March issues of
BodyStories Blog talked about pain, performance, and what performance may look like when there's daily pain.
Those of us living with chronic pain know how easy it is to get lost in the sea of options, approaches, and practitioners. Where do we even start? What should we do first - change our diet? move more? rest more? do a cleanse?
Having too many choices may feel paralyzing, especially to the brain that is already fogged up by chronic pain.
So today I want to talk to you about where to start - the tipping point, the trail head, the launching pad - of pain to performance journey.
I've borrowed this phrase, "The Next Best Step," from one of my fave movies, Wild - I just re-watched over the weekend. It fits perfectly to today's BodyStory: knowing what the next best step is the only one thing that matters.
Chronic pain can be demoralizing, frustrating and unpredictable.
It can drain our mental, emotional, financial, and physical resources.
Plain and simple: living with persistent pain is STRESSFUL.
To understand the role that this chronic stress plays in perpetuating pain (amongst other things), it is essential to get familiar with our nervous system.
Human nervous system has two distinct branches:
~ One that stimulates emergency action and the infamous "fight - flight - freeze" mode.
~ The other branch triggers healing and tissue repair.
It is called "rest and digest" branch.
The action branch stimulates our bodies for vigorous movement of fighting off or running away. Through bio-chemical action, this branch directs every organ and every tissue in the body to get ready for a fight. Heart rate and blood pressure rise, digestion is suppressed, glucose is released into the blood stream along with platelets that make our blood thicker (so we don't bleed out if we are wounded.)
The repair branch essentially does the reverse: heart and blood pressure go down, digestion is restored ( and happy gurgles are heard!), and nutrients are delivered to tissues that need to be patched up.
And now the important part: these two branches are mutually exclusive:
You are either fighting or healing.
But not both.
At any given moment of the day, our body-mind has to make a choice:
We either turn on the action branch, and begin to "flight - fight - freeze," or we activate the repair and restore branch to "rest and digest" and heal up.
You can't get anxious over a big deadline and build your bone density at the same time. (As you already know, stress changes blood chemistry as well as digestion - these two factors directly influence body's ability to maintain bone mass. Muscle tension that comes with stress inhibits natural bone-rebuilding processes.)
You can't be stressed out to the max and heal your broken muscles, tendons and ligaments at the same time. (Some super fascinating studies from University of Massachusetts Medical School show that stress management is a remarkable help tool that expedites healing processes).
Understanding the EITHER OR principle gives us the clear perspective of our Next Best Step:
It is imperative to find a way to shift into "rest and digest" mode,
especially when faced with chronic pain or illness.
How do we do that?
That's the next BodyStory topic.
In the mean time, registrations for
Pain Care Yoga (yes, the class that offers some of the best stress management tools) are still open till the end of today.
