Healing from Back Pain - what's the best way?
This is a question that I get asked quite often, it goes something along the lines of “I still have a bit of sciatica, it’s not massively painful but it wakes me at night sometimes and I don’t know what to do. What would you recommend?”
So I got asked this yesterday, and this is the answer I came up with…..
So pain tells you that something is wrong in your body. Something needs to change, because currently you’re getting messages from your body. The question is - do you need help or can you do it yourself?
What stops you from healing?
That’s what we all want to be able to do. We want a body that is resourceful enough that when we get injured, our body knows what to do and can heal from the injury.
Three questions:
Will this go away on it’s own?
If not - Can I do this on my own or do I need help?
And if I’m going to do it on my own, how do I increase my internal resources so that heal better?
There are three areas that I believe impact on our ability to heal. These are:
physical stresses/activities
nutritional status
mental status
1 Physical Stresses: include so many things. How much we sit, how much we move, any exercise program we do (or don’t do). The important thing to ask are:
Do my daily activities aggravate or support healing?
Do I need to do more exercise such as stretching, strength work, core work or cardio?
Do I need to do less?
If rest is the answer, most people will heal within a few weeks. If symptoms are still there, it’s probably not going to totally go away on it’s own
2 Chemical Stresses
Most people don’t know what I mean when I say this. What I’m talking about is a combination of the nutrition we take in or don’t take in (including foods and supplements) with respect to our bodies needs.
Many of us are deficient in nutrients, not because we eat a bad diet, but because so much of our food is nutrient deficient nowadays. To truly promote healing you need to put healthy fuel in your body. Whether you like it or not, “you are what you eat” rings true.
I find many people with chronic pain that is not healing need to up their anti-oxidants, increase fruit and veg, reduce/remove all processed foods from their diet (these are nearly always inflammatory in nature), reduce alcohol and/or caffeine and to drink more water. Some people improve hugely when they clean up their diet. It may be obvious to you what you are eating and it may be simple to change (though will power required).
3 Mental Status
Now I’m not talking psychiatric conditions here, if you think you have a mental illness you need to talk to a registered medical professional with expertise in this area. What I’m talking about it how you think, and how that impacts on your health.
Many people approach pain with the intention of getting rid of it, numbing it, ignoring it and often have a whole host of negative emotions around it. I believe that you need to listen to your pain, engage with it and work out what needs to change so that it can heal.
At a simple level the first thing that is important is to have goal that is bigger than your pain. For example most people want:
less pain
sleep without pain
sit without pain
to be able to do the things I was doing before the pain (yes they want to be exactly how they were just before the pain started)
If you set goals that make you grow and change, your body is usually far better at listening to you, for example:
I want to be able to run 3 miles
I want to increase my flexibility
I want to change my activity levels to support my health
I want to feel energized
Look at your internal dialogue. If all you’re saying is “please go away, I feel helpless, I don’t know what do it, why is it happening to me”, something needs to change.
Our SRI workshops can be an excellent starting point to connecting to your pain, finding internal healing resources you didn’t even know existed and reclaiming your personal power with respect to your healing.
And sometimes you can’t do this alone. You need the input from a good practitioner, who can work with you to get the results you want. If that’s you, give me a call or drop me an email. And if you already work with me, are you doing everything you can to support your body to heal?