Pain and your nervous system

Last night at yoga therapy, I asked the two yogis, also brothers, about pain and how you know when to push through it. Since I'm starting physio next week, I figured that some pain was part of the process of getting my mobility back.

Their responses were really cool because they feel that pain is a signal from your nervous system that something is not right. That you should:

•  stop or slow down
•  try the action again with another muscle engaged (usually more core muscles)
•  Sometimes, the goal is to eliminate pain or, if you are living with chronic pain, the goal is to minimize it and then to relax your nervous system
• actively lay in quiet to relax your nervous system (20 minutes is perfect)
• use a pillow, foam or rolled up clothes to cushion your painful spot during active rest
• I tried all these techniques and they worked for me :)

Pain is not ideal and it stresses your body. I know this to be true because I've seen how my breath, heart rate and feelings can change to encourage or discourage: convulsions, muscle spasms, vomiting, eye twitching, stress and fear. I guess that this is all super obvious but I didn't stop and identify what my fast paced, push-through-the pain thoughts were doing within my own body.

Also, when you want water give it to yourself with pleasure. It's the only thing that's always good for you. I used to go to a super-intense yoga place where they asked that you not drink water..... and it was like 100 degrees Fahrenheit in there. So weird and yet, I did it because I thought I might look like the cute, bikini wearing girl in front of me. Guess what, I didn't and I was still thirsty.

p.s. It's recipe Thursday but I went to Globefish today and nary a recipe did I make. I'll do it tomorrow :).

The power of your breath

I'm about to sound like a crunchy, granola person because I use my breath to get through tricky situations. Just now, I had one of my usual morning dry heaves and they usually hurt my lower back because of the natural spasms that make a person vomit. Today, I decided to breath deeply in and then deeply out pausing for a moment at the bottom of my breath. I learned this technique at Bodhi Tree on 14 street, during yoga therapy. Although there were a few times that the spasms coincided with my breaths, I'd try to finish them and keep going. It totally worked! My back felt 75% less pain than after a normal dry heave. Also, it gave me something to do during the unpleasant and uncontrollable spasms. I figure, if I'm ever lucky enough to have a child then I could use this Lamaze-like technique during delivery.

Breathing deeply and relaxing

I think that we have more coping mechanisms then we think but that they're something to be really proud of. We're problem solvers! If you have any coping mechanisms that you find helpful then add a comment because there's nothing like a tested technique! :)