Pain science is real weird.
This is a bit reductive, but one of the theories of pain is that it’s entirely neurological, essentially meaning that pain doesn’t actually correlate to physical harm to the body meaningfully. The other thing this means is that we tend to build these neural pathways the more we pay attention and hyper focus on any given body part. Compounding on this: the less outside stimulus, the more likely it is that we will have the ability to focus on the minutia of our internal processes in the first place.
Again, this is somewhat reductive as a measure of explaining pain, but it is probably partially correct.
Except it does correlate meaningfully, don’t believe me? Break your index finger, does it hurt? No shit.
That’s not to say the nervous system can’t create pain that has no source, the entire condition of fibromyalgia is evidence of that possibility, but to say they aren’t meaningfully correlated is insane.
Most people who have pain unrelated to medical diagnosis in their 30’s and 40’s are fat as hell, eat like crap, and get no exercise, and are constantly dehydrated. That’s why they hurt so damn much.
I wonder if complete sedentary lifestyles correlate with inflammation, stress on joints, and overall negative health outcomes?
Hmmm… If only there were studies on such a thing.
Fibromyalgia sufferers here be like:
First time?
