Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A world of pain?

This is the first of what I think will be a series of thoughts on this, the topic of pain and pleasure.

two suppositions I will make

1We live essentially in a world of pain. The way we relate to ourselves is in reference to pain and the way that we react to the world is a response to pain. If you look at the newspaper I think you will find confirmation of this. Most of the topics revolve around suffering, sadness, aggressive violent behaviors and other features that maintain and strengthen a culture of pain. The way our government and economy function seems to be centered around pain to the degree that things don't really change until they get really bad. It's almost as if we push our limits of pain to see how much we can endure, when will we break. Most interventions economic and medical revolve around alleviating pain. The adage says pain is a great motivator.Relief being a transient moment out of pain. At this level, feeling good is being not in pain. I propose that getting out of pain is just the start. If you have a scale of feeling, I'd say that 0 is incredible amounts of pain, 5 is being out of pain, normal. What is on the other side? what about numbers 6-10?

2The other side of pain is pleasure. i think that we can shift ourselves and our world away from one that escapes pain and towards one that seeks out pleasure. I don't mean pleasure in a hedonistic, debaucherous, hypersexualized sense. I am referring to pleasure as a feeling of joy, ease, grace in your body and in the world. Think about the last time that you felt good, maybe you're feeling good right now. Now ask yourself, what would it be like to feel better than that? What would it be like to feel better than that not for a brief moment, but for extended periods of time. How would that change your life? I'm not talking about relief anymore. I'm talking about shifting the baseline of experience. If we live, relatively speaking, with pain, can't we live, relatively speaking, with pleasure? Since they are both valid and reproducable human experiences both are possible at any moment.

Consider these things and let me know what you think. If we choose to live, why would we choose to live with pain?

Monday, November 17, 2008

Did we create Obama?

Something to consider is that we, as somatic beings, create our world. As humans, we have become masters of our surroundings. Unlike other species that conform and adapt to the world around them, we are in an active role of changing our surroundings. This is why we have such developed brains and such an amazing ability to sense, interpret and invent.
It's this selfpropelling force that has led us to the election of Barack Obama. I've been reading an interesting book lately called "Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time & Light" by Leonard Shlain. This book takes a look at the ways in which innovations in art often predate innovations in science. The author does the challenging work of finding these developments so I won't attempt to do it here, but what he proposes is that there are steps involved in the unveiling of reality and the forward drive of truth. He describes art as the first attempt to understand a new idea, a thought of what could be. Science then follows with statistical 'evidence' and theory to explain and support these new phenomenom. An innovation is achieved and slowly that innovation is taken up by society at large as a new truth. In the way you get a paradigm shift, and in this way what we know to be true shifts and evolves. The world is no longer flat and Americans can never again say that we're not ready for a Black president.

What started as an idea for equality, turned into a possibility of change with a candidate who seemed commited, and ended with a new American reality. And as Obama seems to point out himself, this is not his victory, it is our victory, an achievement of millions of individuals deciding together on our future. I'm not trying to get too political, but I think it is important to understand this as an achievement of consciousness and a sign of growth in our society. This growth did not happen in the election booth but has slowly been happening for decades and is the logical progression of somatic evolution. We are different people now and our President elect is the proof.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Streeetttccccchhhhhh

So, I have been writing this paper on the relationship between Somatics and Neurophysiology. I just finished a major portion on it that talks about static stretching so I thought I'd post a little bit on here that you may find useful. More and more information is coming out to support what Hanna Somatic teaches, that our recent views on stretching are out of date, false, and could potentially be doing more harm than good. I'm simply going to say that our goals for stretching do not match up with the actual outcome. And here is why.

Go ahead and sit with your leg straight out in front of you and reach out to touch your toes. Reach until you start to feel a pull on the hamstrings and back of your knee. What you are feeling is called the Myotatic "stretch" Reflex. The hamstrings are contracting in response to static or passive stretching. This is a natural physiological mechanism of the body where as you start to pull a muscle from its resting position it contracts/tenses to regain position. The harder you pull on a muscle the more it will contract to regain its original length. So if your goal is to actually lengthen the muscle, this will not work. If fact if you pull too much, you can stretch the tendons leading to hypermobility or possibly tear the muscle or tendon. Also increased muscle tension will increase compression on your joints and nerves potentially leading to disc problems and nerve impingement.

Let's look at why not.

The reason it will not work is because of intrafusal/extrafusal muscle fibers and the alpha/gamma motor neuron feedback loop which I will hopefully explain in clear and simple terms.

Every muscle in your body is made up of intrafusal and extrafusal muscle fibers. The extrafusal muscle fibers are very numerous, they do most of the work involved with actively contracting and releasing a muscle. You want to turn your head. Your brain sends a signal along Alpha Motor Neurons to your neck muscles to contract and release allowing your head to move. That is the extrafusal muscle fibers.

Intrafusal muscle fibers are involved with posture, proprioception and the maintenance of a muscle's resting length. So what happens when you are standing at the bus stop and a strong wind gust comes to push you over? The intrafusal muscle fibers are what help you regain balance and stop from falling into the road. Intrafusal muscle fibers are grouped together in bundles called spindles and these spindles constantly send information to the spinal cord of the muscles length. When a muscle is passively stretched, these spindles sense it and send an impulse up to your spinal cord which then sends a message back to the Extrasal muscle fibers to contract and shorten. The myotatic stretch reflex.

One more thing, once again you have Alpha Motor Neurons and Gamma Motor Neurons. Alpha motor neurons are attached to extrafusal muscle fibers and they cause the muscle to contract and flex your joints. Gamma motor neurons are attached to these intrafusal muscle groups(spindles) and as they become engaged they pull at the spindle, increasing its sensitivity to stretch and making it more likely that the stretch feedback loop will be initiated.

What we know. We know that static stretching increases the activity of Gamma motor neurons.
What else? We know that conscious contraction decreases the activity of Gamma motor neurons.

This means that in order to lengthen a muscle, you need to inhibit the action of these gamma motor neurons by actively firing the alpha motor neurons. A great way to do that is what is called an eccentric contraction which means that the muscle is actively engaged while it lengthens, resetting the resting level. This is why Hanna Somatics works and this is what a lot of the fitness world is starting to turn to as they embrace dynamic stretching and functional warm ups to engage the muscles needed rather than passively stretch and pull. But don't take my word on it. Check out these great articles for more information.

NYTimes article
Stretching and Flexibility: a detailed look at the physiology of muscle contraction and stretch