Neck- and shoulderpain. Bad to rest your head in a foreward position on pillows watching tv?

Hi!

I feel a bit secure about if I'm doing this post correctly? Don't understand all the choices and options. Please excuse me if I'm doing wrong here. I'm just trying to post a question.

I've managed to heal myself in my back, hips and legs to the point the pain no longer rules my life thanks to Sarno after being bedbound for more than three years. But I can't seem to loose the pain I especially experience when lying down in my sofa with pillows stacked behind my head so I can watch the tv. I always get so sore in my neck and between my shoulders. I often find myself very tight in those muscles too, I just can't relax them. As long as I'm sitting up or doing something standing up I don't suffer from pain but as soon as I lay down to chill and relax the pain starts. Always when my head is piled up on pillows. I've had this pain for years and years and the doctors and physiotherapists can't find anything wrong with me. Sometimes the pain is less but often I have to shift position all the time. It makes it very hard for me to see a film, read a book or just relax because the pain always comes when I'm about to relax and it stresses me out! Somewhere deep I have this understanding that keeping your neck bent like this is bad for you, just like the thoughts I used to have about sitting down on a chair. But nowadays I sit for hours studying. Before Sarno I couldn't even sit at all because of the pain and fear of bending and the stress I was putting on my back. How can I think when it comes to my neck? Is it bad for me and my spine resting my head on pillows in the sofa, keeping it in a forward position? Sometimes the feeling comes to me in bed. I keep thinking it's not good for my spine to rest my head on a pillow. The neck should always be kept straight. Please help me in my thoughts!

/Anna

 

"The neck should always be kept straight. Please help me in my thoughts!"

Hi Sweden84. That is just part of the 'old' conditioning. The whole litany of Do's and Dont's that the 'Medieval Medical Mythology' has made up. As a matter of fact, I have always slept facedown with my neck craned up (I read in bed). I once thought this was part of my pain issue. I quit doing it when I went through 'the system'. After I read 'Healing Back Pain' I immediately resumed this 'bad' habit and have been painfree for 20 years this year.

I have not 'lifted correctly' OR worn a support belt since '99 and I have never had problems . I am a manual laborer who lifts things all day. All of that 'correct alignment' stuff is silly and makes life Hell (quoting Sarno)

Our bodies are the most highly evolved perfect machine on the planet. We are Not the delicate gossamers the Chiro world would have us believe. IF we get pain in a particular position it is because we are conditioned to expect it OR are having it because of TMS and just happen to be in that position. Relax however you'd like and if you feel anything ask yourself "I wonder why I need this symptom right now?"

 

Thank you for a kind and informative answer. It was just as I expected. I also fear that not having a "correct" posture will give me pain in the long run. My shoulders and neck become more in a forward position with time and that it will generate pain but that's also mumbo jumbo I guess. But weren't we created to have a perfect posture and to not have it will generate pain? But that sounds untrue too. Damn psysiotherapists and stuff I read all over the net and in magazines. Sometimes they get to you and the belief you have starts asking questions again, feeling doubts rising within. It's from fear I guess.

You are so right in the question I should ask myself. Why do I need the pain? But most of all, it's not "dangerous" or bad to rest my head on a pile of pillows. That was kind of the main thing here. Thank you so much! The next step is as you say to ask myself why the pain...

Very interesting to read about your story. Thank you for sharing!

 

Yeah. This is so perfectionist on a society level, isn't it. Like we're all supposed to look like marble statues of Greek gods. Pure hokum. I know my father did not have perfect posture and never had a bit of pain until he died at age 94.

 

Wonderful to hear about your father and thank you for showing me the right path for thinking.