Av, bliv ved : The body and brain’s strange relationship to pain
“Av, bliv ved” (“Ow, keep going” or “stay there”) is something I hear at lot working in Denmark as a massage therapist, and its always struck me as a great expression, one which perfectly captures the contradictions and paradoxes of the weird animals we are.
The relief we feel from pain is a deeper and much more complicated realm than I can go into here, both anatomically and emotionally. Here, I’m just going to touch briefly on my own experience as a massage therapist and what is happening when pain meets relief..
The Massage Paradox
It is a satisfying moment, when you hit the spot that has long held tension and needs a trusted touch to find, guide it through and release it, allowing someone to allow themselves to meet their pain instead of moving away from it. But why does the moment feel so contradictory? Why does something that hurts sometimes feel like exactly what we need?
Because pain is a signal, and in that way is the body’s way of getting attention. Not punishment, or something ‘wrong’ necessarily, just communication. When muscles tense, joints strain, or nerves protest, your body is saying: “Something needs care.”
The problem is that the brain doesn’t always interpret those signals accurately. It adds meaning, memory, and emotion to the raw data. If you’ve ever flinched before someone even reaches a sore spot, that’s your brain predicting pain, and it often amplifies it before it even arrives.
During massage, especially deeper work, the brain and body negotiate. Pressure applied to sore tissue triggers sensory nerves that can shout “danger!” But, if your brain recognises that the context is safe (which is part of my job), the message changes. Slowly pain that once equally harm, becomes pain that actually equates to release. Thats the moment your body begins to trust that the discomfort is healing rather than hurting. Its also where breathing comes in as one of our most valuable tools.
What’s Really Happening Under the Surface
When you breathe through a tender spot, several things occur:
Muscle tension decreases, as the nervous system shifts from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest.
Blood flow improves, flushing out metabolites and bringing in fresh oxygen.
Endorphins and oxytocin rise, natural painkillers that soften perception and build trust.
Neural patterns begin to reset, and the brain learns that not every signal of pressure equals threat.
Of course, there’s a line. The goal isn’t to endure pain, its more to explore its edges with curiosity. True therapeutic touch meets the body where it is, and helps you feel safe enough to listen to your own body. Kind of like a dialogue, where your not simply submitting to pain but tuning into signals and reading how your body is communicating with you.
The realm of pain management and understanding is really fascinating and is something I’m learning more about and looking forward to talking more about. I have just finished reading about passive joint mobilisation and how it can affect nociceptors and mechanoceptors to allow people to move their bodies in ways they can’t do themselves (due to muscle guarding and pre-empitve physiological responses). Some of these mobilisations can override these preemptive responses and allow much greater ranges of motion without pain than patients could fathom themselves. It is totally wild and I love it. I’ll add some links for reading at a later date :)
