SOS
A phrase we have all probably been told at some point in our lives is to “just push through the pain”. Whether it be at work, in parenting, in fitness or just everyday life, pain often gets silenced, normalized, or just brushed under the rug. That back pain gets ignored, the headaches don’t get addressed, and you go on in life just dealing with it. This all comes with a cost, often far louder and bigger than the initial problem. First, we need to establish what pain is. Pain is not the problem but rather the signal your nervous system is sending to tell you something is wrong. If the fire alarm in your house is going off you don’t assume that the alarm is the problem and rip it out, do you?
I hope not, because it is telling you that there is a bigger problem in your home…FIRE! Pain is the fire alarm in this scenario. It is going off to tell you there is something wrong in your body. In most cases, pain is the final stage in the protection process; the SOS signal if you will, meaning your body has tried to compensate for and adapt to the dysfunction or problem and has run out of options. Your body sends you signals long before this last SOS signal of pain. These earlier signals show up as tension, fatigue, restricted movement, headaches, digestive dysfunction, the list goes on and on. When you push through pain on a regular basis your nervous system adapts and alters functions. Your nervous system stays in a heightened state of “fight or flight” to deal with the chronic pain or unresolved stress.
This may feel like tense restricted muscles and joints, shallow breathing, poor recovery, or difficulty relaxing or sleeping. When this is occurring something must give, so other areas will compensate or pick up the slack, if you will, for the teammate that’s not pulling their weight. If you feel like your right hip is bothering you when you lift, your left knee joint is wearing down quicker than the right, you are starting to get pain in your mid back that you have never had, it could be compensatory due to a greater underlying issue. All this to say, the original issue is still there and still needs addressed, it is just buried under layers of compensation. Dealing with pain for long periods of time makes your nervous system less accurate to these signals.
People’s nervous systems can react differently to this. Some people may be hypersensitive to pain, i.e. low pain tolerance, but others may be missing the signals all together and experience things like numbness. Neither of these are ideal for long-term health. To avoid this cascade of signals, becoming aware of the signals your nervous system is sending is crucial. In the office our main concern is how well your nervous system is communicating with your body and recognizing when there are distorted or altered signals being sent to and from your nervous system. By adjusting your spine, we can reduce the interruptions and help your nervous system get out of patterns of adaptation and back to functioning how it was designed to. Fortunately, your nervous system is smarter than you, and you can’t force it “to push through the pain”.
