{"id":152,"date":"2011-10-24T22:23:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T22:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/somatics.com\/wordpress\/?p=152"},"modified":"2016-04-17T13:43:43","modified_gmt":"2016-04-17T20:43:43","slug":"back-spasms-the-inside-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somatics.com\/wordpress\/back-spasms-the-inside-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Back Spasms — The Inside Story | Stress Muscularly Expressed"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"the<\/a>
Outside View of Back<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back spasms catch us “unawares”<\/strong>,<\/h2>\n

so to speak.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

But here’s the odd thing:\u00a0 when a back spasm happens, it’s most often been coming for a long time.<\/p>\n

The Back Story of Most Back Pain<\/h1>\n

Back during a period of prolonged high stress \u2014 maybe during an employment crisis or facing deadline after deadline<\/em> after deadline<\/strong> \u2014 you got yourself used to driving yourself hard or used to being in a state of urgency.\u00a0 Maybe you listen to too much news or talk radio and get “wound up”.\u00a0 Maybe you stayed too long in a situation you really wanted to get out of, or maybe you put and kept yourself in uncomfortable positions, by sense of necessity, that you would rather have gotten out of, and got part-way used to that, while keeping going.\u00a0 Or maybe you just \u201ctrained\u201d badly or trained on top of old injuries.\u00a0 You\u2019re musclebound, whatever the story, and ended up having a back spasm.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been coming for a long time, your back spasm \u2014 you\u2019ve been getting closer to the edge of cramp or spasm for a long time<\/em>.\u00a0 You got so used to being tense and stiff that, one day, you pulled on that tenseness and stiffness and it pulled you right back, something like an internally generated whiplash action.<\/p>\n

What If It Was a Whiplash Incident?<\/h1>\n

Maybe you were<\/strong> involved in an accident that yanked or jerked or jolted you a bit too much.<\/p>\n

Then, you tightened up suddenly, experienced a sudden yank-back, and you knew you were caught.\u00a0 What started as a protective stiffening became a back spasm.<\/p>\n

Back Spasms Come from and Are Maintained by Muscle\/Movement Memory<\/h1>\n

“Caught in your own conditioning”\u2013 thinking about that — your back spasms come from your conditioning — how you remember your back muscles’ “normal” (habituated) condition.<\/p>\n

We all caught in our conditioning, our memories of how things are, to varying degrees and in different ways.\u00a0 Had you noticed?<\/p>\n

However, sometimes, it\u2019s just too much, and with just one more challenge we suddenly go hard-line, uptight, tense, caught in the grip of our own conditioning, in spasm, body and mind (two aspects of the same thing).\u00a0 Think about it:\u00a0 didn\u2019t your back spasm stop you in your tracks? mid-step?\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t just \u201ca back spasm<\/em>\u201c; it was a “you spasm<\/strong><\/em>\u201c.<\/p>\n

The Problem with a “You Spasm”<\/h2>\n

Not enough capacity, not enough tolerance for additional demand.\u00a0 On edge, trying to be nice, perhaps.\u00a0 Not much more capacity for stress, however.\u00a0 Used up, or close to it, in the grip.<\/p>\n

The solution?<\/p>\n

Recover much of that reserve capacity by dispeling obsolete tension patterns.\u00a0 Lose the excess tension.\u00a0 Get back to normal.\u00a0 Recover your reserve capacity.\u00a0 Feel like a human being.\u00a0 You may have forgotten what that feels like and you may not have known that you can do it, yourself.<\/p>\n

Common Back Spasms are Simple<\/h1>\n

“Simple When You Know How”<\/p>\n

Common Back Pain is a fairly simple condition to master.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a primitive \u201cgo\u201d reaction (\u201cLandau Reaction<\/a>\u201c) turned on too hard and too long.\u00a0 You\u2019re overheated; you\u2019re idling too high.\u00a0 You can learn to turn this reflex (Landau Reaction) down and up again, temper it, recover a bunch of reserve capacity, flexibility and freedom of movement.\u00a0 No more spasm, no more back pain, more reserve capacity, more movability.<\/p>\n

Back Spasms from Injury are More Complex, Take More Doing to Clear Up<\/h1>\n

Back pain from injury may consist of a number of overlying contraction patterns.\u00a0 However, bending over or twisting and getting a spasm isn\u2019t an injury; it\u2019s a malfunction that falls under \u201cCommon Back Pain\u201d.\u00a0 Recovering from a complicated injury isn\u2019t more difficult, particularly; it just takes more steps, some sorting out, and more doing, of course.<\/p>\n

The same principle applies, either way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recover voluntary (deliberate) control of the muscular grip and let it relax, then deliberately use it freely and so reclaim it.\u00a0 Strength, reserve capacity, free control.\u00a0 Security.<\/p>\n

One Right Reason<\/h1>\n

That\u2019s one very good purpose of somatic education \u2014 to get people out of pain.\u00a0 It\u2019s effective, it\u2019s faster than more well-known or popularized methods, and it brings durable benefits under all life conditions.<\/p>\n

Different \u2014 and More Like Yourself<\/h1>\n

A larger effect of somatic education is to train people to free themselves from the excessive grip of their conditioning; to re-acquaint people with what it feels like to feel fine;\u00a0 so people feel different <\/strong><\/em>and more like themselves<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Relief comes primarily from what the person does, secondarily from what someone else did with the person.\u00a0 If you do sessions of this process, you contribute at least 50% to the change, moving between effort and non-effort (in clinical sessions), or more like 90% if you\u2019re working at a distance from me (Lawrence Gold) following recorded instructional material and taking distance-coaching<\/a>, as needed.<\/p>\n

Because the person is contributing energy, intention, and intelligence to the process, and because they\u2019re changing from within (if guided from out), the change is theirs<\/em> \u2014 theirs to maintain or theirs to re-create, if necessary.\u00a0 More than that, it\u2019s faster<\/em> than by externally operating methods, whether scalpel, laser, or stretching device (“spinal decompression”), longer-lasting than manipulations or interventions of many kinds.\u00a0 It\u2019s longer-lasting because it covers more of the bases and from the internal control center, the self, oneself, and faster because it works from the inside, out.<\/p>\n

MORE ON BACK SPASMS, DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES<\/strong><\/p>\n