Month: November 2008

I am having a really good week so far. The experiment of using the autogenic relaxtion cd worked great. The massage therapist was able to go fairly deep and work on the knots in my back and I wasn’t sore at all afterwards. And I had an exam for one of my classes last night and was able to keep myself migraine free. I started watching my breathing early in the afternoon and made sure it wasn’t too shallow. Then on the drive to campus I continued by repeating positive phrases and regulating my breathing. I was concerned that the closer to campus I was that my subconscious might kick in, so I used my Ipod for the last mile or two of the drive (one earpiece only–have to be able to hear traffic too!) and for the walk from the parking lot. It worked out wonderfully and I didn’t get twingy at all. 🙂 🙂 I am just excessively excited that I have made progress and I feel like I am on the path to regain some control.

I didn’t have a session scheduled for last week because of work and the break between the last session and this one highlighted my need to practice more. I have to be mindful of my body’s needs and make myself take the time to focus on relaxing in addition to what I am able to do the rest of the day.

I also have to remember to not be judgemental of my skill level. This is not a race I am trying to win or a test I am trying to ace. Whatever I am able to put into it is fine and I have to keep in mind that I won’t always be able to succeed in completely blocking the pain. My triggers are diverse and uncontrollable so thinking that I am always going to be able to stay on top them is unrealistic. They include genetics, weather, and randomness of the universe. Stress is not really a direct trigger, it just aggravates things and makes them worse.

Today’s session involved hooking me up to the breathing monitor, temperature monitor, and the galvonic skin response sensor again. My starting temperature was low and I wasn’t able to get it as high this week (91.? at max), not sure if that’s related to weather or something else. Breathing did fine and I was able to keep the skin sensors below a 2 again.

She also had me tense and relax different muscles in a sequence. However, when we reached my neck and shoulders, after I released them, my temperature dropped and did not come back up at all. At the same time, my breathing and skin didn’t change at all. From what I’ve read, a temperature drop is supposed to indicate an increase in stress, which with my history of shoulder problems is not surprising. But you would think that if it was the only thing occurring then my other readings should have changed in correlation.

So…maybe it’s physical stress but not psychological stress??? I’m not sure at this point what it might mean, if anything. For the next week I am to continue my practice and work on building on visual or verbal cues to remind myself to relax and to breathe. I haven’t been very good at this so far, though I have been able to turn the car into one which is good for myself and everyone on the highway.

Before I left today, I asked the therapist about a summary sheet of my readings. It is sometimes easier to explain things to other people when you have data to show them. I want to be able to share this info with the people around me who are important. Also, this is kind of new for most people in my work and personal circles and I want to show them what exactly I’m doing and why and that progress is being made. Thankfully to this point my reputation of being no-nonsense and always thoroughly researching things has helped reassure most everyone about my decision to seek this path.

Here is a Mayo Clinic article with some additional information outlining biofeedback and another article I found that has a decent picture of the sensors attached to someone’s hand.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/biofeedback/SA00083

http://www.health.com/health/condition-article/0,,20189539,00.html

Sunday we are making our monthly pilgrimage to Massage Envy. It is good for my shoulders and my psyche. I am going to take my Ipod with me and listen to my autogenic cd to see if it helps trigger me to relax more and allow the massage therapist to do her job more easily. Did I mention I’m not very good at relaxing? I mentioned this plan to the biofeedback therapist and she thought it was a good idea and that it showed her that I was trying to be proactively involved in my health and wellness.