by Peter Winslow
The pain of Ankylosing Spondylitis can strike at any time. Your medical treatment plan provides you with medications for pain relief, but wouldn’t you also like to have a few safe and natural ways to relieve the pain?
Now you do. Use these simple techniques to relieve light to moderate Ankylosing Spondylitis pain whenever it suits you.
1. Hug somebody. The best part about hugging someone you care about is that you get hugged back. Physical touch is a powerful mood-booster and relaxation technique, so reach out and touch someone you love.
2. Break from your routine. When pain strikes, take a break. Get out of your chair, take a deep breath and walk out of the room for a while. If you’re outdoors, go sit on a bench and talk with the person next to you. If you’re at lunch, get up and take a few laps around the building. Breaking out of your habitual activity for a short while distracts you, which relieves AS pain.
3. Take a hot shower. Most Ankylosing Spondylitis pain originates in the tissues surrounding the joints. Running warm water over your body helps reduce inflammation and relaxes the muscles that naturally tense up with the pain.
4. Focus on potential underlying stress. When the pain strikes, try this: Direct your focus to what is going on in your life right now. What’s on your mind? What’s happening in your day? Are you feeling stress from deadlines, worry, anxiety, the busy schedule, conflict with a friend? All of these stressors can exacerbate AS pain. Take a mental inventory of what might be troubling you and use a relaxation technique to let it go—even if just for a little while.
5. Laugh. It really is the best medicine. Engage in a conversation with that co-worker who always tickles your funny bone; google your favorite jokes and parodies; or go back through all those hilarious emails you saved from friends in cyberspace.
6. Groove to the music. Keep your favorite relaxation CD at the office, the car, or wherever you’re likely to need it most. Music diverts your attention and calms your mind which in turn, calms your body. It’s true—a calmer mind and body always reduces the onset of chronic pain.
7. Breath. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Now take five deep breaths through your nose and send them straight down your spine all the way to its base. This creates immediate benefits as more oxygen is delivered to the parts of your body that want pain relief. You’ll soon find that this quick and effective relaxation and pain-reduction technique can work wonders.
8. Take time for tea. Chamomile tea has a calming effect on the nerves, relieving chronic pain. Any hot tea without caffeine can help relax you, which can relieve the pain of Ankylosing Spondylitis.
Peter
by Peter Winslow
In this series of blog posts I list the skills and beliefs that helped me defeat the addiction, depression, pain and symptoms of Ankylosing Spondylitis that I endured for more than a decade.
By understanding and using them appropriately, you will achieve notable progress in your own quest for relief, wellness and freedom from the challenges of life with AS.
First, let’s review.
In the last blog post (Your Most Powerful Ally) I talked about the fact that we tend to think of many of our challenges as “problems.” In truth, focusing on a “problem” most often makes it stronger, more frustrating and more insurmountable. This is because of a basic rule of human psychology: What we focus on expands, and eventually comes to dominate our lives.
As Einstein put it, “We cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” He meant that to produce the results we want, we’ve got to shift away from the mindset that is deeply focused on the “problem” and use that energy to focus only on a positive outcome.
In those moments when you are being brutally honest with yourself, you will discover your own tendency to think of AS as a “problem.” Perhaps you believe it to be a problem that someone else may some day resolve for you. Until that day arrives, you have a choice to make: Improve your situation, or deteriorate into more pain and suffering.
My hope is that you take the steps to improve things, like I did. The following information will help you do just that.
Here’s a recap of the steps we reviewed in the last blog post:
Let Go of Frustration with Yourself and Your Life
- Change your perception to understand that any “problem” is an opportunity in disguise.
- Channel your discontent into an immediate positive action—do some online research to find answers, or read that inspirational book on your shelf.
- Use meditation or yoga to bring you into the present moment instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.
- Make a list of your accomplishments—even the small ones—and add to it daily. You’ll have to let go of a little discontentment to make space for this self-satisfaction.
- Visualize a box in your head labeled “Expectations.” Whenever you start dwelling on how things should be or should have been, mentally shelve those thoughts in this box.
- Engage in physical activity every day. Exercise decreases stress and increases endorphins, chemicals that improve your state of mind and body.
- Focus all your energy on what you can control, instead of dwelling on what you can’t.
- Express your feelings through a creative outlet, like blogging or painting. Add this to your to-do list and cross it off when you’re done. This will be a visual reminder that you have actively chosen to release these bad feelings.
Now, Part Two of the process:
Let Go of Anger and Bitterness
- Feel it fully. If you stifle your feelings, they may leak out and affect those around you. Before you can let go of any emotion you have to feel it fully.
- Give yourself a rant window; take ten minutes a day to let it all out. This may diffuse the hostility and give you more time to focus on the positive.
- Remind yourself that anger hurts you more than AS does; visualize anger and resentment melting away as an act of kindness to yourself.
- Communicate how you feel. Find someone you trust to talk to. Keep in mind that you can’t control how others respond; you can only control how clearly and kindly you express yourself.
- Take responsibility. Many times when you’re angry, you focus on what is wrong—which essentially gives away your power. When you focus on what you can do, you often feel empowered and less bitter.
- Practice compassion for others. We all make mistakes; compassion dissolves anger.
- Wear a rubber band on your wrist, and gently flick it when you start obsessing on angry thoughts or resentment. This trains your mind to associate that type of persistent negativity with something unpleasant.
- Remind yourself these are your only two options: accept it, or change it. Acceptance creates happiness; holding onto bitterness never does.
Select the items that make the most sense to you, and put them into action right away. You’ll soon discover that you really are stronger and more capable than you knew.
Peter
by Peter Winslow
We’ve all heard the old saying – use it or lose it. It’s true for both mind and body.
In fact, physical exercise is necessary to keep your brain sharp. It may sound odd, but neuroscientists tell us that physical exercise is absolutely critical for preventing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
There are many types and degrees of exercise and movement, but they all share a common outcome: exercise creates a state of inner balance and harmony by connecting body, mind and spirit.
Hatha Yoga is well known for developing balance and harmony between body and mind. Posture, body mechanics, and correct breathing are the fundamental tenets. So too for Pilates, which incorporates teachings about spinal flexibility, physical education, and the laws of natural exercise.
Tai Chi and Qi Gung are Eastern movement practices that incorporate a series of gentle movements and soothing flow, making these techniques a good choice at any age. Many studies have proven that these simple practices produce a number of benefits for health and longevity.
Weight bearing exercises are essential for bone density and muscle tone. Dancing, gardening, and other hobbies are excellent choices for cardio-vascular health and emotional wellbeing.
Research has shown that walking 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week may be the best exercise of all. Just taking a walk can benefit you in many ways.
The key is to find the activities you like and stick with them. Consult your doctor before you start an exercise program.
Peter
by Peter Winslow
It’s a vicious cycle: Ankylosing Spondylitis sufferers feel pain, which creates stress. When stress hits the body, it creates more pain. That’s why controlling stress helps you to control the pain.
Stress causes physical damage in the body, and meditation can reverse the stress and the physical damage caused by it. Meditation creates a calming environment for the body, enabling rejuvenation and repair, and preventing ongoing damage.
Clinical research comparing meditating and non-meditating groups shows that non-meditators suffer with more high blood pressure, elevated pain levels and higher susceptibility to illness. Researchers have concluded that every condition caused or exacerbated by stress can be alleviated with meditation.
Meditation is often attributed as a superior method for pain control. There are many way to use meditation for pain, depending on the condition, symptoms, pain level, lifestyle and other factors of the user. For example, one method aims to bring the mind to a clear and calm state. It is then trained to focus on a specific part of the body that has pain; then to shift the focus away from the pain and into other parts of the body that feel fine. As the technique progresses, the pain appears to vanish as attention is drawn away from it.
Other customized and in-depth approaches used by experienced practitioners involve training the mind to erase or block out the pain completely. I used these forms of meditation when I had symptoms of Ankylosing Spondylitis, to alleviate pain and retrain my body and mind for better health and healing.
Peter
by Peter Winslow
Did you know that the body you lived in yesterday is different than the one you’re in today? In a process called cellular mitosis the cells in your body birth new cells repeatedly and die off naturally throughout your lifetime. In fact, in a few years you’ll have a completely rebuilt body altogether. Some cells reproduce faster than others; the cells that lined your stomach two hours ago have already been replaced with new ones whose daughter cells will soon be born. The body reinvents itself again and again throughout its lifetime and it’s plainly evident. Watch a youngster grow up and age over the years; what you’re witnessing is the process of cellular growth and regeneration occurring with the passing of time.
Neuroscientists tell us that brain cells, called neurons, are programmed a bit differently than the other cells. They adapt to their environment depending on what you learn and what new behaviors you acquire. In a process called neuroplasticity the map-like structure of the brain cells can be remodeled; doctors often see it when studying patients who’ve suffered head injuries and have since created new neuronal pathways to compensate for the loss.
In cases of head injuries that cause blindness, neuroscientists have observed amazing changes in the brains of the victims. Using functional MRI’s and brain imaging scans they have isolated electro-magnetic energy emitted by the visual cortex, a portion consisting of approximately one third of the brain, and found that this region has adapted and retrained itself in these patients to supervise new skills. Neuroplasticity is the process by which many blind people develop their highly acute senses of hearing, touch, taste and smell and are often able to master completely new tasks and creative endeavors that the rest of us find challenging and even impossible to do.
Until the mid 1990’s it was believed that brain cells do not regenerate beyond the formative years of development, after about two or three years of age. Scientists now know that was incorrect. Through a process called neurogenesis brand new neurons are created when you enrich your environment by taking up new and interesting mental exercises like studying a foreign language, and using significant mind/body exercises like learning to play a musical instrument or practicing meditation.
Tackling challenging skills like these helps to ward off Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia because the process increases cognitive abilities and rebuilds memory function. This means that new and challenging mind/body activities enhance neuroplasticity in the brain. Here’s the catch: doctors say the initial changes are only temporary because you have to be emotionally engaged in the process to retain the results.
Permanent plasticity only happens when you feel passion, élan, savior faire and a zest for life because positive thoughts and a sense of wellbeing are critical for the release of the specific neurotransmitters and the other brain chemicals that enable the changes to stick. Your new skills must be taxing, interesting and highly motivating for the results to become permanent. This is another prime example of the conscious communication you send to your instinctive intelligence. It’s solid proof of the mind/body connection; in this case it needs you to consciously choose to feel passion and motivation before it can make the health benefits of your new activities lasting and permanent.
Neurologists have learned that neuroplasticity operates in two ways; it can be either positive or negative. An example of negative plasticity: many elderly people are understandably afraid of falling. Trying to avoid an accident by looking down at the ground in front of them while they walk narrows their field of vision which in turn trains the brain to decrease physical coordination and balance. The negative effects are due to the misunderstanding and misuse of the mind/body connection; fear is the motivation and it’s a strong emotion that powers the process. The resulting changes in the brain actually impair normal mobility and increase the likelihood of a fall, the one thing they were focused on, but trying to prevent.
Chronic pain is also an example of negative plasticity. It’s the result of the brain repeatedly firing specific neuronal pathways over time until what was once only temporary information has now become an ingrained bad habit. It’s like driving a truck on a muddy dirt road; the more you drive over them, the deeper the grooves become. The repeated pain sensations in your body construct an “information superhighway” on the roadmap of the brain but it is not necessarily a permanent fixture. You simply have to adopt the new habits, behaviors and activities that replace the old patterns and stick with them to permanently change the terrain.
As the mature cells within you constantly give birth to new ones, you’re actually building an entirely new and different body, a process that completes itself every few years. The work is alive and ongoing throughout your lifetime and you can take an active role in the process. Physical exercise is an excellent way to modify your physique and mental exercises are helpful as well. If you want to build a healthier body than the one you’ve got now, it really is possible to do so. Utilizing helpful mind/body techniques is one of the most effective ways to make a positive impact on your health and aging.
Peter
by Peter Winslow
We’ve all heard the old saw: Actions speak louder than words.
So why is it that positive action is something so many people have trouble taking?
As I go about my purpose educating, training and leading my tribe, I find the actions some of them would benefit from have for too long been “missing in action.”
Enter my associate and colleague Dr. Dragos Bratasanu, a modern media star who hails from Romania. He recently told a tale relevant to this topic of something he picked up on his travels:
“A while ago I journeyed to Nepal to trek the Himalayas, and to learn a bit more about myself and about the world from Buddhist spiritual teachers. I walked through the gates of a modern Buddhist monastery, and soon met the leader, or abbot, of this sacred space.
“The abbot was a wonderful man in his fifties, with a most obvious trait: he was always laughing and smiling. He told me that when he was 5 years old, he ran away from his home in Tibet to escape the Chinese oppression. He had to leave his family behind and fled across the mountains with a group of strangers. He took refuge in a Buddhist monastery in Kathmandu and became a monk.
“In spite of all the hardships he’d lived through, he was now very happy and peaceful. We sat down in a classroom and he shared a bit from the Buddhist tradition and their spiritual teachings. Every sentence he spoke was filled with big smiles.
“What’s the secret to your happiness? I finally asked. “How do you stay so peaceful and joyful all the time?
“He realized that I was hoping for some sort of ancient spiritual wisdom, which made him laugh even louder. Then he answered bluntly with a delicious laughter: ‘I meditate.’
“‘Look’ he continued a bit more seriously, ‘In the modern world, you’ve got everything you need to have a happy life. You are free. You have access to an abundance of information online, you have bookstores and libraries to learn anything you want, and you can afford to buy everything you need. I had some visitors here who showed me that you even have apps for meditation. I don’t know what those are. I just sit down and meditate.’”
As Dr. Dragos continued, I realized that what he offered next carried a life-changing message for people in the self-help community:
“The abbot said, ‘You know what the problem really is? You fill your head with so much information but you hardly put it into practice. You rarely act on it. You study meditation, you learn the techniques, you take the courses, you read the books, you go to classes… but you don’t do it. It’s that simple.’
“‘You read great works about happiness and about how important truthful relationships are in your life. You nod seriously in agreement with your head trapped between the pages—yet you are surprised by the simplicity of these teachings. Then you walk outside and do the exact opposite.’
“‘You tell your friends to follow their dreams but you don’t really do it yourself. You discuss philosophy about what you read, but you never really live the wisdom. This contradiction between what you know and what you do is driving you nuts.’
“This time we both laughed loudly. ‘Now DO it’ he said, ‘and BE happy.’”
I trust you recognize this message as a huge wake-up call. It reminds me of something one of my early teachers, a very dashing, rich and famous motivational speaker named Marshall Silver once told me: “It’s time to put away your studies, and do what you have been studying.”
Indeed. In every life there comes a time when truer words cannot be spoken.
Peter
