by Rachel Katz, P.T.
Mind body often means that we use our minds to talk to our bodies to improve how we’re doing. It could be saying an affirmation, “I can lose 5 pounds”. It can be calming ourselves, “OK, settle down, take some deep breaths”. It can be rehearsing athletic moves, like mentally practicing a basketball free throw. Or, mind body can mean dialogue the body holds with the mind. This is usually the least familiar form of mind body healing.
Mind body communication is a complicated process. A favorite Gary Larson cartoon always comes to my mind when I think about the difficulties of talking to our bodies. The top half of the cartoon is titled: What we say to dogs. In this cartoon, a man is telling his dog, “Ginger, stay out of the garbage. That’s it, I’ve had it, Ginger”. The lower half of the image is titled what dogs hear. Ginger hears “Ginger, blah blah blah. Blah blah blah, Ginger.” For us, we can say to our bodies “hold my shoulders back”, “relax”, “feel better”, or a number of other messages but our body may hear only “blah blah blah, Ginger”.
Why is this so? Part of the answer is that the talking parts of the brain have only been around a very short time in the great scheme of evolution. The brain parts that control the spine, arms and legs for movement, and the parts that interpret sensations, images, sight and sound, and the gut sense have been around considerably longer.
Let’s use some rough numbers. Research suggests speech is less than 500,000 years old. Mammals evolved about 200 million years ago. This makes the talking connections in the brain only ¼ of one percent as well connected to the whole brain as are the sensory and movement pathways, brain nuclei, and association areas and parts of the deeper brain.
So, to get a good conversation going with the body, the common language needs to be the realm of sensations, movements, emotions and thoughts that tie into a perceivable feeling in the body.
In MIND BODY PHYSICAL THERAPY this translates into increasing awareness of sensations, awareness of joint position and movement information sent by muscles, joints, skin, and the balance system. It can also mean attending to important mental messages and emotions.
Let’s look at two examples of how a mind body framework might be relevant to a person’s health. First we’ll take a person who injures their leg in a bike riding accident. The person skids their wheels on gravel, their right leg comes off the pedal as part of an instinctive balance reaction, is twisted and is broken. The leg is casted and the bone heals. Now the cast comes off. The person may have not only the stiffness from the limb being casted but stiffness from the protective reaction that the leg performed during the accident.
For many people the protective stiffness abates with a return to normal activities. It becomes a non-issue. For other people however, especially people who have had numerous experiences of distancing themselves from uncomfortable sensations in their bodies, recovery is harder. Progress with healing is slower, more difficult, more painful, and the limb does not readily return to normal. Therapy that addresses the underlying holding pattern and frees it, gets the healing back on course.
Now let’s take an example of a person who’s under a lot of stress. It could be from financial pressure, struggling with a child’s behavior, the health of a parent, sustained job pressure, or from conflict in your marriage. When there is pressure and tension affecting a person in a fairly global way, all of the muscle systems become tighter.
This person may have an upset stomach, tension in the neck and shoulders, difficulty calming down and experiencing periods of time free from the stress. Falling asleep and staying in restful sleep may be difficult. A person may engage in distracting and nonproductive behaviors as a way to cope with generalized increased energy levels that do not have an outlet.
This sort of health challenge is usually looked at and treated from a psychological standpoint and with psychological and behavioral methods. If the problem is very entrenched, therapy that focuses on the body itself can be of value and speed progress.
Hands on attention to the tight areas whether it’s the neck region or the belly, can be combined with dialogue about the sensations that arise, the emotions that arise, and possible solutions and coping strategies that feel right to the body. Touch therapy doesn’t have to be directed at old issues, it can be about building new connections to one’s self in a current situation. The combination of supporting and helping the body experience calming can work from the bottom up to help the mind calm down.
Research has been done to find out which psychological methods lead to successful treatment. Research has established that the common link for success is: the person taps into their internal sensations, their deep bodily knowledge, their inward awareness. This skill can be learned, or already exist but is essential for success.
Psychotherapy is undergoing an enormous shift to more body centered types of treatment. Having a professional in the body work field who can safely, teach, expand, and support inward bodily awareness is a holistic way to compliment healing that is traditionally addressed through only psychological means.
In summary, MIND BODY PHYSICAL THERAPY can mean better healing for illness, injury or stress whether the problem is physical, psychological or both.