below are some examples of responding versus reacting to low back pain

Example 1: A person notices increasing low back pain as they are sitting in their chair, at their desk. As they go to get up, the pain increases.
- If that person responds properly they would get themself in a neutral position and arise straight up from the chair in the proper controlled manner despite any increase in pain they may feel.
  —An advanced response would be to sit back down in a neutral, controlled way, and perform the “sit to stand” movement repeatedly asessing the effect that this has on their pain.
  —Their response to repetitive movement would then be a guide to how they should best deal with that episode of low back pain.
- Someone reacting to their increased pain would typically sit back down fearing that the movement would harm them.
  —If they do arise, they would do so awkardly, probably in a way that would cause more pain than if they knew how to arise in a proper controlled manner.
  —It is also unlikely that they would perform the sit-to-stand movement repeatedly due to their fear of injury.
  —Because they did not perform controlled movements repeatedly, they would not have gained insight into how to best deal with that episode of low back pain.
  In the above example, there are 3 main areas of awareness that would guide someone to the right response:
  - Awareness that hurt does not necessarily imply harm. Knowing how to distinguish this difference is a big factor in determining how quickly and how well a person will recover from their pain.
  - Awareness of how to properly perform a controlled movement which, even if painful, would not cause further injury to their spine.
  - Awareness that the pain response to repetitive movements is far more important than the pain felt with a single movement in deciding whether a movement or position should be emphasized or deemphasized