Sarah St. Pierre - Why We’re in Pain: Why chronic musculoskeletal pain occurs - and how it can be prevented, alleviated and eliminated with Clinical Somatic Education

Medical disclaimer: This book is not intended as a substitute forthe medical advice of physicians. The reader should regularly consulta physician in matters relating to his/her health and particularlywith respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medicalattention.

As we grow older, ourbodiesand our livesshould continue to improve, right upuntil the very end. I believe that all of us, in our hearts, feelthat this is how life really should be lived.

D R. T HOMAS H ANNA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

We live in a time of incredibleadvancement in medical technology. Doctors can give us new hips whenours wear out, new arteries in our hearts to replace clogged ones,and drugs to manage almost any condition. Body parts are being grownin labs, and surgery can be performed by robots controlled by adoctor who is thousands of miles away. It sounds like the stuff ofscience fiction.

These feats would have been impossible and practicallyunimaginable just a few centuries ago. Back then, we were moreconcerned with eliminating viral and bacterial infections that ranrampant through populations, killing thousands of people in a singleoutbreak. The practice of vaccination, widely considered to be thegreatest accomplishment of modern medicine thus far, has turned theseepidemics into distant memories fo rmuch of t he world.

The nearelimination of external threats to our health has given us the giftof a longer life span, but itplays a p artin a larger trend which is proving to worsen our quality of life. Oursuccessful dominance over our environment has brought with it asedentary lifestyle, man-made toxins, nutritionally deficient and chemicallyenhanced food, and new kinds of stress for which we are ill-equippedto handle.

As a result, most of us live relatively long lives during which weencounter a myriad of internal threats. Heart disease, high bloodpressure, mental illness, ulcers, cancer, autoimmune disorders,obesity, diabetes, chronic pain and physical degeneration have becomethe norm. We accept and even assume that we will experience one, ifnot several of these conditions by the time we reach middle age.

Until very recently in our history, the approach of treating anailment from the outside in with antibiotics, vaccination or surgerywas quite effective and appropriate, given that most threats to ourhealth were coming from outside our body. Regrettably, the medicalcommunity has not adjusted its approach to address the vastlydifferent internal threats we face today. To make things worse, wehave at our disposal advanced technolog ythat all ows pharmaceutical companies to create drug sthat keep chronic lifestyle-related conditions under control.These drugs give us the illusion that our conditions are beingtreated, when in reality they do nothing to address the underlyingcause.

The traditional outside-in treatment approach has kept us fromrecognizin g and accepting t hefact that we have a tremendous amount of control over our own health.This mental block is exceedingly evidentwhen it comes to chronic pain and physical degeneration. The myththat our bodies will inevitably break down and that we mustexperience pain as we age is so ingrained in our belief system thatf ew people stop to wonder whythis breakdown occurs and if it might be avoidable. As a result,research dollars are spent on developing new drugs that help usmanage pain conditions and new surgical techniques that fix worn-outjoints , rather than oninvestigating the un derlying cause of musculoskeletal pain anddegeneration.

While there are many causes of chronic pain, including cancer,autoimmune conditions and neuropathy, the majority of people whoexperience pain and physical degeneration do so because of the waythat they habitually use their bodiesthe way that they standand move, day in and day out. Their postural and movement habitscause their muscles to be chronically tight and sore, their jointsand nerves to be compressed, and their bones to be stressed, often tothe point of causing actual damage to the structure of their body.

Throughout our lives, we each develop unique ways of standing andmoving. While most animals come out of the womb already knowing howto movepicture the lanky foal who awkwardly stands up lessthan an hour after being born, and is soon trotting aroundhumansrequire at least a year of motor learning to reach the same degree ofproficiency, and we continue to learn new motor skills and habitsthroughout our lives. A vast array offactors, including our physical and emotional environment, the way wereact to stress, our personality, the injuries we sustain, and sportsand other physical training contribute to the motor habits wedevelop. It is our incredible capacity to learn that sets us apartfrom all other animals, an dthat ma kes it inevitable that we will each acquire a set ofmotor habits that is entirely unique.

I am describing a learning process with which you are probablyfamiliar: that of developing muscle memory. This term is most oftenused in the context of sports training, but the ability to formmuscle memories is not limited to athletes. Muscle memory pervadesour lives, dictating the way that we sit at our desks, allowing us totype and text at lightning-fast speeds, and enabling us to multitask.Most importantly, it allows us to efficiently carry out our dailyactivities and at the same time be able to focus our conscious mindon more important things. Thousands of years ago, muscle memoryallowed us to run after a buffalo while at the same time strategizehow to kill the buffalo. Nowadays, it allows us to talk on the phonewhile we prepare breakfast and do the dishes.

Muscle memory is the result of a learning process that takes placeautomatically and constantly within our nervous system. This processis critical to our survival and highly beneficial in our daily lives.Without learned motor habits, we would spend all day figuring out howto brush our teeth and get dressed for work. The number of consciousdecisions and voluntary movements needed to complete the most basicof tasks would overwhelm us.

Unfortunately, it is easy to develop inefficient and even damagingmotor habits. And once learned, these habits feel so natural andautomatic that they seem to be innate and unchangeable. They are, infact, so deeply learned that they are nearly impossible to changeunless you understand how your nervous system acquires new motorpatterns and maintains levels of muscle tension.

The automatic motor learning process has been part of our neuralfunctioning for as long as we have been a species, yet it is fairlyrecently in our history that chronic pain and physical degenerationhave become such widespread problems. One reason for this isour increasing lifespans. The longer we live, the more time we haveto develop motor habits, and the greater the chance that some of thehabits we develop will damage our bodies. And the older we get, themore deeply learned our habits become, and the greater impact theyhave on our health and functioning.

Yet we see children and teenagers who have rounded posture, discproblems, chronic injuries and pain. This brings us to the secondreason for our increasing pain: our repetitive and all-too-sedentarylifestyles. Repetitive activities, whether they be playing videogames for hours on end or competing in sports, breed habits. Beingsedentary is just as detrimental; when our bodies aren't moving,muscles become tight, connective tissue loses elasticity, andpressure is put on joints and nerves. We need not only to keepmoving, but also to have variety in our movement.

The third reason we experience so much pain and physical breakdownis the type of stress we deal with in our daily lives. The humannervous system evolved to react to short-term, life-threateningstressors, like being chased by a tiger or being unable to find food.Our current lifestyles are drastically different than they have beenfor most of our existence. Today, our lives are rarely threatened andwe perceive minor events, like traffic or an impending work deadline,to be major crises. Many of these psychological stressors never goaway, so our stress response is constantly being activated. As youwill learn in this book, stress causes and exacerbates many painconditions by increasing muscle tension, triggering posturalreflexes, and altering the way the brain perceives pain.