Healthy Living DIY

Before we go any farther, let's consider one question you might have. Often, people ask me if they should pursue an energy-based solution or a physical solution for their particular condition. My answer is -- almost always -- both.

Once a condition has shown up in the physical body, treating it in the physical is almost always appropriate. Yet if the person continues right on doing the same things that led to it, the physical "fix," if it works out, will often be temporary. The solution is easy. Do both.

Headache research

In 1999-2000 I was fortunate enough to be involved in a research study (sponsored by a large hospital system in Detroit, MI) on soft tissue involvement with chronic headaches.

At first, I was reluctant to participate. After several years of mixed results with trying to change people's posture for them, it had become pretty clear to me that the person's way of being in the world had a lot to do with the way their body showed up -- including their posture. "Wouldn't it be better to cut to the chase and help people sort out their way of being," I thought "rather than wasting all this time and energy treating the end result?"

To me, it was obvious that the person's way of being led to their posture, which ultimately led to their pain problems. I've learned two very important things since then:

1. To the rest of the world, those connections are less than obvious. In fact, lots of people have trouble wrapping their brains around the possibility that posture could have anything to do with their pain problem, much less that they have any measure of ability to influence it.
2. It's not sufficient to just address the underlying cause. Once the condition has been made physical, it also needs to be addressed at the physical level. In some cases, it's the preferable place to start.

[Just in case you wondered, that's not all I've learned since then...]

Meet Clara

One of the participants in our headache study was a woman I'll call Clara. She was around age 50 at the time of the study, and she'd been plagued by "cervicogenic" headaches for years. In plain English, she had a long history of chronic tension-type headaches.

The first thing we did with a new patient was evaluate their posture. Our theory was that faulty posture compressed nerves, compromised circulation, and created unhealthy tissue -- all of which referred or contributed to head pain. When we looked at Clara, she had a significant head-forward posture and more than three times the normal amount of pelvic / hip flexion.

On what I'll call the "breakthrough" day, I was the therapist in charge of Clara's treatment session. She'd already had ten or twelve sessions of therapy where we'd done our usual strategies for reducing pelvic flexion and minimizing a head-forward posture. We hadn't gotten very far. She still had the flexion, still had the head-forward posture, and still had the headaches.

Clara was her usual pleasant self, but we were all getting a little frustrated. I quickly racked my brain to think of something new to try. "Aha!" I thought. "Why not check her abdominal organs?" (FYI the organs are soft tissue, so they're fair game.)

Well, we started to work and her abdomen was tight, tight, tight. "Good find," we said, and kept going. As the session progressed, things started to loosen up.

"Why is my abdomen so tight?" Clara asked.

It's a question that's almost impossible to answer from the outside, so I inquired back to her, "When you were a little girl, would you get stomach aches when you were worried about something or had a big test at school?"

"Absolutely," she said. "That's me in a nutshell."

So without drawing this story out any further, here was the situation.

• Clara, for 40 years if not more, had a habit of getting tight in the tummy any time she was anxious or worried about something. Which, as it turns out, was fairly often.
• That tight tummy changed her pelvic alignment.
• Which changed her head position.
• Which created her headaches.

Once we got to the bottom of things at the physical level and loosened up Clara's abdomen, her headaches improved immensely. I know this because she thanked us over and over again! That's the physical part.

You can see for yourself, I'm sure, that if she continued to have a lot of anxiety and stress in her life and deal with it in the same way (tightening her gut), that her posture would go back to the old pattern and the headaches would come back.

For Clara and people like her, the real answer about whether to do physical work or an energy approach is clear. Do both.

Address the physical symptoms. Address the stress-makers and lifestyle challenges around you. Feel much better!

P.S. Headache people: find someone that really understands how posture changes your head and neck position. There's a lot more involved than I have space for in this article. One place to look for a referral in your area is here: http://www.stjohnseminars.com.