Movement Learning to eliminate
pain
by Jackie Mason
Pain experienced from your
back, hip, knee or shoulder are common afflictions today. Often
as
we age doctors tell us it is arthritis or bone degeneration and
that eventually we might need
surgery. In the meantime your doctor prescribes various anti-inflammatories
or painkillers. When
the pain persists you might see a Physical Therapist or a Chiropractor
or a Massage Therapist.
Chances are all of these relieve your pain but none of them eliminate
it. Sometimes surgery will
eliminate pain but you may find that you are restricted or unable
to do the activities you used to
enjoy.
You do have another choice.
You can become aware of your patterns of movement that have
been leading you down the path of pain and discomfort for some
time. You can also learn how to
change your movement patterns to eliminate pain. By becoming
aware of what you do that leads
to pain you begin the process of learning how to change your
patterns of movement so that you
will no longer experience pain.
How did the pain get so bad
The human skeleton is an interconnected set of bones that are
designed to work with one another
to achieve flexible movement in gravity. The skeleton is our
infrastructure while muscles, tendons
and ligaments exist solely to assist the skeleton to achieve
movement.
If one part of the skeleton
stops moving, (much like an auto engine) other parts must take
over
the additional burden of the unmoving part. Like auto engines
some parts that stop moving cause
more serious consequences than others. For instance the pelvis
is the most important moving
part of our skeleton because it is our balance mechanism along
with being the heaviest bone
mass in our body. If the pelvis stops moving we lose our ‘skeletal’ ability
to balance and the ‘
musculature’ begins to take over that role. The problem
with relying on muscles to keep us in
balance is that they are not designed to do so. It turns out
muscles are not terribly smart because
they act much like computer machine code, either on or off. If
a muscle is ‘on’ then it is
contracted. Contracted muscles are rigid and therefore prevent
parts of the skeleton from moving
leading to stiffness and pain. As less of the skeleton is able
to move your system tries to
compensate by contracting more and more of your musculature to
keep you upright in gravity.
When muscles become chronically contracted they also become shorter
and because less
oxygen is available they ironically become weaker. This leads
to more stiffness and pain as the
muscles begin to draw the interconnected parts of the skeleton
closer together until bone may
meet bone and you experience clicking, grinding and in many cases
bone degeneration. As this
process progresses you lose height because the shortened, contracted
muscles pull the bones
closer and closer to one another.
Muscles versus nervous system
Muscles receive the message to contract or release from your
nervous system, but muscles
cannot tell the nervous system to turn on or off. However, muscles
can alert the nervous system
of problems in the form of pain from fatigue due to lack of oxygen
and chronic contraction. This is
what most of us experience when we have chronic pain; muscle
fatigue from contraction. We can
get muscles to release with massage and other techniques; unfortunately
it does not mean the
muscles have ‘learned’ not to contract inappropriately.
To re-train muscles the message must
come from the nervous system to release based on the movements
we are trying to execute.
The whole process becomes more complicated because the nervous
system sends messages to
many muscles at once via neural pathways. If you are trying to
change how you do a movement
such as reaching, the nervous system is sending a message throughout
your system along a
neural pathway. Your neural pathways are constantly being tweaked
depending on pain,
discomfort, injury and muscle contractions. Even as you move
less and less your nervous system
is actively changing to accommodate what you can do for that
moment in time!
The most direct way to help your system learn how to move without
chronic pain and stiffness
you must address the muscles from the message center; the nervous
system.
Can I reverse the pain process
The nervous system is a dynamic, ever changing part of us that
continues to create new neural
pathways throughout our lives. The revolutionary method devised
by physicist Dr. Moshe
Feldenkrais addresses how you can learn to move in ways that
lead to a pain free life. You can
unlearn the habits and patterns of movement of many years that
led to your chronic pain. By
working with a practitioner that specializes in the Feldenkrais
Method® you become aware of the
patterns of chronic contraction that are causing your pain. Over
a short time you will find lasting
relief from pain and begin to regain your lost height. Age is
of little consequence in eliminating
pain.
The approach is non-invasive.
You lie on a massage table and the practitioner gently moves
you
around re-training your nervous system when to send messages
to contract muscles and when to
send messages to release muscles. You become more aware of your
patterns of chronic
contraction as the process progresses. You may experience reduction
in pain in just one session,
but most often it takes several sessions before you are pain
free.
Better than new
Many people that have used this method to eliminate pain and
learn better ways of moving find
that they feel stronger and more flexible than they have been
in years. As height is regained and
balance re-established, many of the activities that were impossible
become possible again.
Once out of pain you can attend
tune-up classes that guide you through movements to locate
areas that may still be contracted. You learn to empower yourself
to stay out of pain by increasing
your awareness of what you do and how to change what you do to
feel better!
Jackie Mason is
a practitioner of the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais.
She can be reached at (530) 478-9547 for more information or
you can email moveforlife@pacbell.net
