Body Pain Healing

Understanding Pain

"New discoveries reveal that fascial system restrictions may be behind most pain conditions"

 

Everyone wants to live a life free of pain. Pain issues are a constant drain on our energy and quality of life. Over time, simple tasks and movement become increasingly difficult. Maintaining a positive attitude is a struggle. Pain eventually robs the joy from our lives.


Pain leads the list in visits to the doctor. Conventional medical treatment for pain short term is hit-or-miss; long term resolution is rare. That's because a vital piece of information has been missing in our understanding on the origin of pain; we have been treating symptoms, not cause. Drugs are an attempt to alter the chemical response to pain; surgery aims to correct one piece or part. Neither approach considers a wider, whole-systems view in which we ask: what's causing this piece or part to experience pain in the first place? The answer lies in some basic thinking - simple laws of physics we see around us every day - about structural alignment and what results when misalignment occurs.


When balance is disrupted, abnormal forces create tensions that wear and tear at a structure or system. Think about the structures around you. A building loses integrity and strength if its frame starts leaning away from center. Your car tires wear out sooner when the alignment is off. A carpenter can put a few braces against the falling wall; the mechanic can keep changing the tires. But these do nothing to fix the problem. If forces are not relieved and balance/alignment reestablished, structures and systems eventually break down.


Because we have a nervous system, imbalance and misalignment not only causes abnormal wear and tear of bones, joints, and other bodily structures, it causes pain and dysfunction. Our bodies have a dizzying number and arrangement of tissues from hard bone to gel-like fascia all in complex balance with each other. For the most part, the body is capable of maintaining balance through all the movements and motions of our day. However, things like bad posture, overexertion, poor movement patterns, injury, and emotional trauma can accumulate and overwhelm the system. The body cannot achieve balance and experiences abnormal forces that pull our structure out of place. The tension grows, and if left uncorrected, can lead to chronic pain and other health issues.

 

Fascial Release Therapy: Authentic Healing


Our primary therapy at Restore Fascial Theray is fascial release therapy. Fascial release therapy is aimed at releasing the tightness, restrictions, and abnormal forces in the fascial system. The fascial system is a continuous connective tissue network running the length and breadth of our body from head to toe. It covers and interpenetrates every muscle, bone, nerve, vein, and organ. It consists of a gel-like base with tough collagen threads, or tubules. The fascial system provides shape, form, and support for the body. Fluid flows throughout this shock-absorbing "fabric", shifting and morphing to adapt to every movement the body makes. It allows for the complex motion we take for granted as it absorbs and distributes the forces of everyday living. Myofascial release techniques apply gentle pressure to the body to ease open the fascial tissue and encourage an "unwinding" of the tensions and restrictions, helping to establish realignment at all tissue levels and thereby eliminating the forces at the root of pain issues.


We call fascial release therapy authentic healing because it helps to release all the factors that are contributing to your current state of pain. In the human body, the factors contributing to misalignment are far more involved than the factors throwing a building or car off balance. Tissues respond not only to physical forces, they respond to biochemical messaging. The body, mind, and emotions work together to create the current life you are experiencing. How you react to the circumstances in your life - your thoughts and perceptions about what you are experiencing - trigger this whole body biochemical communication. The body then organizes itself and responds accordingly.


The physical restrictions and imbalance must be addressed in treating pain issues, but full resolution rests on addressing and releasing the underlying chemical instructions that the tissues are receiving as well. Most of these responses are at the subconscious level and we aren't even aware of their powerful effect on our health. Remember, the body's primary instinct is to survive, to protect. Fight or flight is a familiar concept to most of us as it relates to a high trauma event, but the body reacts in much the same way in even milder circumstances. When we perceive events we're experiencing as threatening or insecure, we might feel fear, anxiety, mistrust, depression, impatience, injustice, anger - these emotions cause tension. We tighten up, constrict, our breath shortens and becomes shallow. The biochemical messaging that causes our body to respond in this way is the work of our natural stress biochemistry. Cortisol, adrenalin, and other natural steroids flood our cells. We go into a mild/moderate/extreme state of fight or flight, depending on how threatening we perceive our current circumstances.


Long-held trauma and a constant state of stress biochemistry is destructive to our health. On the other hand, perceiving our life as safe and secure, we experience happiness, satisfaction, peace, motivation, goodwill, nonjudgment - and the accompanying biochemical messaging to each cell includes the endorphins, or "feel good" chemistry. These natural biochemicals like dopamine, serotonin, and melatonin give the tissues a very different message on how to respond. The message is to open up, release constriction, relax, and implement repair function. An endorphin-filled biochemical state maintains and promotes good health.