I often get asked by clients, why is my so body tight? Or, why are my muscles contracted? Sometimes, it just sneaks up on you - it doesn't seem like you've been doing anything differently lately or if you can remember the cause, that injury happened so long ago, it couldn't possibly be affecting you now... or could it?
Chronic muscular tension comes from two sources, trauma and habituation. Both of these result in pain, decreased range of motion, and are often accompanied by emotional distress.
Let's look at the first cause: trauma. When there is a sudden shock – either physical or emotional – our bodies initiate an instinctive protective response, which helps us to guard the site of the injury. If we stub a toe, we suddenly withdraw the foot and our hands immediately go to touch the hurt, and if that toe keeps throbbing we hobble a little to avoid the pain. In a more serious case such as a car accident or recovery from surgery, our bodies completely reorganize in order to support the healing process. This is generally accomplished by tightening the muscles around the injury and immobilizing the site. As a result of this new restriction, we also make changes in the way we walk, breathe and accomplish day-to-day tasks such as reaching for things, or doing dishes – all to avoid aggravating the trauma.
Within a short while, we get so used to these ‘minor’ compensations that they become habits incorporated into our day-to day lives and we no longer realize that we are moving in limited and unnatural ways. At this point, the brain has learned and fully accepted a new way of organizing movement that works better than the previous way: not because it is fundamentally better but because it better serves the needs at hand. Unfortunately, because these habits and compensations become so thoroughly incorporated into our day-to-day lives, they tend to persist long after the healing is complete and because there is no automatic mechanism that tells the brain, “It’s all better now, please go back to how I moved before the injury,” these compensations can persist even years after the initial trauma. Furthermore, because these ways of moving don’t correspond with how the body is built to move, we create strain on our own muscles and joints that after a time shows up as tension, pain, and inflammation, followed in turn by more compensatory patterns, and so on.
Although trauma is often implicated in chronic pain and tightness, there is another way that these problems can develop, namely habituation. The movements that you do a lot, whether it be driving, typing, or a hobby like golf, require your muscles to operate in specific ways. After some practice, these movements become “easy.” Essentially, the movements have been learned so well that they have been taken over by subconscious control. For example, you can type without looking or have a conversation while driving. But again, the problem with too much subconscious control is that we end up instilling hard-wired patterns of use that have other, unwanted consequences. One problem is that habitually over-used muscles forget how to relax completely and always hold some degree of tension like the all-too-common knotted shoulders. At that point, no matter how much we beg them to relax, the stubborn knots hold out on us, held in their contracted state by that subconscious habituation.
Our brains simply do not discriminate between helpful patterns or hurtful patterns, they just help us in the present to do those things that we habitually do with as much ease as possible. The problem with habitual movement and tension patterns is that they become so deeply ingrained and subconsciously hard-wired that they persist without your conscious control.
Similar to the effects of trauma, these areas of habitual tension and immobility, lead to compensations in other parts of the body and voila, we're no longer using the body in the ways that it is designed to work which creates strain and other problems later on; tight shoulders can turn into frozen shoulders, which can in turn impair proper hip and knee function.
The good news is that much like one easily, and rather spontaneously, learns all of the bad habits and compensations that contribute to the pain and tension one may be experiencing, with a little effort, one can unlearn these and regain proper movement and body function. The brain will just as easily accept and re-learn healthy ways of moving. Human beings are by far the most adaptable species on the planet. We rely much more on what we learn than what is genetically hard-wired. We can replace compensatory learning with intelligent learning and intelligent movement. Furthermore, we can learn very quickly, especially when there is a deliberate and conscious learning process involved, so that the correct habits can be learned in a fraction of the time it took us to adopt all of the negatives.
This re-learning can be accomplished through Hanna Somatics, a type of functional movement education developed by Thomas Hanna, in the tradition of Moshe Feldenkreis. Hanna Somatics consists of intelligent, gentle, and comfortable movements that re-instate our natural movement possibilities and give us back conscious control of our muscles. Often, the benefits of Somatics can be gained more quickly with the help of a trained professional, a Hanna Somatic Educator, who can teach correct movement and do hands-on sessions.
If the tissues themselves are very stuck or the posture has been badly distorted over many years of misuse, a regiment of structural integration therapy, such as Zen Bodytherapy (a type of Rolfing), can help to break up stuck tissues and re-organize fascia, thereby reinstating proper posture and making unrestricted, pain-free movement a reality.
If you have any questions about your particular condition, please feel free to contact us at Ahimsa Bodywork, (510) 495-4449.
RSS Feed