Pain is a common symptom. Many hospital visits today are commonly because of pain. People visit the doctor to seek relief from different pain, but among the most common pain disorders from which patients seek relief is back pain. Back pain is so common it has become an epidemic.
Many are constantly battling with back pain that conventional medical interventions of drugs and surgery cannot resolve permanently. These interventions scarcely work because, contrary to popular opinion, pain is not always a manifestation of physical injury or structural abnormalities. When you feel pain, especially in the upper and lower back regions, though you should consider conventional interventions, they should however not always be your first option because pain syndromes involving the back many times have psychological bases - the explanation for this led to the coinage of the term Tension Myositis Syndrome.
Tension myositis syndrome is a term coined by Dr. John Ernest Sarno Jr. a former Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York University School of Medicine to describe a pain syndrome that produces a myriad of symptoms, including numbness and cramps, in people suffering from it. And as the syndrome is primarily psychological, experts have shown its symptoms improve with psychological interventions; examples of such interventions include hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).
In the following paragraphs, this article will briefly explore tension myositis syndrome, hypnosis, and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), and how the latter two can help resolve symptoms of tension myositis syndrome.
WHAT IS TENSION MYOSITIS SYNDROME (TMS)
Tension myositis syndrome, also commonly referred to as mind-body syndrome and tension myoneural syndrome, is a terminology that describes a medical condition that causes acute or chronic discomfort (which can manifest as diverse symptoms) but this discomfort is secondary to a psychological phenomenon, not structural abnormalities or physical injury to the body. The word “tension" in tension myositis syndrome refers to unacceptable, unpleasant emotions generated by our unconscious mind and which we subsequently repress.
A complex interaction between the mind and the external environment generates these emotions, and many stay permanently in our subconscious. With tension myositis syndrome, the emotions and mental activity occurring below the usual level of consciousness are the ones responsible for the cascade of events and symptoms that TMS sufferers register as their complaints. Examples of these emotions include anger, anxiety, fear, sadness, hurt, nervousness and low self-esteem and the body's attempt to repress them manifest symptoms (headache, back pain, peptic ulcer discomfort, and so forth) that are aimed at distracting people suffering from TMS away from their repressed emotions form the basis of the psychology of TMS.
The physiology of tension myositis syndrome is based on the fact TMS is a disorder borne out of a mind-body interaction between the mental and physical realms of the human body which produces physical reactions/manifestations. According to Dr. John Sarno, when the body is trying to repress unpleasant emotion it wishes not to acknowledge, it triggers a response from its autonomic nervous system (the system in control of your body's involuntary actions) which induces a selective reduction of blood flow to different parts of the body. And when body parts, such as the muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc., receive oxygen below the critical level needed to function optimally, pain, numbness, and tingling sensation, and other symptoms manifest.
To date, TMS still has many unknowns, but now we know the symptoms and here they are below.
SYMPTOMS OF TENSION MYOSITIS SYNDROME
While people suffering from tension myositis syndrome often present before physicians with chronic pain (pain lasting over 3 months in duration), they may equally present with an eclectic constellation of symptoms affecting different parts of the body. When you notice you have been suffering from either or more of the symptoms below for over 4 months and your doctor has ruled out organic causes of the symptoms, think of tension myositis syndrome. Below are some symptoms people experience:
Back pain
Neck pain
Shoulder pain
Pain in the buttocks
Sciatica (nerve pain caused by injury to injury or irritation to the sciatic nerve)
Stiffness
Muscle cramp
Headache
Neck ache
Fatigue
Frozen shoulder
Depression (seen in severe TMS cases)
Chronic nausea (idiopathic chronic nausea)
Dizziness
Vertigo and so forth.
Chronic Fatigue
Fibromyalgia
IBS
MANAGING SYMPTOMS OF TENSION MYOSITIS SYNDROME WITH NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING (NLP) AND HYPNOSIS
WHAT IS NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING (NLP)?
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an empirically effective form of psychological therapy that addresses the common psychological challenges we experience in our day-to-day lives. Neuro-linguistic programming uses the way we program our minds to heal our illnesses. It is based on the belief that your present self is a product of your thoughts, feelings, and actions and if you change these three things, you can produce different results and be healed of your psychological illnesses and the symptoms they produce.
NLP helps people to achieve personal excellence as it teaches the patterns and methods used by exceptional individuals to produce results in a field to others struggling in the same field. NLP also helps to elevate our moods by helping us understand and model our successes for repetition and sustained happiness or by modeling other people's success patterns to the end that we produce the same results or better. This happens through conscious programming/modeling using our neurological systems, our communications systems, and the ability to use the aforementioned systems to achieve great results.
WHAT IS HYPNOSIS?
Hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy, is a state of elevated awareness or consciousness where a person selectively heightens one's internal awareness while not losing in entirety the awareness of one's surroundings. While in this trance-like state, you can focus your attention on specific thoughts such that what is being imagined gains a very realistic expression.
Hypnosis has been studied extensively by scientists, and hence the skepticism around its therapeutic potential has significantly dwindled. Now, it is not only a tool for meditation by monks; it has gained wide acceptance in the medical field so much so that medical practitioners now prescribe it for the management of psychological conditions such as anxiety and the relief of pain and other symptoms. Its analgesic property no longer has doubt hovering over it, making it a viable therapeutic option for tension myositis syndrome.
HOW NLP AND HYPNOSIS HELP WITH MANAGING SYMPTOMS OF TENSION MYOSITIS SYNDROME
In the management of the symptoms of tension myositis syndrome, neuro-linguistic programming, hypnosis, hypno-psychotherapy and hypno-coaching work by resolving the psychological causative factor for TMS in patients, leaving them with lasting relief from the condition and its symptoms.
NLP and hypnosis help the body to release negative emotions which, in the body's attempt to repress them, trigger autonomic system responses that manifest as different bodily symptoms in TMS. Let's inspect some symptoms and how NLP and hypnosis resolve them.
PAIN
The pain produced by tension myositis syndrome is due to muscle spasms or the build-up of waste chemicals from the metabolism of lactic acid in the muscle. Both are because of oxygen deprivation, however, the former produces greater pain.
In resolving this symptom, NLP helps the body cope with unpalatable emotions that trigger negative autonomic responses by teaching the body to use the pattern used by others to manage similar emotions. With this, the mind can focus on doing something that brings happiness rather than trying to distract itself from the emotions it seeks to repress.
One way hypnosis helps to resolve pain in TMS is by preventing the mind from repressing unpleasant emotions through heightened awareness of the subconscious and dealing with those emotions with positive thoughts and sometimes reinforced positive confessions in the heightened state of awareness. Some theories have postulated that hypnosis also triggers an autonomic response that acts contrary to the response seen in TMS and hence causes pain relief. Others believe pain reduction through hypnosis is effortless and is a function of some yet unexplained processes within the brain. Regardless, we know that hypnosis helps the body to achieve the distraction that the body aims to achieve when it triggers TMS to turn off the pain and suffering rapidly.
SCIATICA, NUMBNESS, AND TINGLING SENSATION
Nerve symptoms seen in TMS are generally believed to be warning signals sent to the brain. These symptoms, as with muscle pain, are because of oxygen deprivation. They manifest faster because nerves are more sensitive to oxygen supply than muscles. The mechanism by which NLP and hypnosis address this symptom is the same as above - deal directly with the emotion or help the body achieve the distraction it desires without causing discomfort.
FATIGUE AND FROZEN SHOULDER
Fatigue results from the build-up of lactic acid in the muscle because of oxygen deprivation. When the body's oxygen supply is not enough, muscle metabolizes glucose through the lactic acid pathway, causing lactic acidosis. Lactic acidosis causes reduced mobility of muscles, which could manifest as frozen shoulders as TMS commonly affects shoulder muscles. With the restoration of the muscles' oxygen supply through NLP and hypnotherapy, fatigue will gradually disappear.
GASTROINTESTINAL DISCOMFORT
The gastrointestinal tract (GIT) is a major body system almost entirely under the influence of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). When the ANS response and activity are altered, gastrointestinal activity is equally affected and GIT symptoms follow. Also, whenever the body attempts to take the mind off an unpalatable emotion, it could trigger an unpleasant symptom like Ulcer pain in the GIT. Here, dealing directly with the unpleasant emotion causing these symptoms is what NLP and hypnosis do.
DIZZINESS, VERTIGO AND NAUSEA
The autonomic response seen in TMS can equally lead to reduced oxygen supply to the brain, causing dizziness and nausea. Chronic nausea and vertigo can be absolutely debilitating and can effect every aspect of life. It has an ability to stop a person going to appointments, keeping job and having any resemblance of a ‘normal’ existence in society. NLP is a more suitable intervention here as it is the fastest and most effective way to get to the root cause and resolve the issue easily and naturally.
CONCLUSION
There are lots of people suffering from tension myositis syndrome in the western world today. Many of these people are being managed with conventional techniques that will not help them in the long run before the root cause of their problem, which is psychological, is not being tackled.
Neuro-linguistic programming and hypnosis have made it possible to address both the cause and the symptoms of tension myositis syndrome. These techniques are backed by evidence-based research and can be used by everyone. They may not be helpful for all and sometimes, necessity would warrant the use of operant or cognitive–behavioral techniques before, or instead of, neuro-linguistic programming and hypnosis, but this applies sometimes.
References
Patterson, D., 2010. Clinical hypnosis for pain control. Washington, D.C: American Psychological Association, pp.1-44.
Sarno, J., 2001. Healing back pain. 1st ed. New York: Warner Books, pp.6-9, 28-31, 51-53.
SHAH, N., 2011. Neuro-linguistic programming: your map to happiness, confidence, and success. 1st ed. LONDON: Icon Books Ltd, pp.3-16.