Beginners Tips for Healing Chronic Pain and Disease Naturally

You can eat healthy, take supplements, and exercise — and still struggle with chronic pain, symptoms, or anxiety. The missing piece may not be your lifestyle but your nervous system. Healing can only occur when your body feels safe.

In this post, I'm going to break down the most important part of healing chronic pain and disease naturally, as well as explore the science of safety, the window of tolerance, and how practices like guided imagery, mindfulness, and relaxation support your body’s natural ability to heal.

Why the Body Needs Safety to Heal Chronic Pain and Disease

Your nervous system is constantly scanning for threats — this process, called neuroception, happens automatically and below conscious awareness. When your brain perceives danger, it triggers a fight, flight, or freeze response, diverting energy from digestion, repair, and immunity.

Chronic stress keeps your nervous system in this survival mode, which can lead to inflammation, fatigue, anxiety, and pain. Understanding this helps explain why many conventional treatments alone are not enough: your body cannot heal if it doesn’t feel safe.

(P.S. Wondering if you might be stuck in survival mode? Take my free Nervous System Quiz!)

The Window of Tolerance: Your Healing Zone

The window of tolerance describes the range of emotional and physiological states in which your nervous system can function optimally.

• Within the window: You feel calm, focused, and able to process life’s challenges.

• Hyperarousal (above the window): Anxiety, irritability, racing thoughts, tension.

• Hypoarousal (below the window): Numbness, fatigue, dissociation.

  
  

Stress, trauma, or chronic illness can shrink this window, making everyday events feel overwhelming. Expanding the window of tolerance is key to supporting nervous system regulation and promoting healing.

How Feeling Safe Supports Healing

When the nervous system registers safety, it shifts into parasympathetic mode (rest-and-digest). This allows your body to:

• Reduce inflammation

• Restore immune function

• Improve digestion

• Reduce pain perception

• Balance stress hormones

Research shows that practices which increase a sense of safety — including guided imagery, mindfulness, and hypnosis — can improve immune cell activity, lower inflammatory markers, and reduce perceived pain. Yes, these are science backed claims!

A review in Psychosomatic Medicine found that guided imagery enhanced immune function in patients undergoing medical treatment. Another study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience demonstrated that deep relaxation activates the parasympathetic system and reduces inflammatory cytokines.

RELATED: Check out these stories of real people healing arthritis pain, migraines, lupus symptoms and IBS.

5 Ways to Signal Safety to Your Nervous System

Creating safety is a practice. Here are actionable ways to retrain your nervous system and support healing:

1. Ground Through the Senses

Use the 5-4-3-2-1 technique: name 5 things you see, 4 you touch, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, 1 you taste. This anchors you in the present moment.

2. Breathe for Nervous System Regulation

Try 4-7-8 breathing: inhale for 4, hold for 7, exhale for 8. Longer exhalations activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping your body relax.

3. Visualize Safety

Your brain responds to vivid imagery as if it’s real. Imagine a peaceful place — floating on clouds, sitting by a calm lake — and notice your body soften.

RELATED: How to Make the Shift from Passive Patient to Empowered Self Healer and Take Control of your Healing Journey

Start Healing From the Inside Out

Healing begins not with forcing the body to change, but with creating conditions where the body knows it’s safe to repair itself. By expanding your window of tolerance and practicing nervous system regulation, you set the stage for chronic pain relief, reduced inflammation, improved immunity, and a sense of calm.

Next Steps

Want to deepen your nervous system regulation practice? Learn the exact step to heal your chronic pain and disease from the inside out in my brain training program, The Recovery Code. No more trying to piece it all together, just following a simple method, designed to help you succeed. Learn more about The Recovery Code here.

Are you new to it all? No problem! I've created a 3-Day Brain Training Challenge that not only explains how it all works, but walks you though practical steps that you can begin using asap to retrain your brain and regulate your nervous system. Oh, and did I mention that it's completely free??

Join the FREE 3-Day Brain Training Challenge here!