A different way to relieve years of back pain – The Washington Post

In this recent article from The Washington Post, admitted sceptic Lisa Rein writes about her experience with Feldenkrais, its history and teachings of Moshe Feldenkrais, and how she has used the method to overcome her own recurring pain.

She explains Moshe’s theory behind the method and that “The brain can be retrained to reorganize the way we move our bodies, eliminating unnecessary and harmful patterns. For example, the Feldenkrais road map involves slow, sometimes tiny movements of the shoulders, neck, hips, legs and ribs. These movements help us perceive what feels good and what causes pain, and prod the brain into giving our bodies new feedback, leading to a better division of labor among our muscles.”

Doctors who specialize in alternative medicine say there is a reason Feldenkrais works for some people with pain.
“We’ve learned that there is a substantial connection between what’s happening in the low back and the central nervous system,” says Robert Saper, an associate professor of family medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and a National Institutes of Health researcher in non-pharmacologic approaches to chronic back pain. “When we do a practice like this, changes can occur in the brain that modulate the perception of pain in a favorable direction.”

Rein brings up an especially good point in here article that “babies don’t tighten their sternums or their backs, or hold their heads in front of their necks as stressed-out adults do. Feldenkrais tries to get us back to the conditions that babies experience when they learn to move. They haven’t yet stretched or learned to strain.”

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