Small Group Sessions for Chronic Pain with Julia Woodham
These small group sessions will use restorative yoga including gentle movement, unlearning pain through relaxation, visualisation and whole body breathing.
For decades, scientists and doctors thought that pain could be caused only by damage to the structure of the body. They looked for the source of chronic pain in bulging spinal discs, muscle injuries and infections. More recent research, however, points to a second source of chronic pain: the biology of your thoughts, emotions, expectations and memories. Most chronic pain has its roots in a physical injury or illness, but it is sustained by how that initial trauma changes not just the body but also the mind-body relationship.
Chronic pain differs from acute pain in three important ways:
First, the body can become more sensitive to threat, sending threat signals to the brain even when the threat is minor or non-existent.
Second, the brain can become more likely to interpret situations as threatening and sensations as painful, producing pain responses that are out of proportion to any real danger.
Finally, with repeated pain experiences, the boundaries between the many aspects of the pain response such as sensation, suffering and stress become blurred.
In most cases of chronic pain, the mind and body have learned how to detect the slightest hint of a threat and mount a full protective response. Restorative yoga turns on the healing relaxation response by combining gentle yoga poses with conscious breathing.