Tuesday 6 September 2011

Exercise Exciting???

I had an appointment at the physiotherapist today. I was expecting a bit of bending, exercises and a flea in the ear for not doing enough since my first visit (is it possible to kick your own butt?). Instead, I had one of the most interesting two hour conversations I've had for a while. Yes, I know, quite a statement when you consider how I do love to talk!

There are many changes under way within the NHS, some of which give me great concern, but I am loving recent moves to offer more community-based self-help courses with a multi-disciplinary approach. Prior to my back exploding, I practised Iyengar or Sivananda yoga most days. I was banned by my surgeon and osteopath for year before they both declared they'd made a mistake as I'd stiffened up somewhat (no sh*t Sherlock!). I have struggled since to get back into it even though I know my body and mind love it.

This past couple of months has finally seen me getting some practical help in dealing with my back, depression, and singular inability to get flexing. One Talking Therapy course later and I'm booked on to another that fuses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with meditation, visualisation, and breathing techniques taken from Eastern medical traditions. Today my physiotherapist is referring me to another that fuses traditional physiotherapy with CBT. The first is to help me maintain my recovering depressive state and the later to encourage me to manage my own pain better.

These therapies are no fluffy, pseudo-science based nonsense but soundly based on recent scientific studies that support what Yogis, Tai Chi and Qi Gong folk have understood for centuries. Namely that the mind has a profound effect on the biochemistry of one's body. My degree is in Life Sciences so I love 'getting under the bonnet' so to speak and anticipate seeing myself as my own experiment.

Watch this space as I grumble about the 'no pain, no gain' involved in these courses!


My physiotherapist has made several reference recommendations that I thought I would share :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0671033972/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0980358809/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=A14N8KU5L9NGDX
http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/
http://www.britishpainsociety.org/

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