Oxygen “turned back on” under “life threatening scenarios

I have a theory that i would like to share with you and would love to hear your opinion on it.

I am new to TMS knowledge but it makes total sense to me. I have spend some time now writing down all my injuries and how they progressed.

Here is what i was mystified by. I am a long distance runner, the marathon distance is usually mentally and physically not that much of a challenge for me anymore, however there are distances and terrain, hours spend in the wild that are truly a challenge. Usually it start at around 70km into a run, or if fitness is better and i want to run a miler it starts at aroun 120km. Interestingly i had numerous injuries that really bothered me on all my runs and then completely stopped hurting once i started really struggling physically. For me, i often feel stripped down to the basisc when pushing the body over a hue distance.

Knowing that the subconscious is depriving a tendon or muscle of oxygen to divert from rage or unthinkable thoughts, isnt the subconscious also kicking in when the body is fighting for survival? The logic in training, as many might know, is to train / push so that the brain increases fitness and muscle density over time as it believes the body is fighting for survival and needs to be stronger next time.

In that extreme situation, wouldnt the brain, for the period of the exertion then not increase the oxygen to the area affected, so that it too will survive the ordeal?

I habe experienced many time that chronic pain in the knees, plantar tendon or achillestendon went away when i felt the run was becoming extremely challenging. Sometimes it wouldnt come back for a week. And yes, all those injuries were dignosed by a doctor as structural issues or inflammations.

That means: this would be a real test for TMS. Of course you would beed to push yourself to a level of extreme physical exhaustion.
What do you think?

 

I'm not sure if the subconscious kicks in during the fight for survival. I think it may send you intuitive messages when it "senses" a threat to your survival.
Like: 'Don't get in the car with that guy driving." That kind of thing.
I think our adrenal glands go the extra mile when we push too hard or are in fear for our survival and the adrenaline signals the brain to give it both barrels.
It may be the hyper-focus of "do or die" or "survival" that blocks the pain you might be feeling. Thus the stories of women lifting cars off of a child pinned under a tire, etc.

I had always heard that you exhaust the muscle so that it repairs stronger. I never heard of the survival method of working out. Interesting.

 

Hi WeiDe:

I never really thought much about athletic prowess until I started doing this work. I have always hated and resented exercise, and would often approach things negatively. "After Sarno", I started consciously changing my attitude before a difficult or tedious exercise, and was kind of amazed at how that simple change in my outlook would totally change my experience of the exercise, positively, of course. All I did was visualize my muscles getting stronger and being able to do the lift or whatever easily. It's really just an exercise in mindfulness.

This led me to understand that this is what athletes do in order to achieve ever-better results: it's just mindfulness, which is just positive and constructive mind-over-body self-talk.

I thought that Dr. Sarno's oxygen-deprivation theory was a useful tool for visualization when I started out - but I feel like I've gone beyond it now. To me, mindfulness, and taming the negative self-talk in my head, is the key to taming the demons of what I still call TMS, in Dr. Sarno's honor, because what he gave us is still absolutely brilliant.

Jan

 

How long did it take you to gain that mindfulness? Did you use meditation or other methods when you first started out?

 

Hmm, I don't think I'm organized enough to be able to answer that question. And I also think that my answer would be irrelevant, because it's completely different for each person! Feel free to view my Profile story, and the list of resources that helped me. I've also bookmarked various posts, some of them my own, that I think contain key points.

I do think that a regular practice of mindfulness, which can take different forms, is invaluable.

But it isn't a linear process.

 

Does anyone remember posters when they were in school saying, if you believe it, you can achieve it? A friend who can kick through boards said she was taught to visualize kicking through the wall behind the board. She had been trying for awhile and then did it the first try after visualizing. The brain is so amazing, and yet such a two year old!

 

i also noticed two more things that used to help my pain: magnetic field therapy and altitude training. interestingly both increase the activity of the cells by allowing more oxygen to be carried throughout the body. this would be a symptomatic based treatment.

good points here, i think i read somewhere else that you cannot fix 30 plus years of conditioning in a week. at least the journey has started