Encourager

Fascinating chat!

Irena posted a video on Twitter describing her recent study, Perceived time expands and contracts within each heartbeat, which I thought a brilliant way of sharing.

In this episode Irena talks about her work as a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive neuroscience at Royal Holloway, University of London -- how we experience time, why time sometimes flies by and yet other times drags by, and the role of the brain and the body as one.

We get into this, interoception, the embodied mind, predictive processing, science and intuition and much more, using examples from chronic pain, depression and anxiety.

Check it out!

Follow Irena and her work on her website, on Twitter and her lab.

_______

I hope you enjoy it and find it useful. Don't forget to leave a review and a rating. If you would like to donate to my 65k running fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestinians, you can here.

Sabrina (prior episode here) and Peter (prior episode here) are back on the encourager pod -- two of the most popular episodes, so give them a listen!

This time they are joined by collaborator Prof Michael Ray.

Together the three have recently put out a fascinating paper entitled, "Unpacking an affordance-based model of chronic pain: a video game analogy".

In this four-way chat (my first go at multiple guests!), we dive into the paper, the concepts and the practicalities.

This is a great way of understanding the reality of pain experience.

We need models and explanations that span the person's first person experience and the third person perspective; the subjective and the objective. They need to be brought together and understood to give meaning and a way forward.

That is what this paper does. Have a listen to the pod and read the paper here.

You can follow and connect with Sabrina on her website and Twitter, with Peter on his website and Twitter, and with Michael on his website and Twitter.

Tom, musician and artist, generously shares his experience of FND -- functional neurological disorder.

As Tom explains, he spent many years being told many things, often unhelpful and some utterly wrong (putting it politely).

Then he met Prof Mark Edwards and things started to change. He described his journey with FND but also with chronic pain.

At times it was incredibly and unimaginably difficult, but Tom kept going. You'll find out when you listen!

Tom now spends time raising awareness of FND and sharing the latest research to help people on their own individual journeys.

Connect with Tom on his website, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and FND Action.

Great to catch up with Deepak!

Deepak is a pain doctor who listens, empowers, and comes alongside the people who come to see him.

It's not a fight or a battlefield. Instead, a journey on which Deepak accompanies the person, if they wish.

He realised the biomedical model wasn't enough and so widened his approach, embracing a range of modern ways of thinking about pain, whilst keeping the person at the forefront.

And being curious.

We had a brilliant and fascinating chat about his approach, work and vision for the future of care.

Follow Deepak on Twitter, Instagram, and his website.

Please rate and share on your platform of choice 🙏.

This week an old friend joins me: musician, guitarist, songwriter, producer, Tim Shoben. Aka, Showbiz.

(If you watch the video, you'll see me wearing my guitar hat whilst Tim is suited -- we got it the wrong way round 😂).

Tim has been around music all his life, picking up the guitar at an early age. And playing it of course.

He talks about his musical career, his definition of success, the importance of practice and his collaboration with Lifford (golden buzzer on Britain's Got Talent), The Soul Dogs. 

But what shines through is his passion that has kept Showbiz deeply connected with music. This connection is rooted in his family and his very being. And now he has an album under his belt that deserves to be widely heard.

Guitar playing is a great example of being on a route of mastery. There is no end point with new things to learn and practice. There are ups, downs and plateaus just as there are in life, with any learning or challenge you seek to overcome. 

Check out The Soul Dogs album here, listen to them playing here and keep an eye out for their forthcoming gigs at Pizza Express Jazz Club and Boulevard Soho.

And if you want to learn English at Tim's school in Islington, see here.

Louise is a Lived Experience Advocate, Lived Experience Lead Trainer, Past Vice Chair at British Pain Society Patient Voice Committee, Ramblers Wellbeing Walks leader and a successful chronic pain self-manager. 

She is certainly not being defined by her pain, instead using the experiences she has had since childhood to help others who are struggling with chronic pain.

Louise tells her story that started with pain in childhood that often was unexplained medically despite repeated appointments and investigations. Later she discovered it was fibromyalgia. 

But it was the opioids that took everything to another level! 

Louise talked me through what has happened in her life and how she has come through the other side of an opioid crisis to now being involved in numerous projects to help people understand and manage their pain by living life. 

It's a remarkable tale of success that is greatly inspiring, and showing what is possible.

You can connect with Louise here, on LinkedIn, Twitter and the Walking Works Wonder Facebook page.

Inês is a 'bit of a punk', but one who cares deeply about her work making a difference in the world. In other words, translating it into helping people who are suffering. The essence of an encourager.

This is a brilliant conversation, especially if you are interested in some of the latest thinking and work on brain/body/behaviour and how they meet as a whole (the person), mental health (anxiety, depression, PTSD), chronic pain, addiction, how we get stuck as humans and ways we can get unstuck, wellness and much more!

Inês is doing superb work that stems back to her interest in philosophy, Buddhism and punk music as a teen. 

We get into all of this. Enjoy and please do share!

More on Inês's website, Twitter, Philpeople, and Google Scholar 

Communication is at the heart of our work with people in healthcare.

Yet the training is typically scant at undergraduate.

It appears so simple, yet it is a very complex set of skills that can be learned and practiced.

We get into the importance of communication for being an effective clinician, attitude, the different roles we take, some of the key skills and more.

Vincent shares his thoughts and insights in this very practical conversation. 

Much to take away if you are starting out in your healthcare career or wanting to sharpen your communication skills.

Vincent is a very experienced physiotherapist with psychology training, and an educator, trainer and teacher, in particular in communication. Early on he realised communication was key and followed this path. 

You can connect with Vincent on his website, read about his book and follow him on Twitter.

If you're interested in pain and chronic pain, this one is for you. 

Morten is doing fantastic work in the pain field, including a recent series of editorials called 'Pain Science in Practice'. 

He tells his story of how he got to where he is now -- he didn't expect to be there 😊 !

Then we get into the detail of what we do with patients who are suffering, what the science says and what it does not say, the role of pain education, some of the words being used, acute and chronic pain, pain in sport, the difference between pain and injury, change as a process and more.

Come and have a listen 🎧

Connect with Morten

LinkedIn

Twitter

Instagram

Research Gate

The studies

Petrie KJ, Weinman J. Why illness perceptions matter. Clin Med (Lond). 2006 Nov-Dec;6(6):536-9. doi: 10.7861/clinmedicine.6-6-536. PMID: 17228551; PMCID: PMC4952762.

Giordano R, Gerra MC, Okutani H, Lo Vecchio S, Stensballe A, Petersen KK, Arendt-Nielsen L. The temporal expression of circulating microRNAs after acute experimental pain in humans. Eur J Pain. 2022 Dec 1. doi: 10.1002/ejp.2062. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36453122.

Hoegh M, Stanton T, George S, Lyng KD, Vistrup S, Rathleff MS. Infographic. Pain or injury? Why differentiation matters in exercise and sports medicine. Br J Sports Med. 2022 Mar;56(5):299-300. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2021-104633. Epub 2021 Sep 16. PMID: 34531187.

Ashar YK, Gordon A, Schubiner H, Uipi C, Knight K, Anderson Z, Carlisle J, Polisky L, Geuter S, Flood TF, Kragel PA, Dimidjian S, Lumley MA, Wager TD. Effect of Pain Reprocessing Therapy vs Placebo and Usual Care for Patients With Chronic Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry. 2022 Jan 1;79(1):13-23. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.2669. PMID: 34586357; PMCID: PMC8482298.

Groin pain paper (not yet indexed on PubMed): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468781223000048

How do we explain painful chronic non-traumatic knee conditions to children and adolescents? A multiple-method study to develop credible explanations C Djurtoft, MK Bruun, H Riel, MS Hoegh, B Darlow, MS Rathleff (2022) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.15.22283510v1

Virginia suffered an injury at work that resulted in surgery and subsequent chronic pain. 

Her experience of not being heard, told she was fine, that the surgery was a success and that she could return to work were all out of alignment with what was really happening. And that was her pain. 

Virginia hit some real low points, but despite this kept going and found a way when she found the right people. They made her feel welcome, listened and explained this for the first time. She was on the right path.

Now Virginia spends her time supporting others and driving change. She knows what it is like to be on the journey.

In this episode we explore Virginia's lived experience, what is was like, how she moved on, what she does now to fulfil a sense of purpose and to keep shaping a positive future. 

I think you'll find this conversation interesting and inspiring. 

You can follow Virginia on Twitter.