Being in Your Body = Hurting Less
Being in our bodies. Why it’s important in preventing, reducing or eliminating chronic pain.
We experience our inner world, ourselves, by feeling the sensations in our body.
These can be the result of emotions we feel like fear, anger, joy etc.
They can also be the pain we feel from structures in our body being damaged or injured.
They both are signals that something is wrong in our body, our self, that we need to pay attention to.
They can interact and overlap. For instance, if we feel angry most of the time our neck tightens up as well as our jaw, shoulders and possibly other parts of our body.
When this happens, it changes the position of the structures of our body including the spine.
The spine is the foundation around which the rest of the body is built. If the foundation is off the rest of the body is off.
Our body doesn’t move the way it was designed to. This creates compensation and adaptations to keep us moving but also that increase the wear and tear on our body.
After enough time we start having pain which causes more compensation which leads to more wear and tear… I think you can see where this is going.
How does being in our body help?
If we are aware of what we are feeling and the sensations in our body, we can act to deal with the feelings and get back into our body.
Our body comes back into alignment. The foundation is strong.
The structures of our body can move the way they designed to.
Wear and tear is greatly reduced preventing pain from occurring.
Realigning the body can also help reduce or eliminate pain that you are already experiencing by reducing the wear and tear that are occurring.
Over time this can help the body heal and further reduce or eliminate pain.
How can you be more in your body?
Start paying attention to what you are feeling in your body. The sensations you feel.
Focus on your posture and the position of your body. Are your shoulders slumped, head forward, jaws clinched.
Also notice your breathing. Is it rapid and shallow? Are you breathing just in your chest?
How about your heart rate? Is it rapid too.
Are you leaning to one side, putting your weight more on one side?
Just notice at first.
Sometimes just paying attention can help us adjust our position.
That can be challenging for most of us since we have probably been in these postures for a long time now and our body has adapted to them.
Taking 30 minutes to lye on a hard surface and breath deeply using the diaphragm can be very helpful.
Focus on expanding your whole trunk not just pushing your belly out. When you expand your whole trunk your back will push into the floor and you will feel the sides of your trunk move outward too.
Try to make your trunk expand in a big circle.
This is going to be challenging for most people because they have been breathing mostly in their chest.
Keep going. Your body will get it.
Also, focus on the exhale. Try to exhale twice as long as you inhale. This will signal your body that it is okay to relax.
Try that daily for a couple of weeks and see what changes you feel in your body. How it feels to be in it.
Let me know how it goes.