So if you missed last week we went over 4 powerful ways to start beating stress related back pain. I was excited to see the amount of response the article brought! It seemed to give people hope which is exactly what I want to do! If you missed Part I of this series you can get it here.
I want to jump right into this weeks first article on this topic.
1) Make a montra: This is another thing that I am still trying to get used to. One thing that I can say about this topic is that I have read countless books ranging from business growth to personal development and there is a cycle that you see when it comes to believing in what you can achieve. Some of the best advice I have ever received was from reading work by Napoleon Hill. He was a big believer in seeing what you wanted out of life way before you actually had it. He was constantly talking about speaking and telling yourself what you wanted to be so much that you convinced yourself there is nothing in your way of achieving what you want. The same goes with this mind body connection. You see too often people living with pain who has 100% accepted it as who they are. People are almost proud to talk about their pain and how they suffer and what they have to do to live. I can’t stand it. The idea of owning anything like chronic pain, anxiety or poverty sickens me. I believe anything can be defeated with enough hard work and heart and thats exactly what you need to build this mind body connection. Write out on cards or repeat a certain phrase when your experiencing back pain. Telling yourself that its your stress or anger towards the situation that is causing you pain. NO, this isn’t more efficient then a bottle of Tylenol but it’s doing something in your head that you will reap the benefits from later. Repeat that montra over and over. Talk to your self (yeah, get weird! haha jk). Remind yourself that you won’t be lead by your body and how it may “feel”. Practice this every day and don’t stop!
2) Check out this really cool site called www.fitness4backpain.com….oh wait, your already here ;). Its about the EXERCISE! A lot of what Dr. Sarno supports is pain due to a lack of oxygenated blood to the area thats in pain. Exercise forces your heart to work harder to get the blood flowing. It also forces more oxygen into the blood stream. I don’t know if you have ever noticed but depending on your situation sometimes walking brings massive amounts of relief to people suffering through back pain. This may not be for everybody but I know for me, I never have pain while I am walking. It’s more when I am sitting for too long or standing in a weird position. For me walking allows me to get fluid pumped into those discs and allows that circulation to happen. If it’s not full on exercise, do something that requires you to move. Keep in mind, you always want to stick to what you know you have been cleared for. For some, exercise can be counter productive when rest and healing has a higher priority. Just get the ok from your doc and start small.
3) Give it time: Chic-Fil-A’s chicken sandwich wasn’t perfected in a day, it took years of work to get that thing to its peanut oil fried goodness. Thats another big lesson I have learned over the past year. I can’t find a new technique try it for a week and write it off if nothing happens. Educate yourself on the basics and master the basics. If that means your doing 6 months of nothing but the McGill Big 3 than do it! That is the exact thing I am up against right now. I am addicted to working out. I try so hard every week to train my lower body in a way that doesn’t cause tightness in my lower back for days after but sometimes I fail. If it takes me stripping away everything I know and spending months just working on basic form and core stability then thats what I need to do. You have a choice, you can keeping hurting yourself and just live with that nagging pain or you can stop what your doing start from the basics and work your way up from there.
4) Don’t sign the PRENUP! (prenuptial agreement for those who don’t know): It’s about the commitment. You can’t be on the fence when it comes to rewiring your brain. You have to be 100% sold out. Don’t get discouraged if this doesn’t happen for you right away. As of the today I have been fighting an inflamed lower back for 3 days and as I sit and type this my pain is gone and it has been all day. Was it my thoughts that changed it? Was it my commitment to my core exercises or lack of bad habits that I have been working on breaking for the past year, who knows but I know one thing is for sure, I am committed to doing these things every day until I am either forced to go under the knife or God calls me home. I can easily start questioning what truly has caused the pain to go away or I can count it as a victory and move on. I choose to count it as a victory : )
5) Look at every angle: For some, rewiring their thought process comes easy for others it takes longer or just doesn’t seem to work. If you have been trying to fight this for a while with no results maybe consider seeing a specialist that supports this type of therapy or treatment. If that doesn’t work you can always go seek out a second or third opinion from someone you trust when to comes to having any major structural damage. Always keep digging and never pass up an opportunity to educate yourself.
Take a look back over Part I of this series and start making adjustments accordingly. I hope this helps and gets you closer to getting control over your back pain!
Talk to you guys soon!
William
