The Impact of Personality Traits on the Chronic Pain Experience

The Role of Positive Traits and Pain Catastrophizing in Pain Perception

Scholarly studies are done all the time to look at cause and effect relationships between various things. A report in a 2013 issue of Current Pain and Headache Reports, authored by Kim Pulvers and Anna Hood is one such article. These two authors did a review of scholarly articles and reported on how two distinct personality traits--Optimism and Pain Catastrophizing--impacted pain perception in the human population.

For purposes of discussion, the authors define optimism as "a generalized expectancy for positive outcomes." They surveyed populations with various painful conditions, including, cancer, sickle cell disease, osteoarthritis, and facial pain. The general trend that they discovered was that optimism was a protective mechanism against pain. They go on to say that hope, a goal directed form of thought, can be associated with a higher threshold for pain. Self-efficacy, or believing in one's own ability to achieve a particular role, played a positive role in degree of functional impairment and/or quality of life.

Are you surprised? I'm not.

The authors went on to define pain catastrophizing (the way a person thinks about painful experiences) can amplify one's perception of pain in a negative way. Here again, this is pretty much what can be expected. There is some ongoing research, according to the authors, about the pathways in the nervous system that are involved in this process. Other research is focused on how other nervous system issues such as depression and anxiety may contribute to catastrophizing pain.

For all the chronic pain sufferers out there...this is just another reason why it pays to think positive.

Count your blessings...not your tears, my friends.

Sources: NIH, Peak Oil Blues

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