Yoga for Pain Relief

A week or so before Christmas I was approached by Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist and yoga teacher at Stanford University, and the editor in chief of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy. She is also a former chronic pain sufferer who wanted to get the message out about how yoga can improve your health and happiness on as many blogs as possible in celebration of the publication of her book Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Chronic Pain. Of course as a fibromyalgic yogini I jumped at the chance for some wise words on a subject so close to my heart.

Kelly is kindly sending me a copy of the book - which I will review when I have read it. Unfortunately it is not available in the UK yet but you can pre-order it here or order from the US here.

So without further ado let's hear from Kelly about Fibromyalgia and Yoga.

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Most people think that yoga is about standing on your head, reaching your toes, and getting twisted into pretzel poses. But the healing practices of yoga go far beyond the postures. The breathing, meditation and relaxation practices of yoga may have the most powerto help people with chronic pain, including fibromyalgia. Below, some of the science and promise behind how yoga can help:

1. People with fibromyalgia appear to process pain differently than people with other forms of chronic pain, including musculoskeletalpain and headaches. As anyone with fibromyalgia knows, they are more sensitive to physical stimulation. The pain detectors of the nervous system can become so sensitive that they react to any sign of increased pressure, tension, or inflammation in the body. But research suggests they are also more affected by negative emotions. For people with fibromyalgia, emotional distress increases the nervous system’s sensitivity to pain more than it does for people with other types of chronic pain.

This may sound like bad news, but it also means that learning how to handle negative emotions can have a significant positive effect on your pain. Many meditation techniques teach you how to accept and then move through negative emotions, and how to consciously choose to feel positive emotions like gratitude and joy.

2. Catastrophizing, telling yourself that your pain is unbearable, uncontrollable, and likely to get worse, makes the brain more sensitive to both the physical sensations and emotion suffering components of pain. This has been shown specifically in people with fibromyalgia, as well as other forms of chronic pain. Strengthening your belief that you can handle your symptoms can make your pain more manageable.

This may be one reason that guided imagery and relaxation can reduce pain in people with fibromyalgia. Research supports three types of imagery: imagining yourself in a favorite, safe place; body awareness and conscious muscle relaxation; imagining yourself engaged in an activity that pain/fatigue have made difficult. Imagery and relaxation may help make the brain less reactive to pain, which can make sensations more tolerable and reduce the anxiety, sadness, and anger that can go along with pain. Other yoga practices may have a similar effect, for example, research shows that simply paying attention to the sensations of breathing can reduce stress, increase a sense ofcontrol, and make pain more tolerable.

3. Physical pain and social pain, such as loneliness or rejection, are detected by the same pain systems of the brain. The experience of either one can make you more sensitive to the other. This may be why a pain episode makes you feel more socially isolated or why you crave social support when you are in pain. It also may explain why loneliness makes physical pain worse, but having a loved one present can reduce pain. Research shows that social support decreases pain sensitivity in people with fibromyalgia specifically. It’s not possible to have round-the-clock closeness with others, but a yoga meditation on social connection can have a similar effect. For example, one study showed that daily loving kindness meditation practice significantly reduced chronic pain.

4. In one unusual study, researchers in Japan tested a master yogi who claimed to be able to block all pain during meditation. The researchers used a laser to create a pain response in the yogi, both before and during meditation. Brain imaging revealed normal pain processing when the yogi was not meditating. During meditation, however, there was dramatically reduced activity in all the areas associated with a pain response, including the areas that produce pain sensations, thoughts and emotions about pain, and the stress response. Although most of us will never become master yogis, this study demonstrates the full potential of meditation for changing your experience of pain.

5. The yoga tradition has long recognized that your breathing reflects the state of your mind and body. When the body and mind are disturbed by fear, anger, sadness, illness, or pain, the breath becomes disturbed. But the road goes both ways: how you breathe can also influence how you feel. This was elegantly demonstrated in a study that observed how the breath naturally changes during joy, anger,sadness, and fear. The researchers induced these emotions in participants and measured changes in breathing rate, depth, movement,and tension. Joy, for example, was associated with steady, smooth, slow, deep, and relaxed breathing. Sadness, in contrast, was associated with irregular, shallow, and tense breathing interrupted with sighs and tremors.

In a second study, the researchers turned the observations for each emotion into breathing instructions. They had participants change their breathing according to those instructions, with no hint that the breathing patterns were connected to specific emotions. The breathing patterns reliably created the emotions they were associated with,without any other emotion cue or trigger.

Yoga can teach you to breathe in a way that supports feelings of comfort, safety, and joy.

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Thank you so much Kelly, there is a lot there I can empathise with. I could wax lyrical on how much yoga has helped me in all these ways, but I think we all know that by now right?!!

Namaste x

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

There is an irony the fact that a couple of days after my last post I had the worst fibro flare up I’ve had in ages! Plans cancelled! Catastrophe!

Hey ho and never mind, we had fun anyway. As you can see we put our tree up and everything is coming up Christmassy! I’m starting to get excited about Christmas now and really looking forward to the break. Our office closes on Christmas Eve and doesn’t open again until 2010 (which is ages in the future, right?) and we’ve elected for very simple celebrations this year. On Christmas day itself we are going to the seaside (yes, I know, in England, in December, we’re insane), then I think we’re seeing family members the day after Boxing Day, going to a dinner party on New Year’s Eve at a friend-from-work’s house and who knows what in between. We’re definitely hoping for a trip to London (I want one of those Top Shop style advisor appointments before I’m too old for Top Shop) and bowling. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without bowling.

How about you, dear reader, what are you up to for Christmas this year?

This week I am also thankful for:-

• The writing/editing course my parents have bought for me.
• Pain medication for flare ups.
• V+ (the recording device on cable TV) which is very handy when Dave Grohl and Rhys Darby are on at the same time on different channels.
• My lovely life with Himself and the kitties (only one kitty present in the photo though!)

On living with Fibromyalgia

Learning to live with Fibromyalgia has taught me many things. And what I’m learning right now is to be kind to myself, not to expect so much from myself all the time.

Whilst I was only formally diagnosed with Fibro a couple of years ago, I’m pretty sure I have suffered on and off since I was about 17. At first they said it was “growing pains”. When I pointed out I wasn’t growing anymore they called it ME. Somewhere along the line that got changed to CFS (although I’m pretty sure they’re the same thing) and now it’s got another name! Whatever you call it, in the long run it amounts to the same thing – exhaustion, headaches, a 15 year sore throat (!!) and, coupled with the scoliosis, pretty much constant chronic pain.

Now before I go on I want to say that this isn’t a self-pity post. This isn’t a “Why Me?” lament (because, as I have said before, “Why Not Me?”). This is just a reminder of how far I’ve come.

One of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with is other people’s attitudes. ME has another name in the UK – “Malingerer’s Disease” – and I cannot tell you how many times people have said to me “but you don’t look ill”. No maybe I don’t, I’m a whizz with the make up brush but inside I feel like stir-fried ass – thanks for asking! ;p

But no matter how hard it’s been I’ve always tried to live my life to the fullest, to drag my sorry carcass out of bed and get on with things to the best of my endeavours. There have been times when I’ve had to put my hands up and admit that something is too much. I decided against a long-term dream of studying Archaeology because I knew my health wasn’t up to the 12 weeks a year in a tent in a field digging holes aspect of it all. But if I had studied Archaeology I would never have gone to Australia and I would certainly never have found out I could write.

And that’s it isn’t it, dear reader? Everything that happens, good or bad, gets us to where we are today. Yes, I may have to walk rather than run, I certainly can’t have more than one alcoholic drink without falling asleep and some days I have to drag that aforementioned sorry carcass back to bed. But on the other hand, I have gained an Masters degree, travelled the world (more than once) and worked in law in the City of London for nearly 10 years. And I also know without this I would never have become a yoga teacher. After years of practice that helped me keep my body strong enough to deal with pain and my mind strong enough to deal with the sadness the pain could bring and with the help of some fantastic teachers I realised that my limitations (for want of a better word) could help me reach out to people who wanted to know about yoga but had been too afraid to ask! As I tell my students, if I can do it anyone can.

I have days when the pain is too much, when it really brings me down. But we all have bad days. Right now I’m learning to accept the bad days and look after myself on them, because there are so many good days and I have achieved so much in my own little way.

Day 3

This morning I taught my last class at The Mulberry Centre, where I teach volunteer yoga to people with/recovering from/caring for someone with cancer. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, my schedule has spiralled out of control and I've had to cut back on a few classes. I've chosen this particular class less because it doesn't pay (that's really not a huge issue) and more because it involves a nearly 2hr round trip in the car which really depletes me of spoons!

Word had got around that it was my last class and nearly everyone I've ever taught there turned up! It's not a huge room so it was a bit of a squish, but we had a lot of fun and worked on pranayama and meditation. It was so incredibly moving and humbling to see so many amazing people coming to me for their yoga - and thanking me afterward for everything I had given them. Some of them had all sorts of advice/tips for living with fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue as well - although I'm not quite sure how that bit of information got out into the public domain!!

Speaking of the fibromyalgia, I had my follow up appointment with my GP today to get the prescription for the Lyrica (for reasons I cannot understand, you need 2 doctors say so before you can get it). I picked it up from the chemist today - although there were only 10 tablets in the whole of Surbiton and I was prescribed 84. I have to go back for the rest next week.

Because they can cause drowsiness at first I'm going to start taking them Saturday night as I'm teaching pregnancy yoga tomorrow morning. It seems somehow serendipitous that I have all of next week off in which to get used to the drowsy feeling!

So I think that's it for today - have a great weekend everyone!

On Seeing the Rheumatologist

I have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. The rheumatologist asked a whole heap of questions then pressed me in 18 places which hurt so much I cried, she nodded and said "fibromyalgia". I was surprised to learn that skin is not supposed to hurt when touched. I always assumed I was just a bit weak and pathetic. Turns out this is not normal after all. I am dumb....

She suspects that I have always had Fibro and that the diagnosis of ME never really cut it and was made by an ignorant and/or lazy doctor. To be fair on my previous doctors, Fibro has not been recognised in this country for very long; the US accepted it long before we did and most things that couldn't be diagnosed any other way were diagnosed as ME or hypochondria, depending on where your GP's sympathies lay.

The rheumatolgist was very impressed by the yoga and swimming and the organic diet and how well I looked after myself. We talked about that and my scoliosis for a while and she took some bloods just to rule out Connective Tissue Disease. I was pretty impressed with her. Until....

She prescribed me something called Amitriptyline. I, like a fool, didn't think anything of it assuming they would be a painkiller or muscle relaxant. It wasn't until the pharmicist gave them to me that I discovered they are in fact tricyclic antidepressants. Now I am a strong believer in the total obliteration of antidepressants from the face of the earth. Both my father and Himself suffer from clinical depression and have never got anywhere on antidepressants and tricyclics are the very worst of this hideous creation. The side effects are horrific and the withdrawal symptoms equally so. OK so it's a very low dose, and a very low dose is proven in clinical trials to help some people with the pain and the sleep deprivation. Note *some* people. And what am I meant to do? Take them every day for the rest of my life? Masking the symptoms and living in a cloud of fug forevermore? No thank you. I would be the worst sort of hypocrite if I even considered taking them.

I believe in learning to live with long term chronic conditions, not masking them. Fibro is non-degenerative and non-progressive. I need to change my outlook rather than change the chemical make up of my body.

I affirm to work towards a day when I am not my illness, when I accept myself for who I am, when I have fun no matter what and when start to put myself first. This is my wake up call. Listen to it.