Putting the Moves on Pain

Written by Cheryl Jeane, PT, DPT

Did you know, your body remembers what your mind does not? As our bodies brace because of poor posture, major trauma, minor trauma, (physical or emotional), our fascia remembers and hardens.

Have you said, “I am so stressed, my shoulders (or head) are killing me!”?

Our bodies respond to what is going on in our lives and remember how we feel responding accordingly.

What is happening? How does this happen? A lot of this happens in our fascial system.

Fascia has 3 components – elastin, collagen and a ground substance. The elastin and collagen components are what we are most familiar with and is what is worked on by most of the practitioners. We can also work on these things at home with a foam roller or traditional massage. This effects only 20% of the fascial system. The other 80% is the ground substance.

This is where the “magic” happens! The ground substance is crystalline in nature and should be fluid. With trauma, that fluid portion starts to harden on itself. As this fluid hardens, it can put up to 2000 pounds of pressure on the tissue around it. That pressure can cause immediate pain, or the pain can gradually come on. This does not show up on any imaging such as an MRI, x-ray, etc. When the fluid gets hardened the symptoms can show up away from where the problem is.

This happens because fascia is throughout our body connected like a spider web. In fact, typically when a patient tells me where their pain is, I start looking somewhere else for the problem. As our fascia hardens, the memory of what happened, and the emotions around it, get stored in this area.

For example, someone who had a wreck, came to physical therapy and drove past the scene of the accident making them much tighter and more difficult to work on than when they came to treatment from a different direction. Another example is someone who was rear ended in the rain on the interstate. Every time she drove down the interstate in the rain, the pain in her hip would return!

Our bodies remember what our minds may not.

Having the fascia worked on can help with emotional challenges you may be experiencing and help you to work through emotions. This can help with easing the pain.

How can you help this? One gentle thing you can do is stretch like you did when you were a child. You can also watch your dogs (or cats!) – they stretch every time they get up!) Stretch your arms overhead, then gently move in the direction your body wants to move.

Gentle Yoga can also help. This being said, you can also work with a counselor, see a physical/massage therapist trained with John Barnes Myofascial Release for bodywork, and/or do yoga (especially Yin) to help with managing both pain and emotions.