To understand how postural restoration works, there are a few things that we need to understand about chronic pain first. In this blog I'm going to discuss just how it is that we feel pain and how it is that pain sticks, as the title implies. In the next blog I'll discuss the context behind the main pattern of the postural restoration institute that might be the key to solving your chronic pain. And as a little FYI, this is simply my interpretation of how these concepts can be applied to Postural Restoration.
A brief google search on why you experience pain will tell you that pain is your nervous system reacting to harmful stimulus. Another brief google search on why pain lasts will tell you that it might be from a previous injury, neuro-degenerative illness, muscle-degenerative illness, or cancer. So in simple terms, pain is a fail safe mechanism and pain can become chronic when correlated to chronic conditions and/or issues. Both of these definitions certainly hold true and are often how we think of the pain experience in general terms. A classic example of pain as a fail safe mechanism being when the hot iron left on the board. If you touch said iron, you're probably going to remove your hand immediately due to the pain which exists to ensure that your hand isn't damaged indefinitely. A classic example of lasting pain being correlated to a chronic condition/issue is athlete that was on the fast track until the big injury ruined their career. An injury that to this day they still suffer the effects of which is probably due to
there still being something wrong (healed poorly, no rehab intervention after injury, pain neurotag interpretations etc) with the initially afflicted area. For Illustrative purposes I've added an infographic below showing how pain is interrpeted by the nervous system.
Notice however that in both of those examples you can interpret a cause and effect relationship between two variables, something you're aware of happened and now you're struggling with pain. But where does that leave people that seem to experience pain unconsciously, without being aware that something may have happened to them ? For most, the answer to this would posture. It is very common that someone would have positional issues that facilitate sub-optimal movement patterns which in turn cause your chronic pain (I know taht sounds like gibberish, but let me explain). Positional being a reference to where joints, their surrounding musculature, and the various connective tissue (i.e. ligaments, tendons, cartilage etc) that surrounds them are positioned, in a negative context. Which is me saying that these joints and all that surrounds/works with them are no longer able to effectively position themselves based on the body's demands. Generally speaking this leads to compensation in the body meant to pick up the slack of those mispositioned joints (I will be discuss this more in the future). And being with these postional issues, is in my opinion why we experience pain. Think of it as a leak in big hull ship, except instead of yelling there's a leak, your body tells you there's a leak by emitting pain signals.
But how do we end up stuck with these positional issues ? The short answer is gradually and over time. The long answer has to do with the plasticity of the brain, in particular myelin sheath and pain neurotags which are both adaptation measures the brain and body utilize for the sake of efficiency. Myelin sheath functions as an insulation layer for your nervous system, which allows nerve impulses to travel significantly faster than they would without myelin sheath. Myelin sheath also tends to wrap itself around nerves more, the more frequently you do something. Therefore if you consistently move in a particular way, your nervous system is reenforcing said movement in a particular way. And if you're posturally compromised via those aforementioned positional issues (which most people are), this contributes to you being stuck with chronic pain. Pain neurotags function as an extension of myelin sheath in the brain (or vice versa depending on how you look at it), which facilitate sending pain signals to an affected body part. Pain neurotags also become more efficient at sending pain signals the more you try to 'fight through the pain' by performing activities that cause pain (very similar to how myelin sheath works against you sometimes). In my opinion these are the primary ways in which chronic pain sticks with you, especially in the context of postural faults.
The important takeaway from all of this is that the brain influences the body and the body influences the brain. Their relationship is interdependent and is ultimately a big part of the reason why you might experience chronic pain. In the next blog set the other half of the stage by discussing a couple more concepts related to postural restoration that I think are important.
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