Most everyday pain — stiff necks, cranky backs, tight shoulders — isn’t a life sentence, and it’s not “just aging.” Chiropractic physician Dr. Ya-Ling explains that pain is largely a trained response: through graded movement, sensory input, and shifting the beliefs behind it, your nervous system can unlearn pain the same way it learned it.
You can also listen to the audio here. Also available on Spotify and Apple
Prefer reading? Get the episode transcript here:
What’s the Difference Between “Everyday Pain” and True Chronic Pain?
Dr. Ya-Ling draws a sharp line most wellness content ignores. Everyday pain — the stiff neck you wake up with, the back that acts up after a long car ride — is common, disabling in the moment, but not the same thing as true chronic pain, which stems from an unresolved disease process or a serious injury. The problem: our culture has quietly absorbed “you just have to live with it” advice meant for true chronic pain and applied it to everything, including pain that’s actually very fixable.
Why Does Ignoring Pain Make It Worse?
Pain-adaptive patterns are a reasonable response to unreasonable circumstances — but ignoring the root cause teaches your brain and nervous system one of two bad habits: it gets less agile at finding its way out of pain, or it learns to return to pain more easily in the future. Translation: “push through it” isn’t toughness, it’s training your body to expect pain.
How Much Do Your Beliefs Shape How Much Pain You Feel?
More than you’d think. Dr. Ya-Ling points to the well-documented nocebo/placebo effect: if you believe something will help, your biology tends to cooperate; if you believe something will hurt you, your biology often obliges that too. She compares it to running into a grizzly bear in the woods — one intense encounter, and suddenly every rustle in the brush sends you running, even if it’s just a squirrel. Your nervous system does the same thing with pain, flagging harmless sensations as threats based on past experience.
What’s Your “Pain Personality” — and Why Does Your First Pain Memory Matter?
Dr. Ya-Ling has identified three main ways people reflexively respond to pain and adversity — patterns that often trace back to childhood. She asks patients to think back to their first memorable pain experience:
- What was the situation — a fall, a bumped head, a stubbed toe?
- Who was around, and how did they react?
- What did you hear people say about it?
Those details are clues to how your nervous system was trained to respond — not just to pain, but to adversity in general.
Should You Push Through Pain or Rest It Completely?
Neither extreme works. Dr. Ya-Ling uses a graded approach with three phases:
- Release — find low-stress positions so your brain can remember what pain-free actually feels like.
- Retrain — introduce isometric squeeze-and-hold exercises (targeted, still muscle activation, no range of motion) to build real strength under the “tight” feeling.
- Strengthen and stabilize — build on that foundation gradually.
Her point on “tightness” is worth sitting with: we assume tight means we need to stretch, but tightness is often a sign the area isn’t strong enough yet — the muscles are bracing to provide stability a stronger muscle would provide on its own.
Are Painkillers a Trap for Everyday Pain?
It’s complicated, and Dr. Ya-Ling doesn’t prescribe medication or take an official side. But she notes that patients who take NSAIDs daily or weekly for chronic headaches often develop rebound headaches, and headache neurologists frequently identify getting off NSAIDs as step one. Her framework: medication (or any pain-relief strategy) is legitimate when it helps your nervous system remember what pain-free feels like — but it needs an exit strategy, not an open-ended commitment.
Does Posture Actually Matter for Back and Neck Pain?
Less than the “ruler down your back” crowd would have you believe. Dr. Ya-Ling says a moderate slouch is fine — even helpful — for most spines, because forcing your mid and upper back into a rigid, flattened line actually introduces stress into your neck and lower back. The spine’s natural design is a gentle S-curve: a slight sway in the lower back, a slight round in the upper back. As for the “sitting is the new smoking” trend, she pushes back — it’s not sitting or standing that’s the problem, it’s staying in any one position for too long. Variety, movement, and getting up and down beat any single “correct” posture.
Do Zero-Drop Shoes or High Heels Affect Back Pain?
It depends entirely on your individual anatomy — there’s no universal right answer. Some people genuinely do better with a heel taking stress off their back; others do better barefoot or in zero-drop shoes. The one rule that does generalize: any transition, whether it’s footwear, a mattress, or a pillow, should happen gradually. Your body needs time to adapt, not an overnight overhaul.
What Does “Living Fully” Mean When You’re Dealing With Pain?
For Dr. Ya-Ling, it comes down to becoming aware of how your emotional life shapes your experience of everything — including pain. That means checking in honestly: What are you judging yourself for? What are you glossing over or avoiding? Where are you being too hard on yourself? For most people, pain isn’t a permanent life sentence, and most of what gets labeled “chronic” has real, workable answers.
Where to Learn More From Dr. Ya-Ling
Dr. Ya-Ling practices in Seattle and shares her graded-recovery approach through her books (including Fix the Fire Damage and What’s Your Pain Personality?), her free Pocket Pain Relief app, and her in-development Pain Proof Your Home service. Find all of it, plus her own podcast, at ya-ling.com.
Ready to stop bracing for pain and start retraining out of it? Listen to the full episode above, then visit ya-ling.com to explore Dr. Ya-Ling’s books and free resources.
About the Host
I, Greg Cox, have been working in the wellness space for 20+ years and was a chef for 25 years before that, often creating health meals for restaurants and as a private chef. I created the Rebellious Wellness Lifestyle Podcast to empower women to challenge the limitations society places on them as they age.
I believe in science without outsourcing intuition, in prevention over treatment, and in the radical act of remaining visible, engaged, and fully expressed at every age.
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