If you’re like me, you’ve tried many different practitioners and therapies in an attempt to relieve muscle tension and chronic neck, shoulder or back pain. You may have felt better and relaxed for a few days after a massage or relief from a physical therapy or chiropractic session.
But here is THE reason manipulations involving soft tissue (muscles) never seem to last: because the “issue” — whether it’s neck and shoulder tension, jaw tension, lower back or hip or even legs and feet pain — is not being treated at the source, but at the level of the symptoms (i.e., tense muscles).
The brain is the controller
What is the “source” then? The brain is the controller of the entire body. The brain tells up when to breathe in and out and how much oxygen we need at any given moment. The brain tells our organs how and when to function.
And the brain monitors our muscle tension — when to contract and when to let go. We can apply pressure to or stretch the muscles and they’ll release, but within a short timeframe, they go right back to their habitual “patterns” of contraction.
The brain is ALWAYS working for your benefit
These unconscious habitual patterns of “holding” or contraction were put into place by your brain when your brain perceived that there was some instability in you as a whole — perhaps you experienced a period of extreme stress, perhaps there was some injury somewhere else in your body, maybe while healing, part of you was immobilized to mend, perhaps you practiced some repetitive movement or posture so often that certain muscles became the stabilizers while others didn’t carry their weight.
Every single person’s circumstances and history are unique.
We don’t have to understand WHY, only HOW
But when we work with the brain, the interesting thing is we don’t have to definitively understand WHY certain muscles are contracted, or the exact path of what caused what, when. We only need to recognize the patterns that are presenting themselves.
In the Feldenkrais Method® we don’t work at the site of the muscles — we work with the brain, the master controller of the entire body!
So… this is why this method is very likely different from anything you’ve tried before.
And this is why there’s so much hope for you to find relief for most muscle tension or chronic pain.
I’ve seen it with my clients over and over again. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve had muscle tension or where it is.
It doesn’t even matter whether you completely understand the details of how this works or even believe what I’m telling you.
When we work in person, you’re moved gently and slowly in a range that is completely comfortable and where there is no resistance. We don’t push through pain or force or strain you. The same holds true for when you participate in online lessons — you make small, slow movements in a comfortable range and rest often. During the rests the sensory information you took in by sensing and feeling yourself as you move is fed to your brain and it’s almost as if this information is “processed” by your brain and muscles spontaneously release on your behalf.
Reinforcing new neural pathways
You may notice some relief from pain the first time you have a session or practice a lesson. But remember, you’ve been “practicing” old tension patterns for a long time. So it might take several sessions to reinforce the new healthier neural pathways. I usually recommend to begin with 6 session scheduled a week apart. For more information about how often to schedule sessions, click here.
If you’d like more information about what your pain is telling you, you may like to read “The Hidden Messages in Your Pain: Why You Should Pay Attention.”
Think about when you learned your multiplication tables. (The 6s were always a challenge for me.) I could remember them for a few hours but if I didn’t practice them every day for at least a week, I would forget them and have to look. But after awhile, they became second nature to me — the neural pathways were reinforced often enough that it became permanent. And now, if I forget them for a moment from not “firing those specific neural pathways,” I only have to remind myself and they come right back to me.
Because we’re working with your brain to release muscular contractions and creating new, more comfortable muscle tone, it’s the same idea. The muscle tension that has been part of your life for months or years will let go as new sensory information is received by your brain.
New healthier neural pathways override the old, unconscious, habitual pathways and when these movements are practiced with attention, and reinforced for a period of time, the old muscle tension is permanently gone.