Physical therapist takes simple approach to end her chronic pain

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (InvestigateTV) - Research from the National Library of Medicine shows more than 30% of the world’s population suffers from chronic pain.

That’s 2.4 billion people who might feel hope after hearing Allyn Minton’s story.

The Nashville-based licensed physical therapist has been pain-free for a full year, thanks to a breakthrough she says has changed her mind.

Minton opened Swell Studio after turning to the low-impact exercise in her 20s.

She had injured her back while transferring a patient. She learned to manage her pain with daily, core-strengthening exercise and physical therapy. That is, until debilitating pain returned every year, on a certain day.

“Over the years, as I would get stressed through times in my life, my dad getting cancer and passing away, my back would start to just go out on me,” Minton said. “I went to the doctor, and he said, ‘Allyn, you were here last year to the day.’”

The debilitating pattern repeated itself, until one year ago.

Mind-body connection

“As I started calming the nervous system and looking at those thoughts, slowly with the repetition of affirmations — it’s that repetition that’s key — my thoughts started to change. And my back pain disappeared,” Minton said.

A 2022 review of multiple studies in the Harvard Gazette explains how adding psychological therapies with physical ones, including reframing negative thoughts, can change how the body feels pain.

Research on neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire itself, shows how repeated thoughts and behaviors can build new pathways in the brain and alleviate chronic pain.

“If the body is tense and in fight or flight, it doesn’t feel safe enough to let the mind relax and open and be receptive to change,” Minton said.

Minton believes the simple step of adding affirmations for 20 minutes a day has helped calm her nervous system, offering hope to millions that healing is possible with the power of the mind.