June 2023 Newsletter —
There are several things everyone needs to know about muscles:
1. Bones can’t move on their own. They are moved by your muscles which pull them in different directions.
2. Muscles are not independent structures and do not determine whether to spasm or not. It is up to the autonomic nervous system to decide based on the different stresses your body is experiencing.
3. The nervous system controls all 10 systems of the body. Nobody else. The nervous system sends millions of impulses (electrical signals) every second and receives information from all the systems.
4. In times of stress—physical, emotional, psychological or environmental—the autonomic nervous system (which we have no control over) will perceive the threat and will send a muscle spasm signal as a warning—causing you pain. Once the muscle is in spasm it will keep exciting and overstimulating the autonomic nervous system which will keep the muscle in spasm.
5. This will create a feedback loop 🔁 which is indefatigable and could last for a long time. (This is the cause of chronic pain).
6. Unfortunately, stretching, massage, exercise, or chiropractic adjustments do not have any impact on this feedback loop. You might feel temporary relief but the hyperactivity of it will not be affected and will not slow down. Sometimes it might even increase the hyperactivity of the signals and exacerbate the pain.
7. Muscle spasms cannot be stretched as long as the muscle is still getting the spasm signal from the autonomic nervous system to stay short and contracted. You might get temporary relief when stretching but the muscle will rebound and increase the hyperstimulation of the feedback loop and create more pain.
8. When the muscle is in spasm it will get weaker because the distance between the ends of the muscles will get smaller. Once you release the spasm, the distance between the muscle ends will increase. When the muscle is engaged it will have more power and strength.
9. Strain Counterstrain is a technique that has the ability to calm down the autonomic nervous system, release muscle spasms and at the same time, increase circulation. The effects of the Strain Counterstrain technique are cumulative because it increases oxygenation to the muscles and reduces the lactic acid in them, reducing the level of pain.
10. The more often you release muscle spasms, the more you start to reroute your autonomic nervous system and build new neural pathways for the impulses to go, instead of the same old neural pathways with the pain.
11. The Strain Counterstrain technique is not designed to replace other modalities (stretching, massage, exercise, or chiropractic adjustments) but rather enhance them and make them more effective in the long term.
