Recent Posts
If you want to be smarter and live longer, do this!
My wife and I started to play ping pong in our backyard about five years ago. We quickly discovered how relaxing it was, even for 10-15 min. It is also social and every level of player grabs the paddle and ... Read More
“Wake the Fun Up” – The DOC Journey App
Nurturing a sense of play is the main focus of the app. It is the optimal healing state of safety physiology and already exists within each of us. Play is the most powerful pathway to healing – in the right ... Read More
“Stars Through the Bars”
Many years ago I was involved with helping a young friend, Larry, in his 20’s deal with a difficult legal situation involving drugs. He was a great kid and had ended up associating with friends who were on a path ... Read More
Science has the Answer to the Opioid Epidemic – Is anyone listening?
The Federal government has spent billions of dollars on combating the opioid epidemic. In 2022, 1.5 billion dollars was allocated to enforcement and treatment. Yet the death toll climbed 85,000 deaths a year in 2022 to 110,000 in 2023. The ... Read More
We have no protection from mental pain
Objectives: Pain from any body part is a protective danger signal that guides our behavior and physical responses to avoid danger and remain safe. This system is called the nociceptive system, which guides behaviors to not exceed the limits of ... Read More
Why You Do Need an Ego? Dissolve it with Awareness
Objectives Our survival reactions and ongoing negative program cause us to feel guilty and inadequate. We create “stories” about ourselves in order to feel better – it can’t doesn’t work. Awareness you are not your survival reactions and “self-esteem” consists ... Read More
Don’t Take on the World’s Suffering
Objectives Many of us become upset about the state of the world, which is definitely worrisome and disturbing. However, you have no control, your nervous system is fired up, and there is not an endpoint. We all have plenty of ... Read More
Calming Down and Healing with Vagal Nerve Stimulation (VNS)
The Relationship Between Chronic Stress and Health Stress is commonly perceived as a psychological term. That is simply not true. Life is not guaranteed for any living creature. Stress represents our reaction to ongoing daily threats to remaining safe. Any ... Read More
Stage 1 Posts - Lay the Foundation
Science has the Answer to the Opioid Epidemic – Is anyone listening?
The Federal government has spent billions of dollars on combating the opioid epidemic. In 2022, 1.5 billion dollars was allocated ...
The Pain of Social Isolation
Many people suffering from chronic pain are socially isolated. When you are trapped in pain you have a difficult time ...
The Root Cause of Societal Disintegration – Untreated Anxiety
Being trapped by relentless untreated anxiety is the core driver of destructive human behaviour. Anxiety is the sensation generated by ...
The Myth of MUS (Medically Unexplained Symptoms) – It’s MES
There is a deadly diagnosis that has evolved and become increasingly embedded in chronic pain terminology – Medically Unexplained Symptoms ...
Calming and Stabilizing Your Nervous System
Objectives When your nervous system is inflamed and hyper-reactive, lesser levels of stress cause your body to go into flight ...
Active Meditation – a simple starting point
Objectives: When you are suffering for any reason, you mind races, which makes it harder to think clearly. Doing battle ...
“The Abyss” – Honour your suffering
Objectives: Honor your suffering. You are trapped by physical and mental sensations without an apparent way out. You feel extremely ...
Solving Tinnitus – The Ringing in My Ears
Ringing in your ears, regardless of its intensity, is annoying. Actually, it is more than annoying; it is relentless and ...
Your Hand Stuck Over the Stove
I often encounter a perplexing situation: A patient experiencing severe chronic pain on my spine intake questionnaire rates him or ...
Verbal “Expressive Writing”
Freely writing your thoughts and immediately destroying them has been the starting point for almost every person I have seen ...
Marsha’s Three Unnecessary Spine Surgeries
Marsha was a 36 year-old businesswoman with two young children. She was referred to me by another patient and came ...
David Hanscom’s Mission and Resources
My mission falls into two broad categories. Connect mainstream medicine with existing science – most symptoms, illness and disease are ...
There is an Answer to the Mental Health Crisis
Objectives Avoiding danger is what keeps us alive. Humans call this signal anxiety. Avoiding this sensation drives much of dysfunctional ...
My Descent Into The Abyss
Objectives There are many different physical and mental symptoms that are possible when you are in sustained flight or fight ...
Charley’s Story: Pain Free After 17 Doctors
This is a story of a middle-aged gentleman who became pain free using DOC Process principles. Although, he saw me ...
Processing Anxiety/ Frustration – They are not Going Away
Objectives Providing yourself with cues of safety is essential to healing. However, your body instinctively gravitates towards being aware ...
Stage 2 Posts - Forgive and Play
“Wake the Fun Up” – The DOC Journey App
Nurturing a sense of play is the main focus of the app. It is the optimal healing state of safety ...
Don’t Take on the World’s Suffering
Objectives Many of us become upset about the state of the world, which is definitely worrisome and disturbing. However, you ...
The Myth of Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is one of the worst concepts ever propagated. While the definition itself appears harmless enough on its surface, “confidence ...
Depression Masking as Pain
Patient’s Letter Hi Dr Hanscom, I have been meaning to check in with you for a while now and let ...
Our Need to Feel Safe
The deep need to feel and be safe is the driving force of all life, including humans. In this physiological ...
Bullying is Good for Your Health
Bullying is maybe one of the most irrational and unacceptable aspects of the human experience. Everyone at every age, including ...
Social Anxiety – Vulnerability Doesn’t Feel Safe
Humans want to feel safe. Feeling or being safe reflects profound shifts in your body’s chemistry to “rest and digest.” ...
“She Just Let Go”
My migraine headaches began on the Fourth of July when I was five years old. By age fifty, I had ...
Suicide – A Horrible Way to Escape from Pain
Objectives The root cause of suicide is feeling trapped and mental and physical pain are problematic.significant reasons to feel this ...
“5–3–2” – Processing Anger in Three Steps
Objectives Anxiety is an unpleasant sensation generated by your body’s physiological response to real or perceived danger. It compels you ...
Gun Violence – No Action in a Reaction
Our society continues to wring its hands over ongoing problem of gun violence. The bigger problem is the that of ...
From “Would Like” to “Should” – The Unenforceable Rules
Objectives: Our core life outlook is programmed by every second of our life to the present moment. Each person has ...
Grievance Stories
Objectives All of us are “wronged” every day and often multiple times. The wrongs may be real or perceived. Your ...
Forgiveness is Not What You Think – Learn It
Objectives Forgiveness does not have to be that difficult. You are simply making a choice of not letting a situation ...
Healing through Play – It is Safety Physiology
Objectives Connecting with your sense of play is one of the most powerful ways of shifting your physiology from threat ...
Calming Yourself by Recruiting the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)
Written in conjunction with Dr. Les Aria, PhD Objectives Every function and action of your body is in a delicate ...
- If you want to be smarter and live longer, do this!
- “Stars Through the Bars”
- Calming Down and Healing with Vagal Nerve Stimulation (VNS)
- Downhill Skiing is Dangerous – So is Life
- Navigating Life is Similar to Playing Major League Baseball
- The “C”quence of Healing Chronic Illness
- “The Pit of Despair”
- Stress Kills – Don’t Allow it
- Happy Holidays – Not
- How healing happens
- Connection – The Antithesis of Pursuing Self-esteem
- Why are New Year’s Resolutions So Hard to Keep?
- No One Can Take Away Your Holiday Joy – But You
- Do You Feel Safe in Your Own Home?
- Your Relationship to Food and Life
- Heal by Connecting with Others
- The Golden State Warriors and the “Ironic Effect”
- Commit to a Daily Practice
- Feel the Life You Want
- Repetition and Healing
- Your Life’s Roadmap – Just Begin Anywhere
- Get Organized – Chronic Pain is Complex
- Who Do You Choose to be Today?
- Create Your “Personal Business Plan”
- Connect with the Life You Want
- Exercise Improves Your Health, Quality of Life, and Lifespan
- Tune Your Nervous System and Lower Anxiety – You have the controls
- Awareness–Ingrained Patterns/ Your Life Lens
- Deadly Nature of Self-esteem
- You Have to Feel to Heal – Emotional Awareness
- Connecting to Life with Your Senses – Environmental Awareness
- Flip Your Consciousness – 4 Types of Awareness
- Becoming Aware of Being Unaware
- Awareness – The Starting Point for Deep Healing
- Taking Control – The Eye of the Storm
- Become a Genius at Solving Pain
- Plan A–Lowering Inflammation Lengthens Life
- Negative Messages to Your Brain
- People – The Most Powerful Part of The DOC Journey
- The Guided Course of “The DOC Journey”
- Awareness–Ingrained Patterns
- Develop a “Family Business” Business Plan
- Decreasing Your Stress Chemicals (Anxiety)
- Relationships and Rock Tumblers
- Back in Control Coaching
- Holiday Landmines – Your Family
- A Couple Re-united
- Listen to Your Family–No Advice or Criticism
- A Safe Haven – Omega 2018
- Why are New Year’s Resolutions So Hard to Keep?
- Happily Ever After
- The Impact of Mirror Neurons on Your Family
- The Taste of Freedom – Omega 2017
- Your “Identity” Can Destroy You
- The Chronic Pain Marriage-Go-Round
- The Two Faces of Christmas
- Moving Forward with Your Pain
- Be All that You Can Be – or Just Be
- The Essence of the DOC Process
- Take Back Your Life
- Happy Father’s Day – Not
- Pain Rules the Roost
- The Power of Love – Anthony
- “I’m Paying You to Inflict Pain??”
- Breaking Loose – Not Quite
- Escaping Your Family – The Crab Bucket
- Mastering Pain – Shuhari
- STOMP – Structuring Your Own Management of Pain
- Mirror Neurons—Family Healing
- Protect Your Family from Your Pain
- “Many Italians Choose Suicide” – People Need to Work
- Staying in the Storm
- Breaking Loose – NOT
- Visualization – Holt’s Winning Run
- Pain = Anger = Abuse
Stage 4 Posts - Expand Your Consciousness
- Why You Do Need an Ego? Dissolve it with Awareness
- Kogos: Why Anxiety is the Real Gift of Life
- “Our envy of others devours us most of all”
- Be an Expert at Living life
- Mindfulness Should not be Taught in School – Really??
- Understanding the “Curse of Consciousness”
- AI and the Cumulative Effects of Trauma
- Quit Fighting Darkness and Turn on the Light
- Four Aspects of Solving RUT’s
- “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”
- Your “Authentic Self”
- Connecting the past and present to the future – Bruce Lipton and David Hanscom
- Romanticizing Pirates – Normalizing Suffering and Abuse
- Giving Back is Healing
- “Better Not Look Down”
- Awareness as a Tool – The “Circle of Life”
- Not Being Judgmental–Not Possible
- The Gift of Anxiety – Your Bodyguard or Prison Guard?
- The Bidirectional Interaction between Resilience and Your Immune System
- Navigating the Entire Circle of Your Life
- Pain: the Gift Nobody Wants
- “Play 20” – Create Your Life at Any Age
- Thrive and Survive–The Movement
- Expanding Your Horizon–Your New Life
- Thrive and Survive COVID-19: The Polyvagal Approach
- “The Bottom”
- Beyond Forgiveness–Compassion for Those Who Hurt You
- The Gift of Hope – “This Might Hurt”
- Success is a “Story”
- Moving Forward – A New Horizon
- “Dying” Before Living
- Learn Another Language – “An Enjoyable Life”
- Anxiety with Success
- Healing With Support from her Community
- Compassion
- Harnessing the Body’s Healing Power
- How Much Suffering Can You Take?
- Remarkable Healing Stories – Dr. Bernie Siegel
- Mental or physical health – Which is more Critical?
- Anger: Damage Control
- The Gift of Pain – Thanksgiving 2013
- Anger versus Angel
- The KKK and a Spiritual Journey
- The First and Last Day of School
- Video: Standard Stress Skills Inadequate
- Plugging the Negative Drain
- My Hoffman Experience
- Hoffman Process
Stage 5 Posts - Decision-making
- “My Son Just Died”
- How Many More Neck Surgeries?
- Do You Really Need Spine Surgery?
- Optimizing (Avoiding) Spine Surgery
- My Early Surgical Philosophy
- Anger Altering a Surgical Decision
- My Call to Action
- Phantom Brain Pain – “The Doctor is Missing Something”
- Humans Aren’t Data Points – Modern Medicine is Hurting Us
- Tulsa Shooting – “The Pit of Despair”
- Surgical Stories of Despair
- Stay Out of the Surgical Scrap Heap
- Never Too Late for Hope
- Know Your Surgeon – Well
- Dashed Hopes
- Avoids a Five-level Neck Fusion
- Prehab – Optimizing Surgical Outcomes
- Comprehending the Downside of Spine Surgery
- Eight-Level Spine Fusion? No!
- It is Becoming Harder to Make a Living as a Surgeon………
- Surgery is the Definitive Solution?
- When will the Pain Stop?
- Are You Kidding Me? – ILL Advised Spine Surgery
- Structural Sciatica Resolved Without Surgery
- Am I Operating on Your Pain or Anxiety?
- Avoid Surgery by Raising the Pain Threshold
- Think Twice About Spinal Surgery
- Video: I Can Only Fix What I Can See
- Video: Surgeons Do What They are Trained to Do
- Anger Altering a Surgical Decision
Other Posts
- We have no protection from mental pain
- Create a Safe Haven – Family
- “The Bottom”
- Make the Right Decision About Spine Surgery – The Grid
- Accept the Gift of Consciousness – Choice
- The Impact of Stress on Pain and Decision-Making
- Threat Physiology Can’t be Controlled with Behavioral Approaches
- Mental Rigidity – A Core Trait of Many Mental Health Diagnoses
- The Popcorn Machine – Healing RUTS
- Make the Right Decision About Spine Surgery – The Grid
- Permanent Disability – Needless??
- Pain to Pleasure-Pavlov’s Dogs
- Everyone Needs Support
- The “Five E’s” of Chronic Pain
- Video 14/19: Chronic Pain: Pain Free is Not Only Possible, it’s Probable.
- Compassion and an Italian Dinner
- Video 8/19: Fusions For LBP Don’t Work
- Problems are Opportunities
- Video 7/19: The Catastrophe Index
- Examiners from the Worker’s Perspective
- Video 4/19: Listen When Your Surgeon Says “No”
- Arm the Worker
- Video 8 of 19: Finding the Source of The Pain
- Video 5 of 19: An Alternative Approach to Chronic Pain & Spine Surgery
- It Really is Upside Down
- “I Want to Believe”
- The Catastrophe Index
- Your Doctor Might Not be Listening
- Surgical Results Overly Optimistic
- Indications for Surgery
- Worsening Prognosis with Time Off of Work
- Two Kinds of Anger
- Anger Affecting Nerve Pain
- Breaking Stress into Its Parts
- Stress Management Overview
- How am I Going to Get There?
- Where am I Going?
- Where am I?
- Setting Goals with Three Questions
- Anti-Spasm
- Anti-depressants
- Anti-seizure
- Anti-anxiety
- Non-Narcotics
- Narcotics
- Medication Management
Important Posts
Do You Really Need Spine Surgery?
Do You Really Need Spine Surgery? Take Control with Advice from a Surgeon considers all factors affecting your perception of pain and organizes them into a treatment grid that allows you to make a good decision regarding having spine surgery ... Read More
David Hanscom’s Mission and Resources
My mission falls into two broad categories. Connect mainstream medicine with existing science – most symptoms, illness and disease are created by the body’s physiology (how it functions), and not structures. Establish the necessity of a trusting dynamic relationship with ... Read More
Anger Academy
Objectives Processing anger is more doable if it is broken down into its components. Anger is a powerful, necessary, and hard wired survival reflex. You cannot tame it with the conscious brain. It is an acquired skill that requires ongoing ... Read More
Dynamic Healing
A new, data-based dynamic approach is needed for medicine to successfully deal with our epidemic of chronic disease. It must acknowledge the interaction between circumstances and your body’s capacity to process them, which determines the makeup of your body’s neurochemistry ... Read More
Plan A–Lowering Inflammation Lengthens Life
The COVID-19 virus is a member of the Corona virus family that usually just causes the common cold. The problem is that we now have a strain that is potentially fatal. However, there are some strong hints of how to ... Read More
Essence of Illness
The burden of chronic disease is crushing us while we have the answers right in front of us. A recent summary reported that the total cost of chronic disease in the US is 3.7 trillion dollars a year, which is ... Read More
Navigating the Entire Circle of Your Life
The DOC (Direct your Own Care) Journey is a collection of resources that reflect the ones many people have used to escape from the grip of chronic mental and physical pain, It includes: A guided course of seven legs and ... Read More
Clarifying the New IASP Definition of Chronic Pain
The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) is highly regarded international society committed to research and education about pain. It was founded by one of the most prominent pioneers in pain, Dr. John Bonica. Conceptualizing pain What is ... Read More
Expressive Arts Posts
The Walk Home
Poem by Susan Angelis Photo by Susan Angelis October 29, 2023 The Walk Home The walk home from Sunday church. Walking the same path. Slightly different views each Sunday. Observing, appreciating the wondrous creations of nature. Looking beyond the iron ... Read More
Fierce Pain – Medically Explainable Symptoms (MES)
This is a piece sent to me through the expressive arts gallery. My arms reach upward as the mind and hair are disintegrating, reaching through burning into the light. Grounded in the earth, I dance. My heart lifts up, surrendering ... Read More
“MdDS: She is a Beautiful Flower” (acrylic on black watercolor paper, Feb 2017)
Julie Graber, 2017: July 2016, a Mal de Debarquement. Rocking, Bobbing, Swaying … 24×7 … circling in a counter-clockwise direction. Painted in the middle of one night when something under my rib cage felt like it was trying to flip ... Read More
“Mystic Fragmentation … a medicine painting” (acrylic paint and collaged feet on 48×60″ canvas, 2021)
Julie Graber, 2016: a chronic neurological disorder after 8-day river cruise Prague to Budapest, Mal de Debarquement Syndrome (MdDS), for which “there is no cure”; rocking, bobbing, swaying like on a paddle board in the middle of Lake Michigan on ... Read More
Shadows Dancing in the Fire
Painted in 1971 by Gabrielle Schang and Babs Yohai. Dancing through the ring of fire. Dancing through the ring of fire. Related posts: “The Cup Song” Spastic Bladder Resolved – Being with Anger Six Feet Apart Navigating the Entire Circle ... Read More
Emotional Turmoil
A great life isn’t just about waiting for the storm to pass, It’s about learning to dance in the rain. Related posts: When I Dance – Omega 2019 Anger and Anxiety–Highway to Hell Staying in the Storm Physical versus Emotional ... Read More