Health and Fitness

Pain is not normal

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Pain is the body telling you something is wrong. It is driven, as with most things, by only a few factors – Degeneration, disease processes or dysfunction. However, as we age, we tend to normalise it, put it down to getting older, one of those things or to be expected. We are even told this by medical professionals, which reinforces the myth.

Aging happens, it is better than the alternative. Some of the processes of aging are unavoidable but many are not. By attempting to eliminate those triggers we can control, through correction of function and awareness of degeneration, then the pain left is triggered by either a disease process or changes which have already occurred. With the miracles of modern medicine and the bodies inherent desire to heal itself, even the majority of these can be improved with time, patience and external intervention.

Prevention is always better than a cure and the necessary activities to prevent degeneration are all things that we know. Eat a nutritious, well balanced diet, maintain a sensible weight, exercise regularly and moderately including resistance work. Dysfunction can be reduced or prevented by considering the way we use our bodies and becoming aware of our senses more. We are sensory creatures and yet spend so little time in our bodies that we recognise only those signals that are big enough to break through to our conscious awareness.

You do not need to live with pain unless there is a known and unavoidable reason for its presence. Even then, osteopathy and allopathic medicine can both help, together with self driven changes to give you back control. With a good working diagnosis and a plan, the future can look far brighter.

5 points to being pain free:

1) Get a diagnosis of why you have pain. If you don’t understand why, you can’t change the triggers
2) Start a treatment plan that you are actively involved with
3) Get your life patterns in order. Change diet, exercise or other factors that can influence the pain
4) Engage with the pain and take control, mentally and physically
5) Practice mental and physical activities within a pain free framework every day

The Camford Clinic
http://www.the-camford-clinic.co.uk
01420 544408

Power, paths and chains

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I have been thinking about simplifying stretching processes around exercise. Not when trying to repair or prevent injury but as a general mobilisation. Out of this, it is possible to spot a couple of patterns that are easy to follow, cover all the major muscle groups in the body and allow us to achieve the most benefit from our stretching time.

The body has an anterior and posterior chain (originally and well described in the work of Tom Myers), as well as the basic or prime moves.

By combining the basic requirements for movement (flex / extend / rotate) in all joints together with chain connections (it is possible to open up and stretch the whole body very smoothly.

Starting with the spine, we need to create flexion, extension, rotation and sidebending, focused on the articulation of the intravertebral joints rather than faking apparent range of motion with the peripheral limb movements. Hands on opposite shoulders (crossed in front of chest) and turn spine left and right, then flex forward (from the diaphagm) and arch back. Finally sidebending both directions to finish the moves.

For the front chain, step into a open lunge, keep the pelvis neutral (most important), extend the opposite arm as though stretching the chest and turn the upper body in the same direction. You should feel a gentle tension across the whole line. If you are unable to sustain this, it can be split into sections but needs to be considered part of the whole. The sections being kneeling lunge for upper body to pelvis and quad stretch for lower body. Repeat both sides, of course.

For the back line, a sitting figure 4 stretch (foot into opposite knee and lean into straight leg) covers most of the groups.

Finally, lie on your back, pull your knees up so knees and hips are comfortably angled, then let them drop to one side so that the glutes are stretched, together with the back chain. This can be amplified by putting the opposite arm out and stabilising the upper body.

Of course, these are best demonstrated in a clinical situation, so that they can be tuned to your body, however by paying attention to both your attention and intention, then good results can be acheived.

5 tips for better sleep tonight.

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We all feel better after a good nights sleep but how often do you wake up wishing for more, and not refreshed and ready to go? The lack of sleep is sometimes considered a chronic health issue, due to its links with lots of other modern problems including diabetes, depression, and stress.

Up until open hundred years ago, our daily lives were regulated by the sun. Candles and lamps were expensive and comparatively ineffective, so we worked when the sun shone and rested when it set. Although our bodies expect this, it is no longer the case, thanks to the electric light and modern 24 hour entertainments giving us far too many reasons not to go to bed.

This means that we are saturated with blue light. From the backlights of our televisions and mobile devices to the harsh illumination of an LED or low energy bulb, blue is far more visually and cortically stimulating than older bulbs, triggering the brain into thinking it’s still daytime and interrupting melatonin production, a vital hormone that helps us sleep better.

So we often self medicate with alcohol. That drink that helps us calm down, feel relaxed and far too often doze off in front of the tv actually stimulates us a few hours later, as the sugars in it are metabolised and converted into fuel, which the body doesn’t actually need, leading to a restless night.

The result of which is the need for a stimulant in the morning to kick-start our day and another later to get us through the evening. But time these wrongly and yet another restless night will follow, repeating the pattern. It’s far better to suffer an afternoon of feeling sluggish but allow your adrenal glands to unwind and therefore help you sleep better than it is to take yet more energy drink.

But this stress is a chronic problem for many of us, where our bodies are constantly in a state of fight, flight or freeze, trapped in a biological cycle of not knowing how to respond to a situation it cannot control. We are flooded with cortisol, elevating blood pressure, blood glucose and adrenaline and when we finally collapse, exhausted into bed, we sleep tense, grinding our teeth, stiffening our muscles and waking once again feeling just as tired as when we pulled the covers up.

Similarly, we know exercise is good for us, but too much too late at night can have a stimulating effect, pumping up our blood supply and kicking the adrenaline levels back into action, just when we’d prefer to be unwinding. If you need to stay awake for long periods of time, simple whole body exercises have been shown to help, so why do it if you want to rest?

How to solve this modern health crisis? Research has shown that there are a few simple things we can do to make massive improvements in our sleep, which most of us did for our children yet forget to do for ourselves as we get older.

1) Turn off that screen. No blue lights, LEDs or TVs for at least an hour before bed. Instead read, bath, any activity you enjoy that allows you time to relax and unwind. Gradually turn the lights down, creating your own sunset effect and losing the blue.

2) Have a fixed routine. The body is controlled by circadian rhythms, patterns when it knows and expects events to happen. Experimentation and research has shown that melatonin is typically released between 9pm and 2am, so turning in at 10.30 would maximise your exposure to its beneficial effects. Also, getting up at the same time every day also helps stabilise the routine, improving productivity and effectiveness during the working day.

3) Sleep in the dark. Light is stimulating, be it a control LED on a clock radio or the dull glow of a tv on standby. Tape over them or even better, remove as many electrical items as you can from the bedroom. Think like a caveman, invest in blackout curtains or a really good eye mask.

4) Avoid eating or drinking anything stronger than water or herbal teas for a couple of hours before you sleep. You don’t need the energy in them, they are stimulating and you need to give your body time to digest and sort itself out. In terms of anything properly stimulating i.e. coffee or energy drinks, they have a long metabolic half-life, so at least 8 hours is a good window. In reality, this often means none after 2-3pm for many people.

5) If you are plagued with restless thoughts at night, get up, write them down and reset the pattern. If, in the morning, there is something that you know you can action, get it done and make steps to sorting it out. If there are more troubling issues surfacing regularly, go and see a professional for assistance. Whatever the problem, you are not the only person in the world with that issue.

Restful nights and busy days.