Chronic Pain - a long read bt hopefully worth it for anxious types, ADD types and for those with chronic pain!
I am in two minds as to whether this should be a separate post, as I know several BrainEv-ers who have chronic pain, and this may be of interest to them.
In Level 5 I was confronted with muscle problems in my body. Every part of my head ached if I touched it firmly. If I pressed my gums each root was so painful I could have believed I had an abscess.
Prior to Brain Ev I tended to think my stiff neck and back (not painful yet!) were inherited from my mother, who has had severe back problems, osteoporosis, neck disorders etc. In other words I believed it was genetic and compounded by lack of exercise. Then I got tendonitus in my shoulder - acutely painful, shockingly so, and it took two years to heal complete with cortisone shots into the tendons
! No sooner had this improved than it started up in the elbow of the same arm. Arrgghhh!
As I progressed through level 5 the head and neck pain really showed up as tension. My head felt as if it might explode, and pressure on any soft tissue hurt. It worried me because the pain was obviously indicating that something extensive and major was afoot. I developed a massage based on pressure that totally removed it. Weeks later I am still pain free if I press the soft tissue. But it was a clue to me that all is not as nature intended it do be. I accepted that I have tight, wired, tense muscles including tiny ones under my eyes, or at my temples etc. Anywhere I pressed hurt. Large muscles, especially my neck and shoulder muscles were exceptionally tender upon pressure or massage.
So my adventure began. Why would brainwave entrainment draw my attention to how sore my muscles in my upper torso are?Jim Robbins wrote convincingly in Symphony in the Brain (a kind of metastudy of the various developments in entrainment technology and methodology), that anxious-typed (like me) may get stuck in fight or flight mode, literally the fear and tension never abate, which over time becomes chronic, we suppress the anxiety stuff, and eventually this leads to chronic muscle pain particularly in the head and neck. He visited neurobiofeedback specialist, Les Fehmi of Open Focus, and tested his method for treating anxiety at its source (a learned narrow-focus form of attention that keeps people stuck in beta-frazzle), et voila, the muscles softened too and chronic pain was gone for good.
I am currently doing one 30 minute session per day of Open Focus, besides my BrainEv (don't forget I have graduated and am on round 2, so I am free to play and experiment!). The jury is still out as I should be doing two sessions per day for at least 6 to 8 weeks. So too early to make any comments yet.
Nonetheless there are others out there with chronic pain, which may be caused by chronic anxiety and several years to ensure the pain gets really habitual. So here is an extract from Les Fehmi's book "The Open Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body".
"The human body comprises more than 650 separate muscles. [...]Indeed, humans of all ages are sensitive to stress on the muscular level. Muscles tense throughout our bodies to keep us from feeling the unpleasant stress that occurs in the emergency mode of attending [read fight or flight mode and how we pay attention in this state]. Some of those muscles can stay tensed for years or even a lifetime.
It is as if the energy of fear gets trapped in those muscles. (bold effect is mine). The fear is not gone though; it's just hidden from consciousness. In addition to keeping the feeling of fear locked in our bodies, tense muscles also cause chronic pain. To finally release our underlying anxiety, we need to dwell in Open Focus (
this is done through a guided meditation where we learn to diffuse our focus of attention away from narrow-focus to a wide-beam, supple focus / my note of explanation), which gradually wakes up this tension to be felt again, and then released. When we find the tension, it is a gift - for once it is made conscious, it can be completely dissolved." [extract page 62].
I think this is precisely what happened at levels 4 and intensely at level 5. I came back in touch with my muscle tension - and it hurt. Interestingly, if you read back over my level 5 experiences I also perceived this to be a gift, and even more so the fact that I spontaneously 'knew' how to heal myself.
Here is Fehmi's explanation for how fear gets 'trapped' in our muscles, leading to chronic pain over time.
"When we narrow focus we engage our fight or flight response, which tamps down some physiological systems that aren't needed for emergency (
attack or flee) - immune and digestive functions, for example, get put on the back burner - and ramps up others that are needed, such as muscle tone, quickness of mind, and heart and respiratory rates. [....]
Large muscles become more highly toned during an emergency, preparing us for an attack or an escape, and so chronic narrow-objective attention (a way we learn to pay attention) causes chronic muscle pain. Emergencies slow introspection and induce externally orientated, narrow attention, scanning the environment. And because blood flow is reduced in the frontal lobes of the brain during the stress response, executive functions such as thinking become reactive (
and boy, was I reactive prior to Brain Ev) rather than penetrating and deductive; as a result, one's ability to exercise good judgment and pay appropriate and effective attention is hampered. This explains, in part, why there is such an epidemic of ADD and ADHD." [page 44]
"As we move into Open Focus (
or in our case, Brain Ev) the entire central nervous system starts to move out of emergency mode and recover from stress. The brain's electrical activity drops from beta, in the 15 to 45 hertz range (
clearly my beta-frazzle zone lies within this range), to the lower, more relaxed frequencies of 5 - 15 hertz, a range that encompasses theta, alpha, and the sensory-motor rhythm (SRM). The sympathetic autonomic nervous system, which engages fight or flight, quiets [...]. Blood flow increases again into the many parts of the body where it had been diminished, bringing them back online, healing them, and improving their function. Different parts of the brain are stimulated by changed blood flow, and neural patterns in the brain shift. Thinking becomes less strategic and more reasoned. There is less generalised fearfulness and anxiety. It becomes easier to sustain attention. Sleep comes more easily. Muscles - from our eye and face muscles to the heart, lungs, and large peripheral muscle groups - enjoy increased blood flow and become more relaxed and less tense. The longer we dwell in this open-attention realm, the more the body is allowed to recover and the more healing takes place. That is, stress diffuses as Open Focus expands." [page 46]
Note: I am NOT endorsing Open Focus at all as I have yet to complete my fourth session. I included this final paragraph as it mirrors exactly my experience of what happened to me as I experienced levels 1 and 2 and 3 of Brain Ev. Prior to starting, I was so highly strung and locked into beta-frazzle that I could neither relax, nor sleep, nor change my rigid mental perspectives. Access to alpha in levels 1, 2 and 3 provided a magical restorative experience for me. Interestingly Open Focus gets us to focus our attention on spaces (i.e. between our eyes, in our nose, between our fingers, in our throats etc via guided meditation, which Fehmi claims puts us in an instant alpha frequency state). Just the task of focusing on the space between our eyes flips the alpha switch, as alpha kicks in when we release and loose boundaries). Many yoga disciplines and some meditation practices also ask us to focus our attention between our eyes while looking slightly upwards. Anna Wise suggests flicking our eyes upwards to start up alpha waves. Fehmi indicates that several hours of alpha are required to release this build-up of chronic stress. With BrainEv we get 30 mins/day. I thought these parallels are a form of converging evidence and may be interesting to some of us with anxiety, ADD-type issues, and chronic pain.
Thank you for taking the time to read all of this. I hope it inspires you as much as me. I am now getting 30 mins alpha from Brain Ev (level 1/round 2) and 30 mins self-induced alpha via Open Focus. It will be interesting to see what evolves, particulary regarding my levels of muscle tension and tenderness to touch and even my tennis elbow.
I would value the input and feedback of others, if you feel like sharing.
Enjoy your session and may you be far less tense, both mentally and physically, Pure Bliss
Topic: Bliss is back! Level 1 Round 2 (Read 398 times)
