A growing body of evidence suggests that pain can be controlled by the mind, and that psychosomatic causes of pain are real. In fact, we can break our old conditioning and train our minds to stop feeling pain. I was dumbfounded when I came across this NY Time article entitled That Which Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Stranger. It is about a Slovenian ultracyclist who has no special V02 max capabilities, yet, is able to withstand and win some of the most difficult endurance challenges known to man. The downside: he goes a bit crazy during them. As a clinical psychology fellow, and distance runner, I am particularly interested in psychosomatic causes of pain. I found Dr. Sarno while searching Amazon and picked up a copy of The Mindbody Prescription.
So Specifically, Here is a List of What I am Trying to Incorporate Daily From Dr. Sarno:
- 15 minutes of quiet time for meditation (this is similar to what John Kabat Zinn another mindfulness master recommends)
- 15-20 minutes of free form journaling to write a list of things that make me angry (this can include "good" stressors) and to acknowledge my usually suppressed emotions like anger, rage, jealousy, anything negative that I store inside of me. In addition, free form journaling about feelings and emotions has been shown in studies to reduce injury, sickness, and hospitals visits over time.
Note: I recognize that this totals a half an hour a day. Many of us may not have all that time, however, I do think it will become an integral part to my athletic training. That said, even if it's just 10 minutes of meditation and 10 minutes of journaling it's better than nothing.
- When I feel an ache or a pain telling myself that I know it's because of my emotions and because I have some anger stored inside, there is nothing physically wrong with me, I am strong, healthy, and capable.
- When I feel an ache or pain telling my brain to send oxygen to that area, telling it to Stop!, and becoming aware that I have emotions and pre-wired paths in my brain causing the pain, I have conditioned myself to feel it and I can condition myself not to feel it.
- Telling myself that it is OK to feel those difficult emotions, and telling my brain that I want to deal with those emotions it is suppressing
Does this sound crazy? Maybe. But according to that NY Times article, being crazy will improve my performance, so Dr. Sarno might be onto something! It's also a bit affirming to be able to accept the connection between pain and emotions. After all, we are chemical beings and we can condition ourselves to have pain responses. We form pathways in our brains that become hardwired. I think this may be the hardest part of my training over all, it requires so much work, patience, remaining in the present moment, and challenging myself to deal with those things that are difficult to accept.
Dr. Sarno's book asserts that we discount the psychosomatic causes of our aches and pains and determine that they must be the result of some type of physical deformity or degeneration. We do not focus on our emotions and the intensity of the anger or rage that builds up inside us, and so we store it in our bodies and the brain creates pain symptoms to distract us from it. Since I am known for always having aches and pains from running, I picked up this book to help me overcome these and reach my full potential as an endurance athlete. If all these 50-somethings (no offense) can go out there and run multiple marathons in a row why can't I? Is it all in my head this pain I feel? Sure, I believe in building slowly, etc., but I've been building slowly for a long time now. Dr. Sarno asserts that while it is difficult to change our personalities, we can accept that the pain is caused by rage and that there is nothing physically wrong with us, and spend time reflecting on these emotions. Basically, telling the brain to stop sending pain to the body and deal with being angry or whatever scary emotion it is trying to suppress can help.
I just got this book last week and have begun implementing the principles in my life. Even just being aware that our pain can be caused by emotions rather than something horribly physically wrong can make a big difference. I am new to the training but will try to keep up with it and keep you posted on my experiences with it.
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