Natural Anti Aging

February 12, 2010 Pain Relief

Pain, Pain, Go Away…The 7 Mistakes That Are Making Your Pain Persist

So often, pain plagues us for years, rearing its ugly head at the most inopportune times, like right before a sporting event, while we’re on vacation, or when the weather finally turns to sun and it’s time to get outside and play.

Even worse, it can be a persistent thorn in your side for years; you might find that you wake each morning covered in aches, stiff, and unwilling to move.

Those who suffer with chronic or acute pain don’t do so willingly. In fact, according to the American Chiropractic Association, Americans spend at least $50 billion each year on back pain, and experts estimate that as much as 80% of the population will experience back pain at some point in their lives.

Most doctors, if they are unable to find a direct medical cause of the pain such as a herniated disk or spinal stenosis, chalk pain up to “just a part of getting older,” leaving patients with little hope of long term healing. The truth is that aging does not have to be accompanied by the myriad aches and pains our Western civilization has come to expect.

In his lecture series, The New Physics of Healing, Deepak Chopra refers to studies done on indigenous tribes where the perception of a person as he or she ages actually increases in value. So, for example, a 30 year-old is much more highly regarded in athletic ability and mental wit than a 20 year-old, and so on and so forth. In this culture, the population did not decline as they aged, but actually improved in cardiovascular health and athletic ability (as measured by their ability to run long distances – their main form of delivering messages between tribes). Similar studies also invalidate the notion that aging necessitates physical and mental decline.

So, if pain isn’t a necessary part of aging, why are so many people plagued by chronic discomfort? Following are the seven reasons I see clients get stuck running in circles, unable to achieve the results they’re dreaming of.

Mistake #1: Continuing to do what doesn’t work

It’s common for someone to try a healing modality because a friend or family member had success with that path. Usually, clients will go to the same therapist that treated the referrer. This is generally a good strategy, but if you’re not getting the results you want, don’t keep flogging a dead horse. It may be that the therapist isn’t a good match for you or that you need someone with slightly different skills. Your body may respond better to a different modality. Don’t be afraid to end treatment if it’s not getting you to where you need to be.

Mistake #2: Assuming there is only one solution

In contrast, some people bounce from practitioner to practitioner, seeking the “miracle cure” that will banish their pain. They try one session of massage, two with an acupuncturist, and then hit up a Rolfer for three sessions, never sticking with anything long enough to evaluate whether or not they’re getting results.

When you set out to heal your body, you have to understand that there is no magic bullet. Accepting that fact will allow you to be proactive and engaged in your healing process. Ask lots of questions and educate yourself about the different therapies. If you’re getting results, however small the measure, keep working with the therapist or modality that is moving you forward. Slowly add additional modalities, one at a time, until you find two or three that have a symbiotic relationship for your body. And, most importantly, keep an open mind. Assuming that you know it all, have tried everything, and that you know what does or doesn’t work will tend to keep you stuck in a rut. You never know what new tidbit of knowledge will be the secret key to unlocking your vitality.

Mistake #3: Not working with the right mentors

Commonly, clients show up asking to be “fixed.” They say, “I just want you to fix me so I can get back to my old life.” I hate to break it to you, but a) you can’t time travel backwards – the body you have now is the body you have to work with from this point forward, and b) no one can “fix” you; it’s an inside job.

Healing pain runs deeper than just “fixing” a sore spot on your body. Pain is intricately linked with our mental and emotional states as well as our physical well being. At the very least, if you are stepping out on your healing journey, it’s essential to have the support of a body mentor, spiritual mentor, and counselor or therapist. You may find that you have several in one category, such as an acupuncturist and structural integrator for your body, or one individual may be ideal. Dealing with all aspects of pain will help you to change the patterns that got you into your current state, developing healthier habits that will support whole body wellness.

Mistake #4: Treating only the symptoms

This could be the most common stumbling block that I see my clients facing. Western medicine, in its endeavor to divide and categorize the body, has given us the false notion that we are some sort of soft machine, a marvel of engineering with interchangeable parts, where organs and tissues can be extracted and replaced with no effect whatsoever on the organism as a whole.

Please don’t get me wrong; western medicine has produced marvels in healing and definitely has its place in the world. Believe me, if I am in a serious car accident and need to be taken to the ER, I want the best MD in the world there to sew me back up!

But, when it comes to back pain, the tendency to want to pinpoint one tiny fulcrum of pain tends to leave the patient struggling and without solution. Here’s why: Your body is intricately linked together; each tiny, microscopic cell is connected to the one next to it, and the one next to that, and so on. Every joint in your body affects the functioning of the joints that immediately surround it. If you injure a joint, there is a ripple effect through the body, much like the rings in a pond when you toss in a stone. It is impossible to focus solely on a knee, a hip, or a facet joint of the spine without also looking at the joints above and below it.

Most treatments only focus on the condition or diagnosis, i.e. sciatica, herniated disc, etc. In reality, your body underwent many stages of misalignment before developing severe conditions and debilitating pain, all starting with an imbalanced physical structure. Treating only the condition equates to treating only the result of the imbalance instead of going directly to the root cause of the pain. And, if there is no medical condition, doctors will often tell you that the pain and discomfort you are experiencing is “just part of getting older.” In fact, it’s usually indicative of an underlying imbalance that will worsen if you don’t intercept it.

I highly recommend working with therapists who take a whole body balance approach to healing pain, such as a structural integrator. Your results will be deeper and tend to last much longer than treatment that only focuses on the symptom.

Mistake #5: Not dealing with pain the first time

We’re all busy, and no one wants to put a halt to their life just because of a little back stiffness, right? Even worse, we don’t want to sound “whiny” or get labeled as a hypochondriac. So, it’s no surprise that most people don’t treat back pain the first time it happens.

Barring any major bodily injury such as a bad fall from a horse or a horrendous car accident, back pain doesn’t come on suddenly or overnight. It’s a progression, a slow deterioration perpetuated by daily habits. If you are experiencing even mild discomfort in your back, neck, and shoulders, it’s a sign that all is not well and if you don’t get treatment immediately, you’re setting yourself up for a much more difficult healing task down the road.

This is exceptionally challenging for athletes to come to grips with as excelling in sports necessitates a tough mentality. If you quit at the first sign of pain and discomfort, it’s unlikely that you’ll make it very far as an athlete; therefore, I recommend that athletes find a solid core of body care professionals, set up a scheduled treatment program, and stick to it (no canceling appointments just because you feel healthy and well this week)! This will help to catch any minor imbalances in their early stages, reducing the risk of greater injury and pain later on.

Mistake #6: Not understanding that healing back pain is a process

In a world of quick fixes and magic cures, we all want to take the fastest road to health that we can. But, like losing weight, healing pain is a process and can take some time. The only way to get from A to B is to put one foot in front of the other, keep walking, and don’t let minor setbacks discourage you. Healing your body is a journey of self discovery, and it can be uncomfortable to say the least. It forces you to take a look at your life, at the areas that are serving you and those which are not. Just like losing weight means letting go of habits that are destroying your health, facing your back pain head on will mean that you must change the way you are living to some degree.

Pain is almost always correlated to an emotional state. There is absolutely a connection between stress and pain, in part because stress causes the body to emit certain neurochemicals that create inflammation and tension, and also because stress causes us to focus less on taking care of our well being (the economic downfall of 2008 saw increased work hours and a corresponding spike in computer related shoulder pain). Dealing with stress goes much deeper than swallowing a pill; it requires us to allocate time for self care and to incorporate practices that support a calm, relaxed state of being, like meditation, qi gong, tai chi, and yoga. All of these take time to have an effect on your body and life. Choosing a program of bodywork, exercise, and stress management and sticking with it is crucial to long term success in healing your pain.

Mistake #7: Not taking action

Making this mistake will most certainly keep you trapped and in pain for years to come. No one can take action on your behalf – no one! If you want to heal your body, you must become an active participant in your healing process, and that means making appointments with experienced bodyworkers, incorporating daily activity into your life, being proactive about stress management, and educating yourself about every single aspect of healing from pain.

Although it’s easier to sit on the couch and wonder why this happened to you, or even to just push through the pain, continuing to do all the same sports and other activities (weekend warriors, I’m looking at you on this one) until you just can’t bear it any longer, refusing to actively seek relief or taking refuge in pain relieving drugs that mask symptoms is the same as choosing to shorten the number of years that you will be physically able to remain active. The choice is entirely yours.

October 3, 2009 Healthy Aging

7 Tips to Increase Hip Flexibility

Tight Hips – A Modern Day Epidemic

One of the biggest complaints my clients present during their sessions is tight hips. With the high number of professional computer jockeys in today’s modern world, the common complaints are limited range of motion in the hips and shoulders, pain in the neck, back, and feet.

Sitting all day, especially at an ergonomically challenging computer set up, creates a shortening in your hip flexors (the muscles along the front of your hip and thigh that pull you down into a chair). These muscles in turn pull your lumbar spine forward, causing tension and stiffness in the low back, bracing in your hips and what are known as dysfunctional movement patterns.

Additionally, 99.9% of everyone I see in my office sits incorrectly. I attribute this to a lifetime spent on soft, cushy couches and overstuffed easy chairs. Unfortunately, while plush seating may feel nice for a while, it has the effect of rolling your sacrum under so that your weight isn’t centered over your ischial tuberosities (sitting bones) but rather on the last vertebra of your spine (i.e. your sacrum).

Once your sacrum is jammed, your entire spine compensates. This is why a headache or sore neck is actually located in your pelvis, and why work around the hips and low back will generally result in greater shoulder mobility.

7 Easy Tips to Increase Hip Flexibility:

1. When sitting for prolonged periods, make sure your hips are higher than your knees.

If your knees are higher than your hips, all of your weight falls into your pelvis while the job of holding you upright falls to your hip flexors and the postural stabilizers of your low back.

Instead of bracing your torso to stay upright, place your feet flat on the floor, one foot a few inches in front of the other. By pressing into the ground, you should feel support travel up through your legs and into your low back. Taking the strain off your back is the first step in allowing greater mobility.

2. Do squats – full on, all the way to your heels squats!

Squats force you to mobilize your ankles, knees, hips, and the facet joints in your spine. Most people who haven’t ever trained for this kind of movement find even a basic squat with no weight to be challenging.

When performing the maneuver, make sure your torso doesn’t pitch forward. Holding a small weight, a weighted bar, or a wooden dowel in front of your chest, as in a traditional front squat position, can help you stay upright.

If you are not flexible enough to keep your feet relatively parallel, start with your legs wider apart, feet turned out at 45 degrees. The more you practice squatting, the more willing your body will be to go all the way to the ground.

3. Practice sitting down on the ground and getting up without using your hands.

This is especially helpful for lubricating the hip joints, and it erases the fear that people develop as they age that they will fall and not be able to get back up. It has the added bonus of loosening the lateral rotators of the hip – the muscles that are implicated in sciatica.

Start by finding a way to bring yourself to a seated position on the floor, hands free. Then, get up, also without using your hands. Repeat the exercise several times, finding as many different ways to sit down and stand up as you can.

When the exercise becomes too easy, add a weight. Hold 10-25lbs (or more, if you’re comfortable) at chest height while sitting and standing. This not only mobilizes but also strengthens the joints.

4. When choosing a chair for your computer desk set up, select a firm, flat surface over any padded and contoured seats.

Most chairs are designed for an “average” or “standard” body, and anyone who has ever shopped for the perfect pair of jeans knows that one size does not fit all!

Flat surfaces make it easier for you to sit forward on your sitting bones – your ischial tuberosities. You should feel equal weight on both your right and left tuberosities. If not, try to center yourself as best you can without contorting your body. Just relax down onto the chair.

Sitting on your ischial tuberosities is much more stable than sitting on your sacrum. Your postural stabilizing muscles can easily relax and reduce the bracing along your spine, creating instant mobility for your back (this is absolutely key in resolving back and neck pain!).

5. Take extra deep breaths.

With all the stimulus coming at us from all directions – television, internet, books, MP3 players, digital advertising, children, pets…. – it’s easy to forget to breathe.

When you cease breathing deeply, your diaphragm becomes tight. Anatomically, the fascia of your diaphragm connects directly to your hip flexors, so if your diaphragm is constricted, your hip flexors will be, too.

Take time each and every day to lie quietly on your back. Breathe deeply, relaxing your rib cage, spine, and abdominal muscles. Allow your internal organs to rest heavily into your back. As you become more relaxed, direct your breathing down deeper and deeper into your pelvis, relaxing all of the tension in your low back, sacrum, gluteus muscles, and thighs. As you become more skilled at conscious breathing, you can begin to direct your breath all the way out the bottoms of your feet.

6. Practice dynamic joint mobility – taking each hip joint through a series of repetitive movements designed to increase the range of motion.

This kind of movement increases the flow of synovial fluid, which lubricates the joints. It also provides excellent neurological feedback. Range of motion is a use it or lose it proposition; the more your remind your body that you need to be able to make large, open movements, the more willing your nervous system will be to allow you to do just that.

7. Stretch your hip flexors, especially after long car or airplane trips.

As mentioned previously, sitting shortens the anterior muscles of your hip and thigh. To keep them long and limber, stretch daily, or at least several times a week.

Any maneuver that causes a lengthening along the front of your hip and thigh will lengthen the hip flexors. Some of my favorites include lunges (keep your torso upright – do not allow yourself to fall forward over your front knee) and bridges (a full back bend with hands and feet on the floor – modify this to a shoulder bridge if you aren’t quite ready for this pose).

Get Specific

Want me to personally lead you through exercises to improve your hip mobility, get your shoulders back where they belong, free up your neck and generally feel like you’re ten years younger?

Every video in my Posture Rehab video course is led by me with complete, step-by-step instruction. You won’t find these practices anywhere else (i.e. this isn’t your typical physical therapy experience…not by a long shot). Each one is designed to reset your nervous system, increase flexibility and mobilize your joints.

September 17, 2009 Emotions Stored In Body

Can You Really Take On Other People’s Pain?

Is it really possible to take on other people’s pain?

You may have noticed that you can take on the emotions of others, such as grief or sadness for example. But what about their physical symptoms?

To get a look inside the science of how we take on other people’s pain, first we have to talk about the true source of pain and tension.

You might guess that stiff, tight muscles are to blame for pain in your body. But where does muscle tension come from in the first place?

Did your muscles just get tight randomly? Is it aging that causes muscles to dry up and stiffen like beef jerky?

Actually, no. Muscle tension is caused by chronic and habitual dysfunctional movement patterns.

In short: bad habits.

And those bad habits are often things we learned from other people through magical little cells in your brain called “mirror neurons.”

How You Learned To Move (It’s Not What You Think)

In order to understand why we have bad movement habits as adults, we have to travel back in time to take a look at how you learn to move your body as a baby and toddler.

Humans are innately programmed to move. We have the capacity to breathe, digest foods, sleep, and wiggle around from the time we’re born, but neurological functioning becomes much, much more refined as children grow to adulthood.

While there are certain stages in the normal development of human locomotion — rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing, walking — people aren’t computers. We don’t just run a software program that gets every single body up and running (literally) in precisely the same way.

Something greater is affecting our movement patterns.

If you’ve ever watched a child walking with his or her mother at the playground or mall and really looked at the two together, you’ll see how similarly they move.

Some aspects of movement are genetic (your musculoskeletal structure plays a role, for example).

But have you ever watched adopted children with their parents? They also tend to mirror the movement patterns of their caregivers. There must be some other effect at work here.

How It’s Possible To Take On Other People’s Pain

Fifteen years ago in Parma, Italy, scientists connected electrodes to the brain of a monkey. They hooked the electrodes to a computer to record neurological impulses that correlated with the monkey’s physical movement. The researchers wanted to identify specific brain regions related to movement.

Every time the monkey shifted around, a computer recorded data about the corresponding active brain regions.

One day, a researcher noticed something strange. He came back from lunch eating an ice cream cone. As he stood observing the monkey, he took a bite. Weirdly, the computer logged activity in the monkey’s brain — but the monkey hadn’t moved.

Thus began some revolutionary discoveries around what are now called mirror neurons.

Following the ice cream cone event, researchers found that the brain’s movement-related neurons fired when the monkey was eating peanuts, when he saw others eating peanuts, and when he heard the sound of another monkey eating peanuts.

Meaning: movement centers in the brain light up not **just** when you’re moving, but when you’re observing others move as well.

The real revelation, though, was that humans have a class of mirror neurons that are far more sophisticated than those of other primates.

Mirror Neurons: The Basis for Empathy?

So then the question becomes: why do we have so many mirror neurons? What purpose do they serve in human development.

According to neuroscientist Dr. Giacomo Rizzolatti:

“Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling, not by thinking. We are exquisitely social creatures. Our survival depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others.”

Humans have extremely sophisticated and highly refined mirror neurons. Some of these cells are responsible for recognizing shapes and lines. Others plan movements, and still others detect frequencies, sounds, and directions of movement.

Mirror neurons allow us to fill in the gaps in the world around us, and they help us predict situations.

Participants in a study accurately intuited when they saw someone else reach for a cup of tea on a table whether the person was going to drink the tea or clear the cup away.

And because mirror neurons help us to have empathy for others, their downside is that they cause is to take on other people’s pain — not just emotional, but also physical pain.

Do Mirror Neurons Influence How You Take On Other People’s Pain?

Research done by the co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington Dr. Andrew Meltzoff shows that human kids are hard-wired for imitation. Babies repeatedly stick their tongues out to mirror human adults doing the same thing, even mere minutes after birth.

The fact that our mirror neurons fire when we observe an action taking place explains why we resonate so fully with certain sports and dance. It’s also why watching violence, unhappiness, and destruction on television is highly detrimental to our cortical health.

Also, since our thoughts and emotions are so intricately interwoven in our tissue structures, it means that we will tend to have similar movement, thought, and emotional patterns to those around us.

In short:

You will “mirror” the movement habits of the people who surround you — especially those with whom you have a close relationship.

This is important when it comes to pain for a number of reasons.

First, if you are imitating the movement patterns of a person who has suffered an injury and as a result experiences movement limitations, you will take on those same limitations — even in the absence of an injury.

Second, movement and thinking are deeply intertwined. In fact, the part of your brain responsible for movement and coordination, the cerebellum, is intrinsically linked to the part of your brain responsible for executive function, or thinking and reasoning skills.

What that means:

When you have a thought, movement centers light up to support that thought. When you move, thought centers light up to support that movement.

This matters when it comes to pain because pain is actually not experienced in the body, but in the brain.

The Neuroscience Of Pain

People tend to think of pain as happening at the site of an injury or tight muscle.

But actually, pain is a sensation generated by your brain.

Your nervous system sends sensory data to your brain, and your brain then interprets that data as pain. But sometimes your brain mixes up the signals. Stress, for example, sensitizes your nervous system to pain.

Meaning:

You’ll feel more pain with less input. It doesn’t take much for your brain to sound that pain alarm — a simple bump or bruise could be enough. Or, sometimes you’re in pain for no reason at all.

Some postures inherently increase stress. So, if you’re mimicking the posture and movement patterns of a person in pain, lo and behold, you could potentially develop the same neural pathways for pain in your own body.

Your movement is a type of broadcast tower communicating through body language. It signals all kinds of things about confidence, sense of personal power, and emotional state to the people around you.

But it also communicates to your own brain. That’s why smiling when you’re having a down day will lift your mood.

So, if you hang around people with stiff, achy, limited movement patterns…you’re going to find that you start to take on other people’s pain.

(Of course, the opposite is also true. If you spend time around people who move better than you, you’ll probably notice quantum shifts in your own body. #truefacts)

You Are the Average of The 5 People You Spend The Most Time Around

The long and the short of it is something psychologists have known for decades: the people you spend the most time around will affect your physical and mental well-being. People who move with pain in their bodies – aching backs, stiff shoulders and necks, arthritic knees, etc. – will activate similar movement patterns in your own body even if you are not suffering from the same pain…yet.

Athletes and coaches know the power of mirror neurons. Olympic athletes tout the power of visualization. Observing or imagining someone performing an activity directly influences muscle performance.

Fans of a sport experience mirror neuron activation while watching a game or match, but someone who has played the sport has a firestorm of activity in the brain area that initiates the movements. The athlete also predicts what will happen next more accurately than the person who has never played.

Additionally, if you are experiencing anxiety, depression, fatigue, or other emotional disturbances, you might want to examine your social group.

“The ability to share the emotions of others appears to be intimately linked to the functioning of mirror neurons,” said Dr. Christian Keysers, group leader of the Social Brain Lab at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience. “People who rank high on a scale measuring empathy have particularly active mirror neurons systems,” Dr. Keysers stated.

The Bottom Line

The bad news here is that you may have subconsciously learned some movement patterns that are less than ideal. But on the up side, it’s actually relatively easy to change out those dysfunctional patterns for new, more agile ones — when you know how.

The crux is that most people go to the gym, work out, and stretch for years or even decades without ever developing new neural patterns.