Instead of asking ourselves why it hurts, we ignore or suppress it, not because we chose to but because that is how we were taught
Our body is a complex, astonishing, wondrous system. Over millions of years of evolution, we developed sophisticated warning mechanisms whose role is to alert us when the body slips out of rhythm or balance. Both researchers’ theories and common sense point to this: physical phenomena such as runny nose, fever, and pain, or mental states such as heartbreak or depression, are symptoms that signal imbalance. They are signs telling us that something has gone wrong and needs attention. All that is required is to listen.
Our culture has taught us to ignore these signs. And if we really cannot, if the headache is pounding or the heartburn unbearable, then the way to deal with it is to take a pill that makes it disappear. Instead of asking ourselves why it hurts, we ignore or suppress it, not because we consciously decided to, but because that is what we were taught. Nobody taught us to listen. We also have a natural tendency to prefer short-term relief over long-term benefit, so when solutions are immediate and available, nothing stands between us and them. We choose to dull the pain rather than seek its source.
But it was not always this way.
The ancient medical theory that guided healing in our region for some two thousand years was built on a language, a basic system of signs, which defined symptoms as indicators of imbalance, expressed through a shared code everyone understood.
How did it work? For example, if a person fell into depression, the physician would examine which humor was at play. If it was the black bile, associated with cold temperament, that had gone out of balance, the healer would recommend foods or activities of the opposite quality to restore equilibrium and release the patient from depression. The code, in this case the humors and temperaments, made it possible to identify the source of imbalance and bring it back into order.
The physician Abu Bakr al Razi, who lived in Baghdad in the early tenth century, wrote a book called Kitab al Tajārib in which he documented around 900 case histories from his practice. The section on headaches and migraines contains 35 detailed cases, each accompanied by an explanation of its source. For instance: “A man suffered from a headache because vapors of yellow bile rose from his stomach… sharp pains in his head… his vision was weakened…” Each case was treated individually: sometimes with diet or medicinal plants, sometimes with advice to change workplace or place of residence. The idea was always to propose a holistic correction. Ancient medicine warned against symptomatic treatment, against silencing symptoms while ignoring the full picture.
In several of his writings, Maimonides, the Jewish physician and philosopher of the 13th century, also addressed this issue. In his “Treatise on Asthma,” which in fact deals broadly with health, he wrote:
“Even if you are careful and guard your health as best as you can, it is impossible to avoid the various phenomena that appear in the human body. For example: sometimes the stool becomes a little soft, sometimes a little hard. One day a person may notice some weakness in digestion, or suffer from a mild headache, or a slight pain elsewhere in the body. There are many such cases. One must be very cautious and not rush to treat such minor issues by taking medicines to make them disappear. The greatest physicians have already warned against this, because nature itself is sufficient in such cases. One must continue to follow the rules of healthy living. For when you begin treating such small matters, one of two things will happen: either your action is mistaken and contrary to the path of nature, and you confuse it and cause harm, or your action is correct and helps nature, but in the process you teach your body to be lazy, training it to depend on outside help in such cases.”
The guidance is clear: when there is no danger to life, there is no need to erase the symptom. Symptomatic treatment may harm in two opposite ways. If the medicine is not appropriate, it disrupts nature and causes damage. If it is appropriate and helps nature solve the problem, it silences the body’s own mechanisms. The body learns that whenever a minor disruption arises, it does not need to resolve it itself but waits for outside assistance.
The conclusion is simple: we should use any painkiller, from Optalgin and Acamol to psychiatric drugs like Cipralex or Prozac, only as a last resort, because they do not solve the problem but only conceal the symptom. Yet we have turned them into our first resort, and now entire rehabilitation centers spring up to serve those addicted to suppressors.
Our modern medical language lacks words or codes to describe imbalance. When the head hurts, it is simply a headache. When the stomach hurts, it is simply a stomachache. We can describe intensity or location, but the difference ends there. Even when patients are asked to describe their pain, which is rare, it is usually only in order to match the right painkiller. For our evolutionary mechanisms to work, we must be able to notice these signs, but at the same time we must resist the reflex to silence them. Alternatively, we must develop a language, our own code, to describe them.
Our machine will begin to break down if we do not listen to it.
So how do we begin? Here are a few first steps:
Awareness – Take a month or two simply to notice any sensation that is not your usual state: pain, heaviness, dizziness, sadness, uncontrollable joy, and so on. These are signs, markers pointing to something happening within us.
Clearing your environment of suppressors – Do not keep painkillers within easy reach. Someone used to taking them will find it very hard not to when pain strikes. Sometimes, if it takes effort to obtain them, we manage without.
Recording – Keep a diary of your prominent symptom. I suffered from headaches most of my life. At a certain point I began to note every headache, its intensity, and any unusual events in the days before that might explain it. After some time, looking back through the diary, you can learn new things about yourself. Once I met a young man who told me that several days each month he could not get out of bed, sunk in depression. I suggested he keep a diary. When we met months later and reviewed it, we discovered that at the beginning of each month, when the moon was new, he would sink into depression. We were already halfway to a solution.
Conversation – The difficulty with signs is that most are invisible and we rarely talk about them. In our society it is less and less legitimate to express pain. One way to make pain more manageable and legitimate is to talk about it. It is important that we speak about our pain and encourage those around us to speak about theirs.
