including fibromyalgia, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and chronic headaches, and is often referred to collectively as Central Sensitization Syndrome (CSS).1
In the video, Dr. Afton Hassett helps clarify this by distinguishing between two types of pain:
Nociceptive Pain: Pain that comes from actual or potential injury to body tissue, like a cut, bruise, or burn. It’s your body’s normal way of saying “something’s wrong” and is triggered by pain-sensing nerves.2
Neuroplastic Pain: Pain that isn’t caused by a clear injury or damage to the body or nerves. Instead, it’s due to changes in how the brain and nervous system process pain signals, like the alarm is sounding even though there’s no physical cause.2
The Brain’s Role in Healing Chronic Pain
Chronic pain is not just a symptom; it’s a condition shaped by the brain and nervous system. Emerging research in pain neuroscience shows that neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change and rewire itself, plays a critical role in both the development and resolution of chronic pain.
Studies have shown that people living with chronic pain often exhibit heightened sensitivity not just to physical sensations, but also to emotional and environmental stressors. This hypersensitivity reflects changes in how the brain processes threat and safety, suggesting that pain is not merely a physical experience, but also a cognitive and emotional one.
But because of neuroplasticity, these patterns can change. By calming the nervous system and shifting the brain’s interpretation of sensory signals, it’s possible to reduce or even eliminate pain over time. The techniques offered at re-origin, such as somatic exercises, cognitive reframing, guided visualizations, and breathwork, have all been shown to positively influence the brain’s pain processing pathways.
Pain isn’t “just in your head”, but your brain may be the missing link in your healing.
From Coping to Rewiring: A Whole-Person Approach to Chronic Pain Management
Dr. Hassett’s book, Chronic Pain Reset: 30 Days of Activities, Practices, and Skills to Help You Thrive, offers a unique and empowering alternative to traditional pain treatments. Instead of pushing through the pain, you can learn and apply evidence-based strategies to retrain your brain to interpret signals more accurately and reclaim your life from chronic pain.
Some practices she shared with us in the interview:
- Savoring: An easy-to-integrate daily habit that strengthens the brain’s reward system. Savor your coffee, your meal, time with your kids and pets, or your bedtime routine.
- Slow Breathing (6 breaths per minute): Shown to calm the fight-or-flight response and boost the parasympathetic nervous system.
- Acts of Kindness: Proven to improve mood, boost resilience, and lessen pain perception. Compliment a stranger, write a thank-you note, or just offer a smile!
- Social Connectedness: A powerful yet often overlooked tool for healing chronic pain. re-origin’s online community offers a space to connect with others on a similar journey, helping to calm the nervous system, reduce isolation, and promote neuroplastic healing.
Why Social Connection Is as Powerful as Quitting Smoking
One of the most surprising insights from the interview was this: social integration is more protective against mortality than quitting smoking. That’s not an exaggeration. Research by social connectedness expert Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, found that people who feel connected, supported, and appreciated live longer, healthier lives.³
This insight is especially important when it comes to chronic pain. Pain often leads to isolation, but isolation can also worsen pain, creating a vicious cycle. Reintroducing small, safe social interactions, whether in person or online (like in the re-origin community!), can help calm the nervous system and rebuild a sense of safety and belonging.
Hope for Healing
At the end of the interview, Dr. Hassett shares a message of hope, emphasizing that people who have lived with chronic pain for decades often experience real change through brain retraining and related approaches, even after other treatments have failed.
She encourages people not to give up, noting that healing often involves a personalized mix of tools like better sleep, movement, or addressing trauma. Ultimately, many of the strategies in The Chronic Pain Reset apply not just to chronic pain, but to life in general, offering a kind of “owner’s manual for being human.”
Chronic Pain Reset: Your Turn
Whether you’re just learning about the science of pain or you’ve been on this journey for years, Chronic Pain Reset is a powerful reminder that healing is possible.
Ready to take the next step? Whether you’re interested in brain retraining with re-origin or want to learn more from Dr. Hassett, you’ll find everything you need below.
About Dr. Afton Hassett
Dr. Afton Hassett is a pain psychologist and the Director of Clinical Trials Research for one of the foremost pain research teams in the world, the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center at the University of Michigan. She is an Associate Professor with tenure and the Director of Pain and Opioid Research in the Department of Anesthesiology.
With nearly $20M of research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Afton’s mission is to bring evidence-based strategies from research and academic settings to the people themselves.
She has a national and an international reputation as the ‘go-to’ person when discussing the role of resilience and positive emotions in the experience of pain. She teaches these skills to patients, their healthcare providers, and undergraduate and graduate students; this is her passion, and purpose in life.
Go to Dr. Afton Hassett’s website
Watch The Full Chronic Pain Reset Interview
Related: WATCH: Mind-Body Syndrome & The Science of Chronic Pain & Illness, featuring Dr. Howard Schubiner
Chronic Pain Reset: 30 Days of Activities, Practices, and Skills to Help You Thrive
This indispensable guide explores the key role that your brain plays in processing pain and how small, simple actions can make profound changes in how you experience chronic pain. Chronic Pain Reset will help you evaluate your pain and its triggers, offering straightforward and often fun strategies to improve it. Using the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy, you’ll try one new evidence-based strategy each day for 30 days, from paced breathing and healthy sleep hacks to mindful walking and acts of kindness. The accessible strategies require as little as 15 minutes a day and apply to all fitness levels. Step-by-step instructions guide you with humor and compassion to make learning and practicing the strategies more engaging. The ones that work best and that you like most will go into your Thriving Plan, a personalized pain-management tool kit that you design to help you lead a life with less pain, greater purpose, and more joy.
Chronic Pain Reset Podcast
Episode 2 | Ben Ahrens – RECLAIM YOUR HEALTH
Ben Ahrens shares his captivating story of disease and suffering that brought him to the brink and the insights and practices that lifted him to recovery. In the years since, Ben has become a chronic illness recovery expert and co-founder and CEO of re-origin, a brain retraining program and community. Prepare to be inspired.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
Join the re-origin Program
Explore the brain retraining program at re-origin.com, designed to help you implement these science-backed tools in your daily life. With expert guidance, structured support, and a compassionate community, re-origin empowers you to calm your nervous system, rewire stuck patterns, and move toward lasting healing from chronic pain and other chronic illnesses, one step at a time. Join us today.
