Long-term back pain is possibly the most misunderstood problem that you could have, and that's why your doctor or physio hasn't been able to help you. Except for one lone Australian researcher, whose work you're about to be introduced to, most doctors are chasing "red herrings".

Before I share one of the many techniques developed from this research, it's important that you thoroughly understand the 7 pain traps, because without understanding them and taking action, you'll reduce your chance of success.

We know that every one of these 7 traps can act as a trigger to your nervous system to give you more pain. So please pay close attention, for your own sake.

TRAP 1

Being a bit of a hermit. When you're really feeling the pain you probably don't want to go near anyone, but in fact that's when you need to be social, if only for a short time. Isolation is damaging to the nervous system, and we want to heal that nervous system, not add to the damage!

TRAP 2

Limiting your physical activity. When an injury is fresh, rest can be very important, and that can mean total rest, or just limiting your activities or limiting your range of movement. That's sensible. However when pain is long term, the reverse is true. You must do as much activity as you can without flaring your pain too much. And you should be consistently increasing the intensity and duration of that activity, again without flaring your pain too much. You absolutely do not have to "push through your pain" as some pain specialists say. That's plain dumb because it can sensitise you even more.

There's a balance to be found here, and that's what you should be looking for.

TRAP 3

Leaning too much on loved ones or friends. To recover from long-term pain you need to be working at ways to increase your independence, physically and emotionally. So the way out of this trap is to refuse to let others do for you what you are capable of doing for yourself. There is also no point saying the same things to people over and over again. They already know you have pain; they already know how you feel about that. If they forget, sure, remind them. But in the meantime change the subject! You must focus your mind elsewhere in order to give your nervous system a chance to recover.

TRAP 4

Not having interests or hobbies. I hinted in trap 3 that it's important to get your focus off yourself, and hobbies and interests are a great way to do that. I should explain that this has nothing to do with being selfish, or having self pity. No, no-one could blame you even if you did feel that way! This is about that nervous system again, and the crucial need to get your attention outside of your body! Some patients tell us that they just don't have any interests, but our answer is "Get one!". Do you want to get better? Choose an interest or hobby. You're not going to be stuck with it for life - you can ditch it later. But right now you need it.

Likewise you need to be very aware of what's going on in the world around you, and to take an interest in that. Read papers and magazines, listen to talk-back radio, ask people their opinions. Involve yourself.

TRAP 5

Suffering from depression, anger, embarrassment or anxiety. All these feelings are completely understandable, especially if no-one's been able to help you and you wonder if this is going to go on forever! But the problem with these feelings is not just how rotten they make you feel, it's the stress they put on your nervous system. Don't worry, you don't need to use willpower because that doesn't work anyway. But there are very simple ways that you can just turn those feelings off so they don't trouble you or impact on you in any way.

TRAP 6

Poor sleep. There's not enough space here to go into what good sleep actually is, so please do yourself a giant favour and get a book on "sleep hygiene" from your library so you understand all the things that interfere with healthy sleep. Good sleep aids healing, calms the nervous sytem, increases the metabolic rate, and makes you feel great!

TRAP 7

Nutrition that doesn't support health. Good nutrition supports good mental and physical health, just as good sleep does. How do you know if your nutrition is right? Look at your weight for one thing. If you're overweight or underweight then your nutrition is probably wrong. Are you tired a lot? Do you feel confused sometimes? These are also signs that your nutrition needs to be examined.

When you think about these things, they're quite obvious aren't they? But how many of them has your doctor spoken to you about in detail? I urge you to pay very close attention to the detail of these issues and move right away from those 7 traps as fast as you can!

HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO TEST A NEW PAIN RELIEVER

What I'm about to share with you might look pretty odd at first, and that's because it's designed to thoroughly mess up the pain signals. This seemingly crazy technique, detailed in the book "The Pain Train - Time to Get Off" is part of a program that's helped over 85% of people eliminate or dramatically reduce their pain.

Anything that "mixes up" pain signals has got to be at least a bit confusing, and I think you'll agree that this crazy-looking technique achieves that very successfully. But don't be fooled, this technique is getting rapid recognition from doctors all over the world. Here's a short taste.

Pick just one tiny point on your body where there is pain. Decide how strong that pain is out of 10. Focus your mind on that as strongly as you can. Just that point and no other point. If you like you can talk about it out loud or inside your head just to keep your mind on it. As you're doing that, start tapping, tickling, pinching, all over your body, at the same time imagining you have different kinds of food in your mouth, maybe chocolate, maybe bread and butter, maybe a piece of steak.

Keep that up for a few minutes, then with your focus still on that exact spot, take a really deep breath through your nose, and powerfully blow through your mouth until your lungs feel really empty.

Be certain when you're checking that it's just that one little area that you're "measuring" to see what's happened. If you're like most people, you'll find there's been some kind of change. The pain won't necessarily be gone at this stage, but it will have changed in some way. The program is designed to reduce the pain until it doesn't return.