Let’s talk forces and paradigm shifts.
I worked my tiny little ciliary muscles too hard last weekend, and my first thought was to write about the eye, and the muscles, and the mechanics of it all. The nuts and bolts. The why. I love the why. Here‘s the post.
With another day to reflect, I’ve started thinking about the bigger picture (pun intended). My eye muscles were sore from looking at a screen at a fixed distance for two hours. The feeling was reproducible every time I looked at a computer or my phone at that distance for the next FIVE(!) days. Discomfort is an incredible feedback mechanism. Also, motivator (there’s been a lot less casual phone use this week, I can tell you that!).
Here’s the thing. I know a LOT of people out there look at screens at fixed distances for a LOT longer than two hours, and with a much greater frequency than ONCE. But no one is ever talking about their ciliary soreness (try saying that out loud. It’s catchy.).
Why are we not talking about ciliary soreness??
Well, probably because we aren’t experiencing it!! If you’re used to looking at a screen without eye discomfort, it’s because your eyes are used to it. They’ve got this. And so, with no discomfort for feedback, we go on our merry way and sit and stare at screens 8+ hours a day. This is not to say they are not under tension. That they are not experiencing force. It’s just that the force isn’t causing a painful injury, so we don’t perceive it.
A friend has a foot injury. Small things aggravate it, like having it rest slightly off-flat when she’s sitting. Or the pressure of the blanket on the foot at night. The feedback is discomfort. If you don’t have a foot injury, and you don’t have the feedback, it’s not because there isn’t a force acting on your foot when it’s slightly off-flat or has a blanket pressing on it, it’s because you’re not perceiving it.
That, in a nutshell is why Restorative Exercise is important.
In Restorative Exercise, we explore our body, and how it moves in its environment- whether the environment is the office, forest, or shoe. We learn to be able to perceive the forces that are acting on parts of our bodies, in a way that we would normally not even consider. I’m not saying we walk around all day in awareness-induced discomfort… I’m saying that you can learn to perceive force on body parts by learning that it’s there, how it feels, and how it’s affecting our movement. Discomfort just happens to be the biggest motivator out there, and without it, it’s really, really, really, (scarily) easy to not even realize the forces that we are placing on our bodies and the effect those forces have. Until we blow out our knee playing tag with our kids. Or “take a funny step” and break a bone in our foot. Or “sleep funny” and now we can’t move our neck for a week. Nothing “funny” about it, right?
Big injuries that happen for a seemingly minimal reason happen because of inappropriate forces that are regularly placed on that area. There isn’t one single event that causes the injury…there is one single event that causes discomfort(pain). That area was already “injured”, by definition. It was in a “harmed, damaged, or impaired” state. Please note: I’m definitely not saying that all forces are causing injury. The idea I’m trying to convey is that we don’t perceive the difference between a force that isn’t causing injury and a force that is–until we’re in pain.
Here’s the takeaway Part 1: Injury can occur without discomfort.
It’s a big misconception that a physical ailment began when the pain starts. Chronic physical ailments begin slowly, without pain. A mis-alignment, tension pattern, muscle strength imbalance, etc. occurs and our wonderfully adaptable bodies compensate. This compensation doesn’t hurt, so we don’t notice. What it does do, is weaken other structures until all of a sudden there’s pain. We try to figure out the exact moment the pain began and sometimes that’s easy (picked up my baby and now I can’t stand up straight) and sometimes that’s hard (I’ve always had a bad back). Here’s the paradigm shift… the injury is a symptom. You can fix the symptom temporarily by focusing on the symptom (ice, rest, anti-inflammatories, etc.), but if you want to not have the symptom come back, you have to figure out the cause. Spoiler alert: the cause is probably (nearly certainly) not in the same area as the symptom. (The examples that follow aren’t diagnostic, or exhaustive… but I wanted to provide some insight into how far away the cause may be from the symptom.)
Plantar fasciitis got you down? Stop adding to your orthotic collection, and figure out why there’s that much force on those muscles that they hurt every time you take a step. (…has your glute strength been evaluated?)
Tension headache of the week? Stop taking pills and figure out why there’s so much tension there that you get a headache from it. (…it could be your tight calves!)
Your sore back is flaring up? Get up off the couch and figure out why your back is having to work so hard that it flares! Where is the inappropriate force and why? (…we’ll probably look first at the feet, then the hips, and probably at the shoulders too.)
Here’s the takeaway Part 2: If we can perceive a force that is injuring us (even without feeling discomfort!), we can reduce or eliminate that force by learning a more aligned way to perform the movement.
If you reduce the injurious force, you reduce the injury. If you reduce the injury, you reduce current and/or future discomfort (aka pain). This isn’t rehab, this is prehab. This is also posthab (A physiotherapist, chiropractor, massage therapist, osteopath, etc. can be your best friend to help you out of the acute phase of a discomfort-causing injury. Then come see me!). You can heal yourself before you’re actually in pain, or once you’ve recovered from a painful injury that you’d like to not repeat. There are so many common physical ailments that can be addressed through this work. If you’d like to continue this conversation, I would love to hear from you.
And, of course, May the 4th be with you.