Applied Alexander Technique Blog

A very dear friend recently brought my attention to an article about chronic pain, and a possible connection with the Alexander Technique.

Here’s the article:

Chronic Pain Harms Brain's Wiring Friday, Feb. 8, 2008 (HealthDay News)

The article discusses a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, February 6, 2008 issue. The idea is that being in chronic pain causes the neurons in your brain to fire continuously, and that in turn could cause permanent changes that are damaging to your brain. The researchers’ theory is that chronic pain causes changes in the brain. Those changes could be the connection between pain, depression and other difficulties.

Pain can be increased dramatically by our own response to it. The biological pain level can be multiplied by a factor of ten due to our own reaction, fear and tightening up. Most of us tighten up in response to pain, but that can make pain ten times worse. Therefore, by learning to loosen up we may reduce or eliminate the effect of the multiple.

If the study is basically correct and chronic pain harms the brain’s wiring, then techniques that interrupt the chronic pain cycle may help your brain as well as unhooking you from the pain cycle.

Continue reading "Chronic Pain: Breaking the Cycle" »

Posted by Dana Ben-Yehuda | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Applied Alexander , Pain Management

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What happens when people are in pain?

The first thing you do is hold your breath. If you stub your toe, the first thing you do is gasp! And hold your breath.

And when we’re in pain the next thing we do is tighten up. Sometimes that’s a good thing; the body is protecting the injured part. But when pain itself is the problem, tightening up only makes it worse; one physician told me that it makes pain ten times worse when you tighten up.

Being in chronic pain is a problem in and of itself; whatever the underlying cause, the pain itself needs to be managed.

If you tighten up and hold your breath, the pain is likely to hurt worse. And that creates a vicious cycle; pain hurts, tighten up, that makes it hurt more, tighten up some more.

When you want to break the cycle, medication is often the first place we look. But medicine has side effects and it can also lose its effectiveness, over time. The body becomes used to it and needs more and more to do the same job.

People often turn to alternative methods.

One way that has helped many people is the Alexander Technique. The Technique is a hands-on, educational method for neuro-muscular re-education.

OK, you ask, what does that mean in English? And since it’s an educational method, how does it help with pain management, anyway?

Continue reading "Pain Management" »

Posted by Dana Ben-Yehuda | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Pain Management

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