Engaging with any therapy treatment is a courageous step when you're in pain.
If you are dealing with any type of chronic pain in your body, the choice to engage with and try out any manual therapy approach is a huge step no matter if you’ve been dealing with these experiences alone for 2 weeks or 20 years.
I resisted seeking help when I was injured, I thought i could do it alone.
when I had my injury, The way I found that worked in the end, was the most counterintuitive thing of all...
sitting with all the feelings, with a tonne of compassion.
***a shit tonne of compassion
***if I’m being totally honest, throwing in a huge load of patience wouldn’t hurt either.
So why mention these things at all?
When we interact with sensations in the body, through therapeutic touch, mindfulness, embodiment and somatic practices,
We are also interacting with the body’s internal systems:
It’s fight, flight, or freeze response,
Including all the hormones associated with it,
Our heart rate,
Our breathing,
Our neurological reactions,
Our fascial web
Billions of nerve endings including danger sensing nerves (nociceptors),
And Our brain's 3D map of where everything is
And all this integrates into our perception of how we feel, with our emotional, motor, sensory, memory, homeostatic and limbic systems of our brain.
It makes sense that after a treatment you may be feeling brilliant!
But you may also be feeling:
Tired.
Achy.
Maybe you have more sensation in an area that previously was lower.
A little wobbly, like you’ve got to find your way with the new feelings/sensations.
Maybe you’ve got something on your mind.
Maybe you’re feeling uncertain.
The point is that you could be feeling a whole host of ways.
So what can we do to help ourselves settle after a treatment?
Here are my top 8 tips for self-care after a session.
I’m going to start with the most obvious one, and perhaps the hardest one to be.
Be kind & compassionate to yourself.
It’s perhaps one of the hardest to do, right from the start.
This makes sense because the people who’ve meditated for 25 years, have learnt to become embodied & feel their way into releasing & relaxing the things inside that are stuck.
This group tend to be able to work through how they’re feeling really well after an injury.
But for the rest of us, this first one is actually the essence of how to get towards those 25-year meditators.
The trick is to approach the feelings inside with kindness and without judgement.
When we don’t judge them to be right or wrong, & they can be just a thing moment to moment that we feel, with no anxiety about the consequences of whether they’re going to hang around too long, or how work is going to go tomorrow, then weirdly they tend to move right along quite smoothly.
So, my message to you today, is it’s totally ok to be feeling a bit well, different, and offering those feelings a mental hug is one of the best ways to just sit gently with that friend inside.
Drink plenty of water
I’m sure you’ve heard this one before.
I’ve definitely heard it at spas. I’m not saying it in a whisper.
So many bodily systems improve when you’re not dehydrated.
Headaches from the membranes being dehydrated around the brain – are actually a thing.
Most of all fascia has been studied in populations dealing with chronic pain, and it’s been shown that fascia contracts and dehydrates in those with long term pain conditions.
It also creates a higher density of danger sensing nerves.
We might not be able to down regulate those nociceptors immediately, but hydrated fascia is definitely going to be highly beneficial to how you move and how you feel.
Have a warm bath or a hot water bottle.
Heat is your best friend for chronic pain that’s not occurring from swelling and inflammation – which is often the case.
Heat does a wonderful thing to your nervous system as a whole, offering it deep relaxation, which takes you towards the parasympathetic state, which is your rest, digest, restore and heal.
please don’t rush back to work or stress
It’s really jarring to a nervous system to be taken into deeper internal states that really start acknowledging depth in your body-mind-spirit, only to say: “I pencilled this 60 minutes in, that’s your lot, we’ve got tasks to do.”
Genuinely it’s not advisable and will likely create turbulence inside.
I know this isn’t always possible, we all lead busy lives full of expanding to do lists.
Hey, I get it, I’m actually writing this one after a treatment, not fully taking my own advice.
But I have met my need to run a business halfway. I’ve had a few hours off after a particularly helpful but deep treatment, I haven’t rushed home, I’ve walked slowly to trains while my headache was heightened, and my temperature felt all over the place (something that happens when your brain gets impacted).
I’ve moved in a way that my Mum would have said: “are we on a go slow”. (I was a notorious child of not feeling the stress on a school morning!)
Sometimes we have to compromise but doing it in a way of awareness and with the compassion means that slowly we can ride these change waves more smoothly and more easily, without them impacting life.
And that to me is a sign that someone is making huge strides out of chronic pain.
They’re resourced, they’re embodied, and they know themselves!
Talking to friends and family:
It’s an obvious one again, but time connecting, laughing and being is a wonderful thing.
Connection in my opinion is the stuff of life and why we are here to witness this wonderful moment to moment place of co-creation together.
A walk in nature, forests/woodland
There are so many studies showing how our health improves when we are outside and in nature.
We can talk about how this can be an active meditation and mindfulness route for mental and physical health.
I can also share my favourite piece of new science that trees secrete a hormone into the air that lowers our blood pressure and reduces stress and anxiety. [1,2,3,4,5]
The quantity of these monoterpenes is particularly highest after local rain, alongside benefits under the canopy of cleaner air and improved oxygen levels.
So next time you’re in a woodland and are not only looking up at the wonderful autumn colours, take a deep breath and take in a natural process that until recently we didn’t even know was happening, but knew that hospital patients recovering in a room with views to trees and plants outside, recovered on average faster!
reduce stress with essential oils.
Interestingly many of the essential oils we love are derivatives of the very airborne chemicals that trees release.
Popping on your diffuser for an hour or too with a lovely book for further relaxation is a great way to smooth out how you’re feeling even further.
I’ll talk more on this another time, but something as simple as a lavender candle is a wonderful choice. [6]
Mindfulness with a cup of tea
Holding a warm cup in your hands and remembering the feeling later has been shown to aid individuals in the lab to visualise the feeling of warmth in their hands.
Interestingly even without the tea during the visualisation hand temperatures increased alongside reduced blood pressure.
With so many forms of mindfulness out there, whichever one speaks to you is the one to enjoy and engage with.
The most important message is learning to be with what is coming up in a kind and loving way.
There they are, 8 suggestions, and they all are valid forms of self-care.
I’m sure I have missed some, as there are so many options to play with.
The heart of these activities are acts of mindfulness and self-compassion.
Having external sources like nature, heat, a friend’s presence, are all external ways that offer the lens of kindness and compassion and enable us to access mindfulness gently with the right mental tones.
For now, be kind to yourself, know that where you are is the right place to be, and part of an ongoing journey of self-discovery.
This work is demanding of ourselves, but worth the effort to build a kinder, happier and more empathetic world, both to our loved ones and the environment that sustains us.
References
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