S E10: Ep 10 – What is the Region Beta Paradox and why should you care?
You may be wondering what the Region Beta Paradox is, and think it might not be relevant to you, but it is.
It sounds complicated, but it isn’t, and although you might have never heard of it, I can guarantee that you will be able to relate to it, so give this episode a listen and you will see what I mean.
Introduction
Welcome to the Pain Free Living Podcast, hosted by Bob Allen, an osteopath who has been treating people’s pain problems since 2008.
In this episode Bob will be talking about the Region Beta Paradox, and explain why we put up with small, niggly problems rather than getting them sorted out as soon as they happen.
When you experience low-level pain, like a mild ankle sprain or knee pain, typically you would change your behaviour by shifting your weight to the uninjured side and live with the problem as it’s annoying but not that annoying.
If it was a severe ankle sprain or an inflamed, swollen knee that meant you struggled to walk you would do something about it pretty quickly, wouldn’t you?
Bob relates the Region Beta Paradox to pain, as this is the Pain Free Living podcast, but it is equally applicable to a job that you don’t like but can live with or the partner you are bored with but can’t live without.
By the end of the podcast you will know what the Region Beta Paradox is, and how it can influence your choice between an OK life and a great one whether that relates to your health, wealth, or relationships.
Takeaways:
• The Region Beta Paradox covers why we often ignore low-level pain until it starts to affect our usual day-to-day activities.
• Understanding the Region Beta Paradox can empower you to take notice and manage your well-being.
• Why you tend to ‘live with’ minor pain problems that are annoying even though they can affect your overall quality of life.
• The bigger the impact a problem has on your life, the more likely you are to do something about it.
More about Bob
You can find out more about Bob and why he became an osteopath here https://bit.ly/BobsOsteoStory
Sign up for his very popular Monthly Pain Free Living newsletter here https://bit.ly/PFL_newsletter_signup
If you want to follow Bob on social media, this is the place for you https://linktr.ee/Painfreeliving
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Plane Free Living podcast with me, your host, Bob Allen.
Speaker A:e been asking your path since:Speaker A:hem to get out of plane since:Speaker A:I like to bring news, things that are a little bit different, things you can relate to, but you may not know have a name.
Speaker A:So what I'm going to talk to you about today is this thing called the region beta paradox.
Speaker A:Sounds really complicated, but when I kind of break it down, you'll get exactly what I mean.
Speaker A:So what is the region beta paradox?
Speaker A:I hear you say the paradox is that if you have an ankle sprain or you have knee pain, which is niggly and annoying, but not too niggly and not too annoying, so you carry on with your day to day stuff.
Speaker A:If it's knee pain, it may only hurt when you walk for 15 miles.
Speaker A:Or if it's an ankle pain, it may only hurt when you've, when you've run for five miles, but it's there in the background, but it's not quite enough for you to do something about it.
Speaker A:Whereas if you have a traumatic injury to the knee, you trip, fall, banging, the you have a really bad ankle sprain, ankle swells up, you can't walk, that you are going to do something about and you're going to do something about that pretty quickly.
Speaker A:Whereas with the niggly pain, what tends to happen is you tend to avoid certain behaviors.
Speaker A:So if it happens after 15 miles, you might only walk 10 miles.
Speaker A:If it happens after you've run for 5 miles, you might only run 3 miles.
Speaker A:You kind of adapt what you do to the injury that you've got.
Speaker A:Now the thing about that is, and where the paradox comes in is that if it's a really severe and intense pain, you're going to do something about it pretty quickly.
Speaker A:So your quality of life goes from ouch, that really hurts to okay, I've gone and seen a friendly osteopath or someone else and the pain's gone.
Speaker A:Whereas if it's that niggly pain, your quality of life is okay.
Speaker A:And it only happens when you overdone something.
Speaker A:So you live with it and in some cases you can live with it for quite a while.
Speaker A:As an example, one of my clients came to see me with shoulder pain and to be honest, this is the longest injury that I've had to treat.
Speaker A:But he'd had shoulder pain for 31 years.
Speaker A:He was a weightlifter.
Speaker A:He injured it weightlifting, but he managed to get a workaround for it and he finally ran out of patients 31 years later and he came to see me and we resolved the problem within three or four treatments.
Speaker A:Now where the paradox is that if he'd come to see me when he injured himself, I could have treated it in three or four sessions and he would have spared himself 30 odd years of niggly annoying pain.
Speaker A:So that is what the reagent beta paradox is.
Speaker A:It's that thing about us human beings where we will tolerate something because we can live with it, whereas if it was a more serious problem, we'd get it addressed straight away.
Speaker A:And the way I like to put it is your quality of life is very, very, very good.
Speaker A:You have an injury, so your quality of life goes down a little bit, you get it resolved because it is a really sharp pain that stops you from doing things and you go back up to really, really good life.
Speaker A:If it's a niggly annoying pain, you change your behaviors, you adapt to that change, and then instead of your life being very good, it's just good, but you can live with it and that's it.
Speaker A:And non pain related examples are, for example, you have a job that you don't like very much, but you carry on doing that job and you can carry on doing that job for you.
Speaker A:It pays the bills, keeps people, keeps the family happy, but not you particularly.
Speaker A:So again, it's like your, your quality of life is good, but if you decided to make that big change, you thought, right, I'm done with this, I'm going to change my job, change my career, I'm going to find something I really want to do, I'm going to go and do that.
Speaker A:So instead of your life being doing an average job and being good, you change your career, you change your job, your life goes from good to very, very good because you get a job that's fulfilling, you enjoy it, all of those things.
Speaker A:So there is the paradox.
Speaker A:You can either tolerate an existence and have life that is good but not great, or you can make that big change and then you get the job that you've always wanted and everything's fantastic.
Speaker A:So there you go.
Speaker A:That in a nutshell is the region beta paradox.
Speaker A:I'll put a link in the show notes to give you a bigger guide to it.
Speaker A:But in summary, that's what it's all about.
Speaker A:So if you found it interesting, tell all your friends like and subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker A:Because the podcast, I've done a number of podcasts and they're all kind of subjects that people know something about, but don't know it all.
Speaker A:Region beta paradox, great example.
Speaker A:It's something you probably experience, but you've just not had a name for it.
Speaker A:Now you know it has a name, and the plan for the podcast is to have more and more of those sorts of interesting little snippets.