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Showing posts from April, 2018

A Unique Approach to releasing Pain and Injury

Anyone who has experienced acute or sudden pain in response to an accident or injury knows that it can be all consuming. The injured area is protected by altering our movements, we lean away from the site of injury. Thomas Hanna called this the “trauma reflex” [i] a built-in response of the nervous system that effectively splints the area through contraction of the surrounding muscles. This gives the injury time to heal. The ‘trauma reflex’ is an important and necessary process, but what we often see is that once the injury heals, unless the pattern is consciously released, traces of it remain. You can probably call to mind friends or acquaintances that move stiffly or in a manner that suggests the holding of an old injury. This can mean that pain or discomfort is not fully released and can become habituated at the level of the brain, creating instability and a vulnerability to future injury or other health issues. A large majority of the people who come to see Alexander Tech