The Art of Living Pain Free

I pay attention to what the body is telling me when I first meet with a client. What is their breath doing? Are they tensing up? How is the body moving? These are all important questions I first oversee. Working with someone is like a dance, we have to work together, whether it’s function pain or a more complex pain. I try to guide people through what they’re feeling or where the pain is really coming from.

During a recent session, a guest came in with back pain, neck pain and headaches. My experience led me to suspect there might be an issue with the guest’s jaw. My suspicion was correct. You learn that the body is all connected by the fascia and nervous system, so pain in one area can be caused by an issue in another seemingly unrelated area.

I think that if there is one myth I would love to debunk, it would be the old adage of ‘no pain, no gain’. I need to emphasise the importance of working with ‘good pain’ rather than pushing through discomfort. Sometimes we need to lean into the discomfort, however excessive pain and exercise spikes cortisol and adrenal levels that can lead to longer recovery times and increased injury risk. Even massages require the right amount of pressure. Some people want more pressure, but if the body is tensing up against that pressure, it will create more tension and not help you recover as fast as if we were working with that ‘good’ pain.

The vagus nerve is the longest of the cranial nerves, playing a crucial role in the parasympathetic nervous system. This carries information between our brain and our internal organs, controlling the body’s response in rest and relaxation and our immune system. I stimulate this in my treatments by breathwork, such as humming. Humming creates a vibration that stimulates the vagus nerve in the throat and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, it gets you out of your fight and flight stress response. I also use guided meditation and massage to stimulate the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve treatments allow every guest into a relaxing, almost meditative state where the body can focus on rest, healing and digestion. Apart from this I practise pranayama, an exercise which the yogis have been doing for ages and the western world is just catching up on this. It is very powerful, as just after two minutes, you can feel the mind slow down and calm down. You feel the tension in the body reduce. It’s a very beautiful feeling.

I ensure that after the one or two sessions the guests have on holiday that I equip them with tips that they can continue to do when they go back home. This means they benefit from long term health benefits after my sessions, not just immediate relief.