I have recently been reading this greatly informative book on how to manage pain! The following blog is a compilation on some of the major tenets I would like to share from my research.
This book "Pain Free: a revolutionary method for stopping chroinc pain" by Pete Egoscue, applies mostly to those living in Chronic Pain, whose Chronic Pain comes from some sort of postural malfunction; whether they have a computer desk job, are a truck driver, or have sprained their ankle as a child and never fully restored proper function. Postural misalignments happen far too easily and far too often. Even those of us who think: "oh I am fine, I am already proper aligned" will probably have some twerks, twists, or compensation happening, however so slight. It is pretty much guaranteed that in our Western Culture today, we are bound to have postural compensations happening at one point or another. So even though this book is tailored to those in chronic pain already, it can do all of us good to learn about the basics of restoring human functionality.
When pain happens in the physical body directly related to the skeletal or muscular system, this book is a great resource to learn how to dissect and decode where "you went wrong". If you have a shoulder pain it could very well be stemming from when you injured your right ankle at 5 years old, and have had a slight imbalance in weight ever since. This slight imbalance in the feet will cause your hips to readjust and compensate, which will cause your spine to rotate slightly, which will eventually, after years of wear and tear, start to work on the left shoulder joint. A whole skew of problems will arise simply, because you have been so accustomed to favoring your right foot since you were 5. Now even at say, age 40 you can hardly tell that you favor your right foot, because it has become such an ingrained habit that this is all the nervous system takes for "normal". You have no way of knowing what a healthy weight distribution "should" feel like, because, geez, this is all you have known! "Of course this is normal. This is what I am used to!"
If you take your left shoulder problem to the doctor and complain of it hurting, well- the western doctors nowadays will probably put you on some pain medication- and if the pain still persists, will probably suggest some sort of surgery to you.
Say you get surgery, and 5 years later your shoulder will start to hurt again...
Well. It is simple why you still have pain:
You never took care of the root issue.
Which is:
restoring weight balance onto both feet, strengthening/aligning the hips, untwisting the spine, and working consistently on maintaining proper posture for your body-type. Unless you do the work, and address the core issues, which is actually what is tugging on that left shoulder, creating un-necessary wear and tear, then you will continue to have countless problems- never seeming to get anywhere with surgery and pain pills.
In Peter Egoscues' book "Pain Free" he lays out a very important message, I believe necessary for every human individual to learn and implement: learning to listen to the warning signs of the body, and understanding pain as an urgent message from the wisdom of the body.
Chapter one is titled: Chronic Pain: The Modern Danger of Ignoring an Ancient Message
That says it all.
We have these ancient, beautifully adaptable bodies that are now forced into an environment for which evolution never foresaw. Of course our bodies are SO brilliant: we are adapting rather well, and rather quickly to our given circumstances. But NOT without (most) people suffering.
At least 60-80% of us will experience back pain at some point in our lives.
There are countless of other statistics that lay out this base message: FAR too many people are in pain or chronic pain. Far too many innocent civilians get targeted for being the next subject of invasive surgery for something that could TOTALLY be prevented, treated, and worked with at home or with a licensed specialist.
If we have pain, it is the bodies message of warning us something is NOT right.
SIMPLE. If your body is warning you something is out of whack, and all you do is pop a pain pill to ignore that fact, eventually something even worse will result if you don't take action right away. If our red engine light comes on in our car, most sane people would immediately pull over and check out the issue and resolve it to the best of their capacity, or seek help. When it comes to our bodies, it seems like the general conscientious, is ?????? uhhh????
Even doctors seem to be generally unable to truly help.
"Pain is telling us something is not happening that should be happening"
"Chronic muscoloskeletal pain is a form of high-priority communication!"- says Pete Egoscue.
The human body has to be moving to maintain homeostasis.. It is not a system designed to be stationary. From a musculoskeletal perspective, the body is designed to move. In our modern world today, we are demanded of less and less by external stimuli. What we now do for work and play in our modern society in general, demands less engagement from our muscoloskeletal system. The less we move, the less we end up being able to move.
What once used to be an intensely physical engaging environment; where we had to run away from predators, bend to gather food, squat to cook etc- has now evolved (or devolved) to sitting on a couch watching T.V, sitting in a car, sitting at a desk, and reaching into the refrigerator. So bottom line: If you don't use it, you loose it.
Dysfunction in the body doesn't necessarily have to main pain, or chronic pain. Dysfunction in the body is anything that is not how nature intended it to be. Such as: poor posture, sagging/rounded shoulders, turned out feet, hunched over spine, loosing the natural S curve in the spine...etc. Which unfortunately in today's world is almost impossible not to come across. When the body is working in a state of dysfunction, something is under-working, something is over-working and various areas in the body are overcompensated. Eventually dysfunction will turn into pain, if not chronic pain, if left unchecked.
If you decide to suddenly go to the Gym because you have been reading this, and you are all inspired to get your body back in motion, beware. Because if you are living in a state of musculoskeletal dysfunction and you hit the gym hard, you will only be compounding the dysfunction, and driving it deeper into the body if left untreated. For example: if you rotate your feet outwards and you hit the treadmill, pounding onto your poor knees with an unstable base, eventually you will find you will start to get knee pain, or something will sprout up as a result of compounding the initial outward foot problem.
My point being, with this whole lengthy blog post, that in order to live a pain free life (keeping in mind that emotional pain, acute injury, organ imbalances, and influences from the planets are of course connected to posture, but are a separate issue from what we are talking about here), one must take responsibility for the functionality of the human organism.
ONE MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for your BODY.
End of STORY
You must start to notice your posture, your imbalances, and your postural habits. How do you walk? How do you sit? How do you habitually stand? Everything we do throughout the day programs and informs our body. Unless we can at a root level, rewrite/reprogram, the body to maintain proper balance/homeostasis, we will continue to run into issue after issue.
In this easy to read book, Pain Free, Peter Egoscue will give you exercises starting from the feet working your way up the body sequentially, that will realign and strengthen the necessary muscles, joints, and ligaments to maintain proper posture and function.
Even if you are not in pain, or chronic pain now- becoming somatically aware is important to maintaining good health and function of the physical body. So I encourage everyone to start to pay attention to how you walk, how you carry yourself, how you stand, how you sit, how you sleep. If you notice dysfunction I would recommend buying this book as a start and doing some of these prescribed exercises. It would probably also be very beneficial to find a trained professional in your city that can help point out holding patterns to you, that you yourself might overlook. They will also be able to tailor specific programs just for you to help you overcome any sort of imbalance in the body. I would recommend finding a somatic practitioner, some examples of methods I personally like and trust are: Feldenkrais Method, Alexander Technqiue, Egoscue Method to name a few. I have also heard great things about the Mckenzie Method in treating all spine related issues. I know someone who cured her herniated disk through using the Mckenzie Method. It just takes a little bit of research and dedication to finding a method or approach that works for you.
And remember, if you don't use it you loose it. So to be a functional, happy, healthy, pain-free human being on this Planet, it takes education, re-education, and re-membering the amazing functionality of the human design. Anything can shift, it just first needs the awareness that IT has to shift, then the space to shift, and the new information it needs to shift into.
Blessings be!
If you want to reach me for a personal consultation, or have any questions feel free to email me at nori@noriannadiesel.com or check out my website at www.noriannadiesel.com
