Looking at the way animals go through life can make us somewhat ​envious. They don't seem to have back pain, sciatica or many of the other issues that we humans have to deal with in our day-to-day lives.
​You never see a tiger at the chiropractor, a monkey working on his posture, or a horse doing back exercises. What is the difference between them and us?​

it One difference between us and our animal friends is Tension-Based Pain (TBP).
Animals don't worry about the mortgage, job insecurity, money, or the future, because they don't have to - they just live.

Our modern day lives take a great toll on our minds and bodies. These stresses create tension in different muscle groups, which contract muscles in our back or elsewhere. These tightened muscles causes a lack of blood-flow, and oxygen, and this creates the pain we experience. If you've ever accidentally cut your finger in the kitchen, you know how painful it can be to suffer a loss of blood-flow, and oxygen to that injured finger.

TBP can cause that same type of pain, but it can be very severe, and debilitating. The lower-back is a common place for this tension to pool, and that maybe be because it is at the end of the spine. Perhaps the tension has nowhere else to go. Over time that tension-contraction-lack of blood-flow and oxygen becomes chronic, and the muscles may begin to fail due to the lack of oxygen.

You can spend a lot of time listening to advice that will make you feel as though you are failing to live right: whether it is standing, sitting, walking, bending, etc., but that guidance may only help you to increase oxygenation to those muscles in the short term. 

So what is the answer? Should you go live in the forest like a deer or a rabbit?

That is probably not going to work for most people. The answer is to overcome the physical tension (tightness), while addressing the root cause; our stress and negative emotions.
As someone who cured severe chronic pain after two decades, I can tell you that you can conquer TBP. When you learn these skills you will have them for life, and feel confident in the knowledge that you have the power to manage, and defeat TBP now, and in the future.
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READ BACK STORY: BREAKING THE CYCLE OF CHRONIC PAIN

​Waking up in pain, what does it mean? It could indicate many different things, but sometimes the reason we are waking up is because of a stressful dream. It could be the mind's way of protecting us from a disturbing situation. The dream world can sometimes be a scary place, and might even be a more scary place than the real world for many of us at times. 
Perhaps when you wake up the middle of the night, you find that you have low-back pain, which you might not have had when you went to bed, but suddenly you feel that ache or stabbing pain. It may be that you are experiencing other types of pain; such as in your shoulder, neck, leg, or maybe it is sciatic pain. Pain experienced in this manner is often simply Tension-Based Pain (TBP).
You find yourself wide-awake, with low-back pain, and when you are so uncomfortable it is really difficult to fall back to sleep. One method to help you get back to sleep is to completely relax your low-back muscles.
Follow these steps outlined in the technique below. You will move from the top of your spine (your head) all the way to the base of the spine. Try this and you may be back to sleep before you know it.

Total Muscular Relaxation (TMR)

1. First: start with some very deep breathing to fill your lungs, and then fully let all of your breath out. Do this three or four times, and you should notice that your breathing will begin to slow at this point, which should relax the entire body.
2. Second: work on releasing your muscles starting with the very top of your head and letting your muscles relax throughout the different parts of your head. Completely relax your jaw, your closed eyes, and your scalp. You may be carrying a lot of tension in your ears, so just let them completely drop-down and release them. Many of us hold tension in our jaw, and that can cause TMJ. This may sound strange but sometimes we keep a lot of tension in our tongue, but try to completely let your tongue muscles go, and let it completely flatten, and relax.
3. Third: from the top of your neck, and down into your back, drop, release, flatten every muscle section down all the way through the back of your body. Continue to work lower into the the base of the spine, relaxing the sacrum which is the triangular portion of your lower spine, then down even further into your coccyx (tailbone) at the bottom of your spine.

Once all of these muscles have been released, flattened, and loosened, you'll find you are feeling very relaxed and ready to sleep. If not, repeat the steps above.

​Hopefully, you will soon drift off, and have a restful night of sleep.

PEACE...

​READ BACK STORY