A point I make again and again in session is that there are 168 hours in a week. Let's say we see you for two sessions per week. That leaves 166 hours in the week... hence, the title for this article.
What is that 166 hours taken up with? Family, work, driving, walking the dog, watching TV, exercising, eating, sleeping, going out on Friday night... simply put: Life. When we're honest about it, very little of that time is taken up with how we're doing all those activities. You might think about for in the gym, but who's thinking about their form and how they're moving when they're vacuuming or driving to work?
Imagine all that's building up in that 166 hours, all the compensatory motions and patterns, all the emotional and mental stresses, all the microtraumas. Then you finally get back on the table during your session and we need to clear away all that stuff to get to the deeper aspects of Myofascial Release and massage.
So what to do?
This is where Myofascial Release Self-Treatment comes into play, and why it is an integral part of you returning to your pain-free, active lifestyle. How many times have you felt victimized by your pain? Or anxiously awaiting your next session to get some measure of relief? By learning how to treat yourself at home, you can become your own therapist and learn how to be proactive with your pain, which is incredibly empowering.
Think about it this way: your body has learned how to do things in a certain way, to hold itself in certain postures, to move in prescribed patterns. One of our greatest strengths, the ability to adapt, in this situation becomes one of our greatest weaknesses.
Try to remember back to when you first started learning to drive. You were hyper focused on everything about operating an automobile: how much to turn the wheel, how hard to step on the gas and brake, how to stay in your lane. Nowadays, those skills have become so ingrained that you can think about everything but driving. How much more automatic would the postures and movements you make become? How much work would you have to do, and how often would you have to do it, to learn to drive differently? In the same way, we need to consistently give new and better information to the body to help it adapt towards a new and healthier way of being and moving.
Since nearly everyone experiences low back pain at some point in their life, I'll take you through a simple self-treatment technique using a tennis ball to illustrate how we can begin giving the body the new information it needs to adapt and heal.
First, get somewhere soft; your bed, couch, or chair. It's important to remember to be gentle with your body - we're not trying to punish ourselves to health. When you're comfortable, place the tennis ball on the muscles that run along either side of your spine (not on your spine), and then lean or lie back, allowing your bodyweight and the ball to create some pressure into the area.
There might be some tenderness with this, and that's okay, as long as it's tolerable and you're not forcing. At this point, take some deep breaths and relax back into the ball, feeling your body softening. The most important element now is time: 5 minutes, preferably longer. The dense, solidified tissue requires time to melt and soften. There are no shortcuts.
And that's it! That's the whole technique! Seems simple, I know... but why shouldn't it be?
There are multitudes of techniques and tools that we use to treat every part of our body. Each month, Mind Body Soul Wellness Center runs a group class where I lead you through what the fascial system is, why it gets restricted, how Barnes Myofascial Release (MFR) can be used to soften it and why it has been the missing link to you becoming pain-free and reclaiming your independence.
Please contact us for the next one:
While Myofascial Release Self-Treatment can never fully replace treatment from a skilled, compassionate, and centered therapist, it is an integral and essential part of any wellness regime. As John Barnes, my teacher and the Father of Myofascial Release, says: "Love yourself enough to treat yourself every day."
Be gentle with yourselves. Whatever you did today, let it be enough.
Good Journey,
David