Solutions for Pain with BREATHING, VISUALIZATION, AND POSTURE THAT BRING AN AWARENESS OF SELF (click for full article)
Our bodies have natural internal mechanisms to help us regulate pain. How much control we have over our bodies when it comes to pain depends on numerous factors. Some of these factors include gender, hormones, genetics, stress and the brain’s neurochemistry as well as the severity of injury. However, we have the innate ability to influence pain levels through techniques and self-education to stimulate the body’s release of our own natural and effective pain killers.
Pain is a difficult phenomena to deal with, especially if it is something that is ongoing in our lives. Pain is both physically and emotionally stressful, and this physical and mental tension can, in turn, make the pain worse as anxiety amplifies the perception of pain. Western medicine offers solutions such as medication, biofeedback, and therapies like Craniosacral therapy and primal reflex release technique in order to alter the physiological mechanism of pain and our interpretation of it.
Pain can consume us as we start to identify with its presence as who we are as well as becoming wrapped up in the stress and worry about the length of its stay and the limitations it presents. However, in the battlegrounds for pain, one of the fundamental techniques or solutions beyond modern day medicine is to reach inside of ourselves in order to disassociate from the pain and recognize it for what it is; a separate communication signal from our bodies to alert us from harm. Sometimes in the face of adversity, there is nowhere to go but in.
Alternative and supplemental self-management solutions also exist that help to relax the body including breathing, meditation/visualization and postural relaxation that are at the basis of yoga techniques. These methods require practice and effort, however they can have a more long-term benefit by serving as tools that are available to you whenever life’s challenges arise. They help to induce the body’s natural pain defense system and offer a planned, purposeful relaxation that can help break the pain-stress cycle by lowering heart rate and blood pressure, relaxing tense muscles, reducing anxiety, and giving you a sense of control and well-being.
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Included topics:
What is pain and what are its effects on the body?
Endorphins: the body’s natural defense mechanism against pain
Repetitive stress injury and Pain.
What happens? Pathophysiological Tissue Changes Associated with Repetitive movement.
What to do about it? The immediate combat.
Retraining the mind to evade pain patterns and sensations. Breathing, Visualization and Postural relaxation and strengthening
Optimal breathing mechanics affect cell function
Visualization reinforces optimal behavior and outcomes
Postural awareness, strength and body mechanics ensure an efficient functional state
