How To Get Out Of Back Pain, Insider Secrets To Back Pain Relief, Engage Your M: Insider Secrets To Back Pain Relief, Engage Your Mind To Heal Your Back 978-0615690452

Citation preview

HOW TO GET OUT OF BACK PAIN lnsider Secrets To Back Pain Relief Engage Your Mind To Heal Your Back By Ralph Scott

Copyright O 2013 by Ralph Scott All rights reserved. No part of this document can be stored in a retrieval system, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author. Ralph Scott Inner Harmony 19201 Sonoma Hv,y. #222 Sonoma Ca.95476

First Edition, publishe d 2013

ISBN: 978-0-6ts-69045-2 (pbk ) This book is also available as an e-book.

Disclaimer Before embarking upon your exciting discovery of how your brain controls your muscles through somatic movement,-it is always a good idea to consult a physician or chiropractor. This information is for educational purposes only and only you are responsible if you choose to do anything based on what you see, hear or read in the enclosed materials.

Dedication lVith Deep Appreciation... This book is dedicated to all my clients I have seen over the past thirty-four years who allowed me to realize my childhood dream. That was to help people get out of pain and stay out of pain for life.

I also want people to know that the information and movements found in the book Somatics, by Thomas Hanna helped me change a crippled body riddled with bone spurs and an arthritic spine in my 40's to a pain-free, arthritis-free spine at 65 years ofage.

I had

been told by doctors that as

I got older my pain would I am grateful I met

get worse and I just had to "suck it up." Tom when I did. Bless you Tom!

My Best Wishes For a Pain Free Back For You

This is my personal account of how I got out of the back pain I was in for years. This information lets you see that the source of your pain can be in a different location than where you feel the pain. In doing the right thing for your body, the source of the pain is very important to learn.

I want to educate people on how our bodies work and that if you do the right thing the body will give you what you want. I hope this information has been helpful to you and your loved ones. are that this information will help bring you.closer to having more control over what you are experiencing in your body, so that you can move more freely and live free.

My deepest wishes

I hope this information helps you understand how miraculous you really are. OK, let's get started andfind out what causes back pain and what you can do to help yourself get out of painfor good. Thank You, Ralph Scott

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter

I

The Role Muscle Tension Plays in Causing Back

2

What is Sensory

3 4

Page

Pain I

MotorAmnesia? What is the Psoas Muscle? How Other Muscles Close to the Psoas Can Conhibute to Back Pain

Dpes of Muscle Spasm 6 Why is the Law of Compensation Important? 5 The Two

Relief? 8 Pain Relief That is Not expensive to Try 9 The Importance of Breathing l0 Exercises You Can Do for the Psoas l1 An Interesting Story About Balance 7

What Can You Do for Instant

4 6

13 15

l8 20 22 25

27 34

About the Author

38

Glossary

40

Chapter

1

The Role Muscle Tension Plays in Causing Back Pain Benefit From This lmportant Information Now This book is about sharing my experience with you and your loved ones about how a tight psoas muscle directly contributed to my lower back pain for many years. The proper name is iliopsoas, but I will refer to it as the psoas muscle, pronounced (so as). This has been one of the most overlooked and misunderstood muscles that I have come across in my thirty-four years of teaching people how to get out of the constant pain they are experiencing. But more about the psoas later...

In 1976I was involved in a high-speed head-on collision. Afterwards I had no feeling in my stomach area; it felt like I was cut off at the waist. I learned later that the way our body protects itself is to tighten the muscles. When the seat belt went into my stomach, the muscles had no choice but to get tighter. As my stomach muscle tightened, this created extra pressure on the vertebra sending a shooting pain into my back and legs at times. I had a hard time feeling where my feet were, so it would cause me to trip more often than normal. When I went to regular doctors, they would check my reflexes and tell me everything was fine. When I first started going to a chiropractor, I noticed that the adjustments didn't always last very long. I would always ask if there was something I could be doing on my own, as far as exercise was concerned. Most of the time, instead of giving me exercises to do, I was told to come in on a regular basis.

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

It seemed logical to me that the muscles seemed to play an important role in keeping my spine aligned. The chiropractors always focused on the bones as if there was a mysterious force that would move the spine out of alignment. Though this idea never made sense to me, it sure was better than surgery. Three years after the head-on collision, I was returning from a six-month backpacking trip on the Islands of Hawaii and decided to visit my parents. I wasn't experiencing any real back pain at that point even after hiking and body surfing for six months.

I was helping my father to install a roof on the back porch. After we were finished, I decided to do some yoga in the backyard. When I started to come out of a headstand, my whole body went into a severe twist. It hurt a lot and I couldn't stand up straight afterward. For the next two weeks, wasn't able to stand up straight.

I

I had to crawl on my hands and knees before I found a chiropractor that helped me get on my feet again. He had been a masseur for seven years before becoming a chiropractor. He knew a lot more about my muscles and how they were helping cause the pain I was in, more than the other chiropractors I had been to before. After he took an x-ray of my spine, he and another medical doctor from the same complex came in to the room where I was waiting. He put my x-ray on the light table and as I looked at my spine it looked like some prehistoric animal. I could hardly see my spine for all the arthritis that was covering it. Both the chiropractor and doctor told me that I would need surgery immediately because of my severe condition. At that point I told them to ask me what I was doing before this pain occurred since they were telling me that if I twisted

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

too fast to the left or right I would risk paralyzing my legs for life. I told them I had been backpacking for six months in Hawaii where I body surfed in the big waves and hiked with a fifty-pound pack. Then I told them I had been playing racquetball for hours everyday before my body collapsed. They couldn't believe what I was telling them because of how bad my x-ray looked. Then I told them I wasn't going to have surgery and that I was flying to Pennsylvania to help my sister with her house she had bought recently. That was the start of the long recovery of my body without getting back surgery. I am glad I made this decision at twenty-eight.

I didn't know how long it was going to take me to heal my body but I knew back surgery was out of the question for me. I started looking for people that could help me understand different things I could do on my own to help my back heal itself. When I wasn't getting much better going to chiropractors, I decided to look for another form of therapy. Fortunately I had a client who had a flyer from Thomas Hanna and she told me to take it and give him a call. This turned out to be the most important call of my life. Thomas Hanna developed a revolutionary method of working with people in all types of pain. He wrote the book Somatics: Reawakening the Mind s Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health, along with other books about the body.

Chapter 2

What is Sensory Motor Amnesia? When I first met my teacher Tom Hanna, he would show me just how important a role the muscles played in changing what was going on in my body. He also told me the role the brain plays which was the first time I ever heard this information. Tom told me that my muscles had been caught in a bad habit for years and the movement he would show me was a way to get out of the habituation I had been stuck in. He then told me we have a part of our brain that is voluntary and apart that is involuntary. I had been stuck in the involuntary part that is called the primitive brain. If I did the somatic movement twice a day I could change the habituation so the voluntary part of my brain would be connected to the neuromuscular system again.

I had SENSORY MOTOR AMNESIA. but at the time I didn't know it. Just what is sensory motor amnesia (SMA) anyway?

SMA is a state where the muscles forget their function and become stiff and sore with a limited range of motion. Sensory motor amnesia is what happens when you can no longer feel how tight your muscles are getting. You are cut offfrom your feeling body. This makes it harder to sense what your muscles are really doing when you move. I knew my body was not right, but at the time I did not know about sensory motor amnesia. This condition can start at any agq and because it is a learned response, it has to be reeducated instead of treated.

I learned thut there the muscles.

is no separation between the brain and

How to Get Out of Back Pain: lnsider Secrets

By moving a certain way you can start to regain control over muscles that were causing constant back pain. I was excited to leam that I had more control over my body than any chiropractor or doctor had led me to believe. Somatic movement would be one of the main tools I used to gain control over my psoas muscles and the rest of my body.

After my first session with Tom, I was so excited about all the information he gave me and my body felt so different after the session. The session and what he did with me worked so much better than previous adjustments I had gotten from chiropractors. I could feel that this type of work with my body was what I had been looking for. Tom showed me certain movements I was supposed to do two times a day that would help me regain control over my muscles again.

Chapter

3

What is the Psoas Muscle? The iliopsoas, or psoas, is the only muscle in the front of our body that is directly connected to the spine so it can rotate the pelvis forward or backward depending on which part of the psoas is the tightest. This shortens the lower back muscles that cause the pain in this wrap around effect. The pain is felt in the back but caused by the deepest muscle in the front of the body, the psoas. Your brain is hard wired to shorten muscles

for protection. When this happens, it can cripple you temporarily by drawing the hip up with usually an inward rotation that can cause your knee to become unstable or to give out all together. This muscle is part of the fight or flight mechanism you may be familiar with. In his book Somatics, Thomas Hanna refers to this as the startle reflex or the red light reflex.

As the psoas muscle gets shorter it also compresses the vertebra together in the lower lumbar area. This can cause all kinds of problems. Anytime the muscles tighten up fbr protection this compression happens to the lower back as well as the thorax and cervical area. Later I discuss how when the psoas gets too tight it can cause neck problems. When the psoas gets too short, it can be one of the muscle groups that creates one leg being shorter than the other. Chiropractors are always pointing this out to their patients as one of the reasons for their back or hip problems. When I met Thomas Hanna I had a short left leg from sciatic pain that stemmed from work as a cement finisher. He told me that besides the psoas muscle, the obliques on the sides of my

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

body along with the quadratus lumborum are the muscles that create the short leg issue for people.

My introduction to my psoas muscle Let me tell you what used to happen to me when my psoas would get too tight without me knowing what was going on. I remember when I would be just standing around feeling fine when all of a sudden I would feel my muscles going into spasm and then I would be pulled down on my knees. This wasn't a little pull; I got yanked right down on the floor, so hard my knees would hurt.

After I would feel my psoas get tight, then the pressure would build up in both my hip joints and back at the same time. It felt like the tightness would build up stronger and stronger in my hips until I would get pulled to the floor. I felt totally helpless when this started happening to me. As I was on the floor trying to figure out what just happenec to me, I was wondering if any other people experience weird things like this after being in a car accident. The first time this happened to me it took me so much by surprise that I was a little scared not knowing what exactly was going on with my body. I would go for two weeks or so before my body let me stand up straight again. In his book Somatics, Thomas Hanna refers to this as another example of the startle reflex or the red light reflex.

I would have to crawl around on my hands and knees for two to three weeks at a time; or lie in bed until I would feel the muscles relax and I could stand up straight agarn.

I started

massage school a few years after my head-on collision. After getting out of massage school, my body would

still go through this type of collapsing three or four times a I would have to contact

year. When my body would collapse,

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

my clients and tell them I was out of commission and I would call them when I was back on my feet. When the body is twisted it can inhibit the breathing process. Our breath is a key to relaxation so we want anything that inhibits our breath to be corrected soon. I learned that just by getting off my feet and propping my knees up with my feet flat on the floor I was able to start to breathe deeper and my back could relax in this position. Propping my knees up took some of the pressure off my lower back and made it easier to relax into the pain. Sometimes I was lucky enough to get off my feet fast enough to back off any ensuing pain as spasm. I started to notice that my body gave me a signal before it went into spasm, so I paid closer attention and got off my feet when I felt a certain signal that my body would give me. That is when I would get off my feet and lay on the floor with my knees up and my feet flat on the floor and breathe into my diaphragm.

I learned at an early age when my body was arthritic and crippled that I didn't want to be on drugs. The body gives us different signals to communicate with us, and I wanted to feel what was going on with my body so I didn't want to be on drugs that would mask the pain. The kind of signals I am talking about are warning signals that if not paid attention to could lead to muscle spasm. These signals are something most people don't pay much attention to. We haven't been taught anything about these

signals in our public health education. It turns out these signals are very important in helping us stay out of pain. There is a catch-22; if you have sensory motor amnesia like I referred to earlier, you won't be able to feel what the muscles are doing.

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

That is why somatic education is so valuuble. Become the master of yoar muscles. The Book

Somatics

to the Rescue

Here is a tool that will help you become the master of your muscles instead of a slave. Somatic movement lets you reeducate your muscles and change the condition of sensory motor amnesia. Learn to bring back voluntary control to your neuromuscular system by slowly doing the somatic movement.

Amazing Facts About the Psoas I have been working with people for the last thirty-four years, helping them regain conscious control over their neuromuscular system and controlling their constant pain. In my experience, the shortening of the psoas muscle is responsible for clients'back pain over fifty percent of the time.

All the following problems

can result from the psoas being too tight. PSOAS release can help people with:

. . . . . . . .

Migraine headaches Lower back pain Shoulder, arm and hand problems Loss of range of motion and mobility in the upper body Neck problems including whiplash trauma and postural problems

C-Scoliosis of the spine Knee issues

Digestive and elimination problems and more . . .

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

As you can picture...

see, the psoas muscle is very

impoftunt in the big

The ilipsoas (see picture next page) consists of two parts, the major and the minor muscles. You will be able to see this more when you look at the picture coming up. You can see in the picture, that when the psoas gets too tight it can twist and compress your spine in a very bad way. It can pull your hip up toward your rib cage and at the same time pull your head and neck forward putting more tension and stress on your whole body. As the psoas muscle tightens it can also cause knee or foot problems as well.

10

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

This is your right psoas muscle

The next picture is of the quadratus lumborum. This muscle is close to the psoas and so they have the tendency to trigger each other off. This makes the muscle shorten for protection, that is all the muscle knows how to do. At the same time your rib cage is being pulled toward your hipbone causing severe pain that can wrap around your low back.

11

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

This is your right quadratus lumborum muscle

I2

Chapter 4

How Other Muscles Close to the Psoas Can Contribute to Back Pain It

seems that after the psoas gets too short

it creates a domino

effect on the other muscles in the body shortening them as well. I find the gluteus minimus, quadratus lumborum, periformis, hamstrings, adductors and calf muscles being the other muscles that can be involved in the over shortenine of the psoas muscle. Another thing that happens is when the iliacus muscle is too tight the conjoined tendon of the psoas gets too short then the hamstring muscle shortens as well. This shortening of the hamstring muscles can in turn put excess pressure on the knees, causing pain or other discomfort in the foot or leg. As I mentioned earlier, when this happened to me I would get pulled down on my knees where I would have to crawl for two weeks until I could stand up again. It was my compensating side, which was my left side. Even though my surgeries and direct blows to my body were generally on my right side; what was happening on my left side was it was getting tighter and tighter until it was helping to create the pain I was feeling on the right side of my back. The source of the pain ended up coming from what I used to call my good side, not the side I was injured on. I found out later that it was the tightness of the quadratus lumborum muscle that caused my knee to buckle. This muscle has a nickname called the hip hiker because it, along with the obliques, helps pull the leg shorter. So it is these two muscles that pull your leg shorter. As the extensor muscles of the back get too contracted, they compress the vertebrae of the spine together as a way of

13

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

protection. This condition is not permanent at all and can be changed rather quickly if you know what to do and remember that your brain controls what your muscles are doing.

t4

Chapter

5

Two Types of Muscle Spasm The two types of muscle spasms are chronic and acute.

Chronic spasms, often referred to as constant tension, have usually been present in a muscle for a time ranging from days to months to years. The spasm is usually not felt until direct pressure is applied to the muscle. It can be extremely painful, often occurring suddenly and covering a broad area ofthe muscle. The spasm can last for an hour, a day, a week or even longer if the muscle can't be relaxed. One of the characteristics of chronic pain is that it appears in the same place in the body each time. It is easier for the brain to take an old established pathway of pain instead of establishing new pathways.

Acute spasms can occur when tension overwhelms a muscle already in spasm. When this happens the body has reached its tension threshold and the resulting pain inhibits further activity until the muscle can recover. Like chronic pain, acute pain can be triggered by emotional or physical causes. Physical Causes of Tension Stress and tension are words heard frequently throughout the media and the negative effect that stress can have on body is becoming well known.

Tension is a stiffness or tightening of your muscles and connective tissue beyond the amount of tonus needed for healthy functioning.

15

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

Emotional Causes of Tension As I said earlier, another cause of tension can be emotional in nature. This is commonly referred to as armoring, which is an idea taken from Dr. Wilhelm Reich. He discovered that armor, or the chronic tightening of the muscles, was caused by the inhibition of particular emotional expressions. This usually begins in childhood and is carried over into adult life if you do nothing to correct this condition.

Tension as a Result of Time an injury to your back wasn't taken care of immediately, the muscles of your shoulders or legs or hips could be affected just by the time it took to take care of the back injury. If the original problem isn't taken care of then other problems in your body could develop.

If for example

There seems to be both a tension that occurs on the superficial muscles and a tension that occurs at a deeper level of muscle. The superficial tension has usually been present only for a shorter time, whereas the deeper level of muscle tension usually has been stored in the body for a longer time as muscle memory. People with stored deep tension in their bodies feel the affect of alltypes of injuries much more severely than do people with only superficial tension. People in chronic pain use much of their energy holding that much tension in their body. They are more sluggish and require more sleep.

A tense body has little range of motion. You might feel stiff and have a hard time bending. Your blood circulation is usually poor. The blood has a hard time flowing when the muscles are pinched around the blood vessels. As a result you may feel cold all the time. When your muscles are too tight it

T6

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

is like a garden hose getting pinched off so the water doesn't flow through. The tight muscles do the same thing to your circulation.

Relaxation is a Process As in any habit or learning process there is a given time limit to how fast a new habit is formed. Relaxation is a process that takes a certain amount of time to acquire and because it is a learning process it can't be rushed. Most people are impatient with themselves and therefore want relaxation to take place overnight. The relaxation process unfolds naturally as you become more aware of your body throughout the day. You will start noticing that you hold your body tight when it is not necessary. Then by taking the time daily to do the movements you will help keep your muscles in a relaxed state more often. The movements are a way for you to monitor your body so you know your state of flexibility. It is a good way to detect tight muscles so you don't injure yourself. This way you can feel the muscles before they go into spasm. This state of relaxation can then be canied over into your daily life. You will have more energy when your body isn't wasting it holding your muscles tight when they don't have to be. Nothing makes you feel more tired than when your muscles are getting the message of protection twenty-four seven from your brain. It takes so much energy to hold these muscles tight all this time. This is when you are on auto pilot taking most of your orders from the involuntary brain. This kind of reactivity from the brain can carry over to other parts of your life as well.

I7

Chapter 6

Why is The Law of Compensation

lmportant? "One of the most important things is the law of compensution."

I learned about the body

What is The Law of Compensation anyway? When one side of your body gets injured or hurt the opposite side of the body has to compensate for that injury.

In my private practice, understanding this one idea has let me help many people get out of pain. Even the surgeons I have worked on don't understand how important this information is for people to know about their body. This can contribute to misdiagnosis of the person. This can even lead to unnecessary surgery for you. Even though the compensating side might be tighteq you won't necessarily feel pain on that side. The painful side tends to dominate your awareness. When my body first collapsed on me, it was what I called at the time my good side that gave way and led my body into a twist where I was stuck in pain for two weeks before I could stand up again. The brain's attention and focus goes to whichever side of the body hurts the most. Only when the pain goes away on the worst side are you able to feel what is happening on the compensating side. Many times the compensating side can be in more pain than the injured side. This is because the body goes into muscle splinting to protect itself from further injury.

18

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

This is where the muscles go into spasm all around the area that was originally injured for protection from more injury. Most of the time one side of the body will be tighter than the other. This is the side you want to lengthen first so the other side will relax faster. As a culture you might have noticed people leaning to one side as they are waiting in line for something. We tend to choose one side and use that side until it becomes a habit. That can be the start of imbalance in your body, which leads to something more serious as you get older. You can probably see how this could lead to a joint wearing down over time. If you learn how to stand over both feet evenly you will feel more balanced in your body.

I have noticed that many physical therapists want to strengthen muscles right after surgery or other types of trauma to a person's muscles. I have found over the years of working with accident victims that I see much faster results when I work with the person to lengthen the muscle first and then strengthen after the muscle has more awareness and a fresh supply of blood to the area. At this point the muscles are more ready for reeducation and learning new information.

l9

Chapter 7

What Can You Do For Instant Relief? When my psoas started to go into spasm, I found that if I got off my feet when I could and propped my knees up with my feet flat on the floor and my heels close to the buttocks that this position allowed the psoas to relax more. ln this position, I would do abdominal breathins until I felt more relaxation in my back. You can lie on a carpeted floor or put a pad down on the floor in front of a chair or couch. Lie in front of a chair or sofa on your back with your behind up against the chair or sofa and your lower legs resting on the chair/sofa. You want gravity to work for you, so make sure your legs are at a 90-degree angle, from the knee to the hip. In this position the pressure is taken off the hip flexors and the psoas has more of a chance to relax. You want to stay in this position and breathe deep into your belly giving your psoas a chance to relax at a deeper level. Please be patient as it could take forty-five minutes or longer to experience a release.

Until I met my teacher Tom Hanna I wouldn't have understood how useful knowing what I am about to tell you would be. One of the important things I learned from Tom about the body's posture is that the foot is designed like a tripod: 80% of the weight of the body is supposed to be over the heel, where the larger bone is located, with the rest of the weight distributed between the big toe and little toe. When my psoas was contracted, there was more weight in the front of my feet resulting in more pressure on my lower back. This also puts more of a strain on the cervical (neck) area as wel^. One of the ways you can tell if the psoas is too tight is that the weight of the body will be centered more over the balls of the feet instead of the heels.

20

How to Get Out of Back Pain: lnsider Secrets

You can also look in a mirror and see if your pelvis is tilted forward (forward tilted pelvis creates swayback). There could be a backward tilt as well. Later on in this book, I will go into how you can lie on the floor and determine the length of the psoas by getting into specific positions.

21

Chapter

B

Pain Relief That is Not Expensive to Try WE "We

ARE WALKING MIRACLES!

just forgot where

we

pat our instruction manual."

The Magic of Castor Oil When my body first collapsed into a twist and the pain was excruciating, a chiropractor explained to me how a castor oipack was a natural muscle relaxant, and he told me to buy castor oil. (Hey, the good news is I didn't have to drink it.) Here's how it works: You take several pieces offlannel from an old sheet or whatever. Cut the pieces into three or four one-and-a-half to two-foot squares. Then wet the flannel pieces and wring them out well. Place the flannel pieces on a flat surface. Pour a good amount of castor oil on the top sheet of flannel and rub it in some. Get a large heating pad and take the cover off so you won't get it messy. Get a garbage bag and put over the heating pad and secure it with duct tape.

Now you are going to be putting the surface of the flannel with the oil smeared on it right against your skin. We have a plexus in the front of our body located right over the belly button. It is recommended that the oily part of the flannel be centered over the belly button. After putting the flannel over the belly button area, put the heating pad on low or medium heat and place on top ofthe flannel sheets.

22

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

Then cover the heating pad with a towel to help keep the heat trapped in. You can keep this on for 45 minutes on low to medium heat. When this area in the front relaxes, it helps the back relax at the same time.

If you are still experiencing pain, lie on the flannel so the oil side is directly across the low back and hip area. Repeat the same thing you did for the front side as far as time and level of heat used. This could be a bit messy but for many this can bring much relief. The first time I tried this I just used a washcloth because that was all I had.

I remember the wonderful relief that ran through my body after doing the castor oil treatment. Wow! I had been experiencing pain twenty-four seven for two weeks straight, and it took 50% or more of that pain away. I thought more people should know about something so simple to do to help relax the muscles when they are in spasm. It is the simple things in life that work so well sometimes. The Miracle of an Epsom Salt Bath Epsom salt is another natural muscle relaxant. The active ingredient in Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, which is a muscle relaxer. On the box or bag of Epsom salt it says to add ll4 cup to I have had much better luck using a whole box and making the bath into a small mineral bath. I even found it useful to add essential oils to the bath water to make it an even more powerful relaxing experience. Rosemary oil is very good for soreness and spasms in the muscles. Adding lavender smells good and adds to the relaxation. Marjoram helps ease muscle spasms, menstrual cramps, headache s (especial ly mi graines) and stiff j oints. a bath. Over the years

23

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

You can use marjoram for bruises, bums and inflammations as well as to treat fungal and bacterial infections. When using oils in the bath, try putting several drops of these three essential oils into some kind of whole milk, (cow or nut). The oil blends with the fat in the milk and is more easily absorbed through the pores in your skin. Otherwise it would just float on the surface of the water.

I've found it helps to mix the oil with the milk and then pour everything in the hot Epson salt bath water. Stay in the bath for at least 20 to 30 minutes as hot as you can stand it. Make sure to drink plenty of water while soaking. When you're ready to get out of the tub be very careful, this can relax the body at a very deep level and you might feel lightheaded or dizzy. Make some time to do some slow stretching on the floor. I found the bath would relax my muscles so I could get them to lengthen even more when I stretched. The same thing will work for you. Try it. Enjoy! These are some of the things I have been giving my clients to do for the last 34 years. They don't work the same for everyone, but if they do work for you, they are inexpensive ways to help manage your pain without drugs.

24

Chapter 9

The lmportance of Breathing Fatigue isn't just the result of the lack of energy but the blockage of energy as well. As your muscles contract with tension the normal circulation of energy throughout the body is impeded. One of the best sources of energy is your breath.

Leaming how to breathe properly can be a boost to a more vital body. One of the best sources of energy is one's own breath. Oxygen provides basic fuel for the metabolic activities of the cells. The energy provided by the respiratory process affects one's physical well being.

Life is dependent on the function of breathing. Most people only use one-third of their lung capacity. The quality of the blood is determined by the proper amount of oxygen and elements of nutrition. Depending on how you are sitting or standing affects If one is round-shouldered with the shoulders slumped forward, the rib cage can become collapsed, giving the diaphragm no room to expand. Our diaphragm works by expanding outward to allow the largest part of the lungs to fill up. If the diaphragm doesn't get to expand the lungs have a harder time filling up with oxygen. This in turn can put more pressure on your heart and whole cardiovascular system. ones ability to breathe.

What is high blood pressure? Could it be connected to our breath? Could this be a way of being able to control our blood pressure without drugs? These are all questions you should ask yourself. How you breathe affects your posture. If you breathe fully and properly this requires that the spine be erect

with your shoulders aligned.

25

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

When your breathing supplies you with less oxygen, your organs function at a slower rate. This is when your potential for emotional experience can also be reduced.

Improved posture along with proper breathing helps to increase your blood flow throughout the body. Breathing helps to relax the muscles and bring more awareness to your body. Keeping your spine straight is important to keep the life force in your body flowing freely, so it can support all the body's systems. I have found over the years that it is a lack of education about our bodies that is the cause of most constant pain. The practice of making children carry their school books in a back pack could create a healy load on their developing muscles and prevent freedom of movement.

26

Chapter 10

Exercises You Can Do for the Psoas

Lie flat on your back and bring one knee towards your shoulder. Hold on top of your knee as shown, or underneath if that is more comfortable. The same movement is to be repeated on the other side. You can do 5 to l0 repetitions. Important: If your pain is more severe, start out slowly, doing just 5 repetitions and working up to l0 repetitions a side.

27

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

Now as you exhale bring your nose as close to the knee as possible and hold for a count of five. Then let your head back down to the floor and allow the muscles to fully relax before starting the next repetition. Important: As you lift your head toward the knee make sure that you press the opposite leg and back of your knee to the floor so it doesn't pop up. I found that when I started with the side of my body that hurts less, I got better results.

28

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

Lie on your back and hold your left knee with your left hanc. Place your right hand under your head. Inhale while breathing into the stomach area archins the lower back.

29

How to Get Out of Back Pain: lnsider Secrets

On your exhale bring your right elbow to your left knee. Hold the contraction for 5 seconds so the brain can register what is happening. Then allow the head and upper body to relax to the floor. Of course you want to do the same thing on the other side and bring your left elbow to your right knee.

Notice which side is tighter on you; this is always important information about your body you want to be aware of. I noticed that when my psoas was tighter, it was harder to touch my elbow to my knee and when it was longer I could reach further down the inside of my leg. Notice what you feel in your body as you do these movements.

30

How to Get Out of Back Pain: lnsider Secrets

Kneel next to a chair or coffee table of the right height. Place your left hand on the chair. Bend left knee as shown in the picture. Keep your shoulders back and look straight ahead. Let your right arm hang along the side of your body.

31

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

From the kneeling position next to the chair use one hand to balance while lunging the left knee forward while stretching the right leg as far back as is comfortable. You will feel the stretch on the right side of the psoas. Notice which side is the tighter of the two sides of your body. Do this 5 to l0 times each side of your body. Good luck and keep up on your progress.

32

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

As you are doing the movements, you may experience going ahead a few steps in your healing process and then you may slide back a little. Don't worry, this is very norrnal when you are starting to take back control of the voluntary part of your brain.

More of these movements can be found in the back of the book Somatics, by Thomas Hanna.

IMPORruNT! Did you ever hear of the stretch reflex? This is something Tom told me about when I first met him. The stretch reflex is a reflex that goes between the spinal cord and muscle receptor and doesn't pass through the brain loop. This makes a reflex that reacts instantly. When you hear of people that bend over to pick something up and their back seizes up and they talk about their back going out, chances are they are experiencing the mechanism of the stretch reflex in action.

If you hold a tight muscle too long in one position

as you are stretching or you stretch too fast or hard with the muscle, the stretch reflex could be triggered. When you trigger this reflex, the muscle can snap back like a rubber band and cause further injury to your muscles.

This is one of the main causes of many injuries in different types of exercise classes.

33

Chapter

11

An Interesting Story About Balance One of the great things about somatic movement is that it is designed to create balance in your body.

After being knocked down in the Olympics, a famous Olympic runner returned to San Francisco and went to a sports medicine clinic where she learned a movement that is in the back of Thomas Hanna's book Somatics. She said after doing this specific movement for a couple of weeks that she never found an exercise that would bring balance back into her body as quickly. She said that if she had been doing this particular movement pattern before the Olympics, she would not have been knocked down because of the lack of balance. That is what I call a powerful movement, wouldn't you say?

This book is packed with specific movements that stimulate the proprioceptive part of the brain. This stimulation can help to reconnect the voluntary part of the brain to the neuromuscular system. This is how you can gain control of your muscles again for life. We don't have to think about tightening our muscles since the involuntary part of the brain does it automatically for you.

It is entirely possible to feel the different levels of muscle tightness after you reeducate yourself out of sensory motor amnesia and into voluntary control again. Somatic movement gives us the ability to feel our bodies from the inside out again, just like we could when we were children. As children most of us could feel the internal balances that were needed to take our first steps and keep us from falling too far forward or too far back. We could feel where our

34

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

center was, just like the first time you rode a bike and you had to feel that kind of inner balance to stay upright.

often lose the ability to sense our inner balance after we grow up. We

This ability also disappears after the body has gone through some type of trauma and the involuntary part of the brain takes over your neuromuscular system. Balance is a very important thing to keep as you get older. Every year one in three people takes a fall in America. For people over 65 in the United States, falls are the leading causes of fatal injuries.

Falling is the leading cause of 90oh of hip injuries. These falls usually come from a body that is imbalanced. When this occurs there is usually more weight on one side of the body. You might see one shoulder pulled lower on one side only. This in return creates a situation where the body is not balanced. This is when a person is more prone to fall. When people have a decline in muscle strength and flexibility, it makes the body more prone to accidents. Over the years I have worked with many young people from grade six to twelve that already experience sensory motor amnesia. The more you do the somatic movement, the more awareness you will start to have of your body from the inside out. You will start to feel your weight more over your heels instead of the balls of your feet, where excess pressure can cause all kinds of foot problems and pain showing up other places in your body. You will be able to move your body better no matter what sport you engage in. Somatic movement will make movement easier for you.

35

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

Another thing that is not talked about much is when a woman picks which hip she is going to rest her child on, the habit of pulling her hip up gets established until the baby is usually forty pounds or in that range. This is when the mother can stop carrying the baby this way. When the hip is pulled up it can throw the whole body out of alignment. When the hip is held like this it can cause the other side of the body to compensate for the imbalance. This is a key time when pain patterns can be established in your body and give you trouble in the future. Later on this can cause hip, back, knee or foot problems to occur. aaa

36

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

Watch for my next book on the psoas and leam how the psoas affects a certain bone that can throw the whole body out of alignment.

The next book will reveal how this alignment of the body can be corrected in a short time by helping balance the upper body over the legs and feet. I will also talk about other connections that the leg muscles have to the upper body, connections that have just been discovered this year- in 2013. Here's to your bright and healthy future.

In Your Service, Ralph Scott www. scottfreesomatic s.massagetherapy. com P.S. I am very interested in hearing about your experiences with this program. Please tell me about your success stories. Write to:

scottfree

so

mati

cs

@vom.

co

m

or Inner Harmony 19201Sonoma Hv,ry. #222 Sonoma, CA95476

If you enjoyed reading this book, I would appreciate it if you

would 'like'it onAmazon and leave a written review. This will help spread its vibration and message by making it more visible and therefore easier for people to find! Thank you - the courage and the inner strength for having to take this journey with me, and beginning to let go of your old patterns.

37

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

About the Author At the age of seven I had a vision. I knew I was going to be helping people get out of pain without adding pain in the process. I also knew that this would be a new idea for many people to understand.

I have been a bodyworkerlhealer who has helped clients for thirty-four years gain control over physical pain they have been experiencing but couldn't change themselves. My own method of Scott Free SomaticsrM demonstrates the principal of no resistance no pain. By working with the inner intelligence of the body, I can feel where to put my hands to support the muscles so that they can unwind themselves. Because of the method I developed, I was hired as the personal bodyworker for The Grateful Dead. That began a

38

How to Get Out of Back Pain; Insider Secrets

seven-year relationship with the Grateful Dead that changed my life because of how I learned to hone my skills. I greatly appreciated the incredible support I received from them. At the time my body was crippled and in much pain after surviving a head on collision in my early twenties. Since that time, I have had a number of medical doctors, as well as many other people, come to me for help with these kinds of problems, who have been able to avoid surgery because of the work they received from somatic education.

In addition to my own method, I teach Thomas Hanna somatic movement for reeducation of the muscles once tension is released. This enables clients to gain more voluntary control over their own neuromuscular system. This also limits the number of sessions required.

After massage school, I had the great opportunity to train with Thomas Hanna and learn somatic movement. I was grateful to know and work with him for years before he had his first training. Thanks to somatic movement my body is no longer in pain today.

I love to teach people about their body

and mind connection along with how their muscles work. I get so much joy out of teaching people how to get out of pain and stay out of pain to improve their quality of life.

39

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

Glossary Proprioceptive: (adjective) relating to stimuli that are produced and perceived within an organism, esp. those connected with the position and movement of the body. (Compare with exteroceptive and interoceptive.) Psoas, or iliopsoas: (noun) a muscle complex in the lower abdomen-hip area important in directing a range of motions and for maintaining posture.

Somatic: (adjective) of or relating to the body, esp. as distinct from the mind. Somatics:

According to Thomas Hanna, "somatics" is the study of self from the perspective of lived experience, encompassing the whole person. Somatic movement describes movement that is sensed and shaped from within, rather than from an external source. Somatic movement education and therapy is the process of awakening awareness of the human body in movement. Tonus:

(noun) the constant low-level activity of a body tissue, esp. muscle tone.

40

How to Get Out of Back Pain: Insider Secrets

Write your feelings from the movements here...

4t

42

||||il| ltl|llr lllll lllllllll|| ll]llll || lil 1

66781 93R00030

Made in the USA San Bernardino,

CA

l3 November20l4

Are you serious about wanting to get out of back pain now? Would you like to remain pain free for life?

Checkthis out! HowTo Get Out Of Back Pain gives you the onswers to | 0 important questions and challenges thot every person in back pain foces, including: What causes back pain over fifty percent of the time? - Steps to relieve back pain - How to get off the treatment treadmill - How to gain more flexibility - How to grow old without pain - and more! -

Based on the experience of professional body worker and massage therapist Ralph Scott's thirty-plus years helping clients to release muscle tension and move with awareness, HowTo Get Out Of Back Pain reveals simple and inexpensive steps you can take today to live pain free again.

Ralph Scott survived a head-on automobile crash in his twenties and used

the debilitating pain and crippling after effects as his opportunity to learn to heal. A licensed massage therapist, he has trained in somatic movement with Thomas Hanna. He developed Scott Free Somatics*, methods which proved so effective he was hired as the personal bodyworker for The Grateful Dead and traveled with them for severalyears. He subsequently helped a number of medical doctors and countless clients avoid surgery through somatic education. Now in private practice in Northern California, he's excited to share his 'insider secrets'for pain relief with you.

{ lsBN 9780615690452

90000 >

ilffi|lilil 690452 ilrililililI