Fear and Pain-my own experiences

The one time I really feel like I understood this concept was my last labor. I was getting into good active labor and I really started tensing up. I think I was a bit more worried this time about what to do with my kids and just making sure they were going to be OK in general. My fear in this case, was that our baby sitter wouldn't be able to make it or that my kids would wake up in the middle of the night and be worried. I remember thinking how this labor seemed more difficult and I couldn't figure out why. I felt a lot more tense and the contractions hurt more than I expected at that point.

At this point, I remember thinking I needed to breath. My focus then shifted away from my worries and concerns, to just relaxing and letting my body work. I was amazed at the difference it made. I was much more able to cope and the sensation of pain was diminishing.

It makes sense to me that pain would diminish as our fears and tensions diminish. When we are afraid, we tense up. Just thinking through this, I bet that when we tense up, our body's contractions have to work harder to push through that tension. In a way, it creates more work and more pain for our body to work against the tension brought on by fear.