If you have been suffering from chronic pain and post-accident trauma symptoms and just feel you are not getting better, read the interview with Dr. Susanne Babbel and Mindy Marantz, to find out why it is important to align your body’s and your mind’s wisdom for your recovery.
What does psychological stress do to you physically?
Studies have shown that chronic pain might not only be caused by physical injury but also by stress and emotional issues. The more anxious and stressed you are, the more tense and constricted your muscles can become. As a result, they may fatigue and be inefficient over time. For that reason, just stretching or massaging your muscles may not accomplish the goal of being active without underlying muscle tension….treating the whole person is important.
Peter Levine explains: “The rain of pain is mainly in your brain.”
Many people are already familiar that emotional stress can lead to stomachaches, irritable bowel syndrome, and headaches but might not know that it can produce other physical complaints and chronic pain. However, these are not new discoveries; researchers have studied the mind body interrelationship for several decades because they saw the importance of this link.
One might also develop psychosomatic symptoms or stress-related symptoms because of unresolved emotional issues that they have not dealt with and which are causing physiological as well as mental health issues.
Unresolved memories might hinder the healing of physical injuries or medical procedures as well. Additionally, stress hormones such as cortisol increase your blood pressure and blood sugar which can reduce your immune system’s ability to heal. For example, one woman, who already felt emotionally stressed due to a break-up with her boyfriend, found that when she had a car accident she could not find relief from her pain until she dealt with her emotional loss as well.
Often, pain has the function of warning a person that there is still something to work on. It can point to a need for emotional healing.
When your body is in pain and you are not healing the way you should, there might be emotional issues, waiting to be resolved.
Therefore, a combination of psychotherapy and physical therapy might be the best pain management option to reduce stress and recover from your chronic pain when nothing has worked so far.
Please, read the following interview with Mindy Marantz:
Mindy Marantz is the director and clinician at the Healthwell Physical Therapy Group in San Francisco and is currently active in the National Pain Foundation.
Dr. Babbel:
Mindy, your clinic has been very successful addressing chronic pain when people thought there was no way out. What have you noticed that makes it easier or more difficult for people to recover?
Mindy Marantz:
First of all, when an individual picks up the phone to call for help, recovery has begun. Our initial job at Healthwell, as I see it, is to help guide the individual through the biomechanical mechanisms which help the body heal. This is relatively easy. We help focus on alignment and the postural attitudes that support organized alignment. This can very quickly reduce pain intensity.
We also address inflammation, and we immediately provide strategies to help calm the nervous system, like Craniosacral therapy or Feldenkrais Movement Re-education.
These both will also help “stoke” the lymphatic system, which in turn helps diminish the effects of fluids that pool as a result of injury. We use lymphatic massage as well as compression wraps and education to help bring this often overlooked pathway to recovery to our patients’ attention.
Beginning a daily program of walking and helping to mobilize the muscles is the best way to stimulate the lymphatics to do their job and oxygenate injured muscles!
Finally, we help our patients reflect on their lifestyle, and the things that contribute to their wellness, and those habits which will tend to slow their recovery.
Our care is about them, carving out a time frame to focus on their well-being and health. This is the realm where recovery occurs best. Optimally, a patient will be fortunate enough to find concomitant care by a somatic psychologist to help dissipate the deeper impact of trauma, which is why our clinic often works with Dr. Babbel.
Please e-mail or call Dr. Babbel at Susanne@bodyconversations for a FREE handout on “Specific Techniques and Resources to Help you Ease your Pain.” This handout was prepared in collaboration with Mindy Marantz.
If you have further questions for Mindy Marantz please visit her website www.healthwellpt.com
