I ran the Surrey Half marathon last week with my brother, Rory. He is getting ready for the London Marathon in April.
It could not have been better running conditions bright blue sky, beaming sun and a crisp morning. It was one of the most enjoyable runs I have done in a while, until about 3 km from the end where my legs were screaming at me.
This week has been a recovery week and just trying to get my legs moving again. I have been using acupuncture needles in my calves and using the shockwave machine.
The winner did it in 1:05 which is lightning quick! Thank you for all your support, I saw quite a few West Chiro clients at the run and on the sidelines.
I was wondering as my legs were screaming at me, ‘how do the elite runners block out the pain in their legs?’ They must be getting lactate build up from 10km in and they somehow can block it out.
I’m not saying that chronic back pain can be blocked out with thought alone but it reminded me of something I used to do when I was studying NLP and behaviour quite a few years ago.
I have been reading Tony Robbins books for over 10 years and it is a love and hate relationship with his work. He is a neuro linguistic programming genius and 30 years ago he made it very popular with helping people change their behaviours. He is famous for helping people stop smoking and get over lifelong fears like spiders and snakes all by using NLP techniques.
One of the ways he changes behaviours and habits is using an NLP technique called “pattern interruption”. Most of our behaviour is habitual, I have a mentor who talks about how we are “zombies” and “sleepwalking” through life sometimes, we get up, go to work, come home etc.
The important thing in this technique is to learn how to break the pattern.
If you read last week’s blog, I talked about a scarcity loop and how our mind is forced in to a loop from our ancestors. For example, 1000?s of years ago our ancestors would find food and gorge on the food because they did not have a good supply of food and they did not know where the next meal was coming from. Nowadays with an abundant source of food and this scarcity loop does not serve us well anymore.
With a thought or behaviour loop you must interrupt this, and it is the same as pulling the emergency brake on the train.
Robbins talks about an example in one of his books where a client came to him to stop smoking. He told the man to go downstairs and buy 10 packs of cigarettes. The man thought this was strange considering he was trying to stop smoking, Robbins took him outside and told him to light a cigarette, again the man was confused, but Robbins insisted and told him to do it. He then told him to light up another one, he started to get louder and continued to tell him to keep lighting the cigarettes until he had 5 on the go and was puffing on them. Robbins got more and more animated and was shouting at the main, keep smoking them!
This went on for some time until the man turned to Robbins and said “enough, enough, stop, I’m not smoking anymore.”
The point behind this is that the man was in a behaviour loop of smoking, albeit an extreme way to get someone to stop smoking, the point is that Robbins was using a pattern interrupt by doing something ridiculous to force the brain to recognise something is changing.
You may have some triggers that lead you into a behaviour loop:
a) I’m no good at dieting
b) I don’t want to exercise
c) I’m a useless person
These are all thoughts that can be changed. By changing your physiology and performing a pattern interrupt it tricks your brain’s neurology. If you catch yourself muttering the above, then the ways you might do this are:
a) Jumping up and down
b) Clap your hands loudly
c) Splash water on your face
We are programmed to always want more, this links back to the scarcity loop theory In last week’s blog. “I don’t have enough time, or food, money etc”.
Robbins uses techniques to help his clients think in more of an abundance mindset.
He uses visualisation techniques where you can take 5 minutes out of your day and vividly imagine what you desire. For example, if you want to feel happy, he will tell you to describe a time when you last felt happy, “tell me about the colours, the smells and the noises” to paint a picture for the brain and this anchors the feelings in the brain of now.
Could this work with back pain? Not so sure, but there is a strong neurological element to a lot of pain and there are techniques you can use to trick your brain in to healing and eliminating pain from your body.
There is a place for pattern interrupt in managing pain. When we have clients who come in with chronic pain in their back, knees and neck the first step in the journey is coming in to seek help. This is the hardest part; from there it is easier.
But you don’t have to book in to see a Chiropractor to start helping yourself, start by interrupting your pain patterns, when you feel yourself spiralling “this pain won’t go away, it is so frustrating, why me”, you can change the narrative, splash some water on your face and break the loop “this pain will go one day, I’m doing everything to heal my body”.
If you are wanting to chat more about the information above then why not book a call with me and we can go into more detail? Click here to book or if you want to get an assessment then Book a consultation with a Chiropractor here
If you do know someone who wants more advice, please send them our details. You can send them this assessment as well to diagnose their back pain. It is a great tool to understand where your back pain is coming from, it is free and takes 60 seconds. Click here for assessment
