No Pain, No Gain, Really?

When you are a massage therapist you deal with attempting to define and manage pain. My trip to Thailand gave me pause for thought regarding pain. Massage there is not just something you do, it is a way of life. A big part of life and massage for the Thai people is visiting the Monks. As I set listening to the Monks talk about mediation and the goal not being to avoid pain but to acknowledge the areas of pain, I realized my mediation practice was faulty. They would tell us, rather than pretending there is no pain and trying to go to your zen place, say my knee hurts, if your knee hurts. They said repeat it over and over " my knee hurts, my knee hurts". The Monks explained it was the act of finding, acknowledging and speaking to the pain that allowed the pain to leave and for the mind to be freed.

For most of us in my Thai study group our first couple of massages in Thailand were extremely painful. We didn't speak the language and many of the therapist we sought treatment from outside of class had limited English skills. Often when we asked for a lighter touch they would smile and keep going. Over the three weeks our bodies changed or maybe our minds changed because we stopped complaining of pain. I wonder to this day, if part of the Thai therapist method came from their Buddhist understanding of pain. After sitting with the Monks I thought maybe the therapist were trying to help us meet our pain to facilitate its release.

My Thai massage pain adventure also speaks to the fact that pain is subjective. Pain varies from culture, person, place and time. You know if you are in a hurry you can hit something, experience pain and keep going. In the moment you forget about the pain, only days later to see a bruise and wonder how you got it. You could be having the worst, most stressful week at work and feel every thing causes you pain in every part of your body. If pain was simple it would be the same for all people and would occur exactly the same for each instance it occurred to you. However, pain is far from simple.

One of my mentors Tom Meyers was interviewed and his clip regarding pain is on YouTube.  Here's the link
"Why Does Massage Hurt"

I like how he laid out three types of pain. The pain we put into a body, the pain we store and the pain we release. I try, as best I can, not to put new pain into a body while I massage. My hope is to help a person release their stored pain. When one experiences a lessening of pain with each stroke, I believe it's the body releasing stored pain with each stroke.

If you are seeking to re-align your body and wait to have massage until you feel pain then we can't start the re-alignment until we get you out of pain. The real work of massage occurs once the pain is gone. When the mind stops trying to remove the body from feeling pain we can then find the source of the body's dysfunction, misalignment and begin to create change.

Pain is a complicated experience and it is something that is bigger than just a physical body issue. However, I won't go all woowoo on you in this post :)

I will say, I would like to start a revolution, in which people seek massage before they are in pain so we can create change in a gentler environment. I'm so proud of all my regular clients because they stay ahead of their pain. They use their massage time to try and stay out of pain. Yes, there are sessions in which we still hit stored areas of pain and they experience moments of pain release put it happens more as those "pain feels so good " moments, than the "I'm going to jump off the table" moments. With each massage that occurs on my table I seek to help my clients connect deeper and deeper with their body. We work as a team to learn the silent language their body speaks, in hopes that we don't have to hear it scream at us in the universal language of pain.

Pain is our body's way of making us slow down or stop. It serves as a pointer to areas in need of help.

When it comes to the medical world pain is put into classifications. Most of us are familiar with attempting to discuss acute vs. chronic pain. For the most part we can attribute acute pain to an injury, illness, trauma or damage we can immediately identify and associate. Chronic pain we attribute to issues we can no longer identify where its coming from and it is something we deal with on a regular and lasting basis.

The medical world also classifies pain on three other levels:
Say you burn yourself, cut yourself you have caused tissue damage and it can for the most part be repaired. This is referred to as nociceptive pain.
Now you cut deep into your hand and sever a nerve and the feeling in your hand changes. This will be known as neuropathic pain.
If the doctors can not identify the source of your pain as either coming from tissue or nerve damage, well then, they will say you have psychogenic pain. The pain is coming from fear, depression or another mood.

Over the years I have found many pain sensations that are linked to chronic issues are largely coming from fascial sources. If someone tells me they are feeling a burning sensation, a weird itching sensation or an annoying stabling sensation, I'm going to work to warm, soften and redirect the fascia. When the fascia is hydrated and able to move in its fluid state that's when we achieve a pain release that seems immediate and the client says things like "it's a miracle" or "you have magic hands". Once the fascia is taken care of, often the muscles go along for the ride and the area no longer has an issue. Then the next step is to investigate what dehydrated the fascia in the first place. Now we identify posture and behavior that is contributing to dysfunctional movement.

Another complicated experience to convey is the increase in pain as we re-align areas of the body. When we are seeking structural re-alignment, muscle balancing, postural correction and the alteration of dysfunctional patterning we can create a short term increase in pain. The reason being, we are asking areas/muscles which have not been working properly, which are weak and often over stretched to now work. We are loosen over contracted/tight muscles and can't tone the week muscles fast enough and the body then has no support at all and muscles spasm as they are asked to quickly stabilize an unsupported joint. During the massage we stimulate nerves which is a way of toning muscles. However, once the client leaves the table they are not consist or misunderstand how to tone the muscles on their own and the body begins to slip back into a default mode, some areas remain unstable, others have a tug a war between the old and new states of being. All of this can create pain.

Massaging muscles, specially when a therapeutic massage session is requested, can produce a similar response to high intensity exercise in which the muscle fibers are broken down and have to go through an inflammatory stage of healing.This is typically experienced 24 to 48 hours following the massage. Then the third day the body feels better than it has in months.

The body is largely an electrical conductor. Electricity is conducted more efficiently in water. To improve the electrical communication in your body it is important to hydrate your fascia. When the fascia lacks proper fluid flow then areas stagnate and the nerve impulses in the area begin to slow down. If left long enough the area begins to have a tingling sensation then a numbing sensation and if left too long there can be irreversible nerve damage. As we begin to hydrate an area of fascia we reopen the body's ability to send nerve impulse in and out of the area. Due to cellular memory some times the re-awakened area fire out the old stored pain. But as one has forgotten about the original incident, it is believed the massage must have created new pain. The massage in a sense creates the pain by pulling it to the surface and activating the nerves in the area to send pain signals to the brain. This is more a release of pain that introducing new pain.

Now if we massage too fast, too deep or beyond the tolerance of the brain then yes massage can introduce new pain. This is why it is best to go slow and allow the body to invite the therapist's hand into deeper layers of tissue gradually and back off if the brain is feeling it as too much. Like Tom Meyers said the "no pain, no gain" attitude is not a go to method on the massage table because if at all possible one does not want to introduce new pain pathways the body now has to draw away from.

For those of you who know me and work with me regularly, you guys know what my take home message will be right? To decrease the experience of pain address your fascia.  Drink water consistently through out your day. Get that water into your tissue by Dry Brushing and/or Melting first on a weekly basis and then as needed. Create practices which allow you to enter and maintain a state of parasympathetic being more often then remaining in a high constant state of sympathetic nervous system chaos. Working to ensure your diaphragm is working as the primary respiratory muscle it was born to be rather than a major stabilizer is one way to create a better state of parasympathetic being. Finding time to include rest not only for your body but for your mind will greatly enhance tissue and muscle health. Developing a means to address and maneuver between all four of your bodies; physical, emotional, mental and spiritual will help you understand how to achieve homeostasis; which I believe is a truer state of well-being than seeking to maintain balance.


If you have any questions regarding this post or you would like me to write in more detail about any aspect of this post, please feel free to comment in the comment section or email me (2dolphincolette@comcast.net)

As always thank you so much for taking the time to read my posts.

Foods to Help Your Muscles and Body

Most of the time we can address and take care of  many of our aches and pains by eating the correct foods. Yet often times we go to the store first too hungry to make healthy intentional selections. I know for myself if I've missed a meal before going food shopping I tend to purchase foods which are quick and easy. These choices often lack variety and generally are not balanced nor taking into consideration what is going on in my body outside of hunger.

Before I really started to think of food as medicine I generally didn't know what types of food to buy to target what I wanted to change in my body. I mainly purchased items to make a salad because a salad is healthy, right? I'd get some supplements because supplements will balance me out, right?

Now I'm a bit more aware. I try  to consider the season I'm in and how my body is reacting to that season. I notice if I need to decrease inflammation or prepare for the flu season. I'm aware if I can't warm up my feet and hands. Then I go for foods to address these issues.

I can go into more detail at another time about seasonal eating but for this write up I'm going to focus on herbs and spices that can help your body.

1. Turmeric: is not only for curry. It is one of the leading medicine foods and has been for decades.
                     It is a great anti-inflammatory
                     It is a strong anti-oxidant
                     It is an anti-coagulant
                     It helps improve brain function
                     It helps improve endothelial function
                     which plays a role in decreasing heart disease
                     It's an anti-cancer

       To improve the effectiveness of Turmeric we must enhance the absorption of it's chemical  Curcumin. This is done by combining it with ground black pepper.                

       Note: most research finds Turmeric to be an estrogen inhibitor. However, there have been a few articles that state too much turmeric can increase the levels of estrogen in the blood. Therefore, to be cautious, I try to limit the amount of turmeric and forms of turmeric in a day. In one day rather than adding it to a smoothie, drinking it as a tea, eating it as a curry and taking it as a supplement, I choose one or two of these options. This is true for any thing we consume; too much of a good thing can become a bad thing. 

       

     
2. Ginger: most widely know for is benefits to help reduce nausea and stomach upset.
                  It helps blood flow and circulation with helps
                  the body thermo-regulate
                  It's an anti-inflammatory
                  It's an anti-cancer
                  It helps break down and release mucus
                  It improves the immune system
                  It decrease plaque build up in the arteries

3. Cinnamon: is not just for baking
                 It helps reduce blood sugar levels
                 It supports blood platelets and thus
                  helps improve blood clotting
                  It helps reduce blood pressure

4. Mustard : not just for your sandwich
                 It is great as a quick combatant of muscle spasms
                 It helps reduce muscle pain
                 It helps improve nerve impulses

5. Cardamom: not just for rice pudding
               It helps detox the kidneys
               It's an anti-inflammatory
               It helps reduce muscle spasm


All of these to some degree are anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-vital.

As with any medicine not every one should use these as a medicine, meaning take them at high levels on a daily basis for an extend period of time. For instance someone who is prone to gallstones should not take turmeric. Someone on blood thinners should not take the one's promoting anti-coagulation.

Always consult your Naturopath or other health care provide when seeking to change your system's regulators.