Therapeutic Effects

As already mentioned, almost all of us have developed a degree of background tension which also interferes with our posture and poise and with the freedom and ease of our movement.

This tension puts extra pressure on our muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and cartilage and this causes extra wear and tear. Furthermore, this produces waste products that can cause damage and inflammation and put an extra load on our liver and kidneys. The healing processes from the damage also causes inflammation.

Furthermore, when muscles are stressed by continual extra tension, they become sore. And when they are sore, they send a message to a reflex area in the spine. This interprets the soreness as needing protection, so it sends a message to the muscle to tighten itself, in order to protect itself and any structures around it. This makes sense if the muscles need to immobilise a broken bone, but otherwise, it just causes extra tension and pain. This is a common cause of back pain.

Tight muscles also squeeze blood vessels flowing through or next to them, thus depriving various areas of their full nutrition and oxygen for fuel and healing. This also puts an extra strain on the heart as it has to pump harder and this raises blood pressure.

Tight muscles around the torso, and the reflexes pulling the head and neck down, shorten and compress the torso. This causes extra pressure within the torso, which means that all the internal organs are being compressed. The tightness and compression also restrict breathing, so that it takes more effort and the lung capacity is reduced and therefore, less carbon dioxide is being released, raising acid levels in the body, and less oxygen is being taken in, reducing available energy for movement and healing. 

Furthermore, where oxygen is in short supply, many cells resort to anaerobic use of glucose fuel for the cell. With proper aerobic metabolism, all the hydrogen and carbon atoms are split off to make energy for the cell. This produces 34 units of energy for each molecule of glucose. However, anaerobic metabolism only produces 4 units of energy and two nasty bits of broken glucose molecule called lactic acid. This means much less energy to work with, but also a bulky abrasive waste product that clogs up the cell’s systems, irritates and damages it, and is difficult to get rid of. Worse still, we know that cancer cells work best with anaerobic metabolism and a body deprived of its full supply of oxygen favours cancers. (I am not suggesting that the Alexander Technique could cure cancer, but remedying conditions that might favour cancer might reduce a person’s risk of getting it.)

Furthermore, the tension and all the associated problems with it, cause our nervous system to send a flood of messages to the brain, which gives it extra work to do. Your brain also registers all this extra input as indicating a problem or threat, and its usual response to a problem is to contract your body, as if you were about to be attacked, thus not only giving your brain even more work to do, but exacerbating the background tension even more.

Also, when your brain senses a threat, it drains blood from your cortex, where you do your logical thinking. Instead, it diverts it to the deeper instinctive and reactive parts of the brain, which it uses for fight and flight. So not only does your brain have to do more work due to the tension, but your ability to think calmly and clearly is reduced by the lack of blood in your cortex. This leads to mental and emotional tension, muddled thinking and poorer decisions.

Additionally, when your brain senses a problem or threat, it sends out messages to suppress your digestive system (which is already over compressed.) Your digestive system uses a lot of energy and your brain wants to divert the blood and the energy to your muscles, again for fight or flight. This can lead to long term digestive problems.

At the same time, your brain sends messages to your adrenal glands to make extra adrenalin. This further suppresses your digestion and tightens your muscles even more. It can also lead to adrenal exhaustion. Your brain also produces hormones which stimulate the adrenal glands to produce cortisol. Cortisol is used for removing damaged cells when you are active. But if you are just tense, but not active, the cortisol tends to eat away at healthy tissue. Therefore, tension can literally ‘eat you from the inside!’

All of this requires extra work and effort to overcome the tension and to deal with the results of it. Therefore, unneeded tension can have a multiplying and damaging effect. We would not notice this in the short term, but many years of even a small amount of unnecessary background tension can have a significant effect on health over time. Obviously, by learning how to let go of this tension and extra effort required by it, we can give our bodies an opportunity to repair any damage and heal itself.

Conditions it may Help

Here is a list of conditions that might benefit from learning the technique. Some are widely or generally accepted as often being helped. Others may improve or possibly be avoided by learning it, but there is less strong evidence for it. Some conditions you might expect to be helped or cleared up, but my own experience or knowledge suggest that the technique is not the best way to deal with them.

 

Generally Accepted Conditions

These are conditions that it is generally accepted can be helped by learning the technique. Most of these can be traced as being caused or exacerbated by excess tension, poor posture, and distorted use associated with them.

Back pain

The Alexander Technique has long had an excellent reputation for clearing up or improving back pain, even if there is significant damage, especially in the lower spine. By reducing background tension and stimulating a person’s poise and buoyancy and getting them to rise more vertically upright, it takes a lot of pressure off the area. This applies to various bone fractures, to slipped (herniated or prolapsed) discs, or to non-specific lower back pain. In fact, Jack Stern, a leading American spinal neurosurgeon has claimed:

“97% of people with back pain could benefit by learning the Alexander Technique”

My first paying client had what is called a Scotty Dog fracture in his lower spine, where a break had allowed one vertebra to be displaced from the next, trapping part of his spinal cord and trapping some nerves. As my first client, it took 30 lessons for it to improve, but he was virtually pain free as a result.

With herniated and prolapsed discs, where the cartilage between vertebrae either bulges or splits, we know that in time, nerves that are pressed by this will wear a groove in the bulging part and the person will feel less pain over time. However, by relieving the pressure on the disc, it can heal and regain its proper shape a lot more quickly.

Many back problems are caused by what we call poor use. Stooping, lifting and doing bending jobs inappropriately etc. But we also know that slumping in a chair, especially while travelling or driving, stretches a ligament at the back of the spine. This allows the spine to bend too much when we bend over. When this happens, a bit of extra pressure from suddenly lifting something, or a sneeze, can push the back of one of the discs out. When you learn the technique, your body will let you know early when you are stretching that ligament and you will tend to adjust yourself so it is no longer stretching. This way, the likelihood of having a ‘slipped’ disc is greatly reduced.

Joint Pains

Here I am referring to the joints in the legs and feet, and in the arms and fingers. The joints in our legs and feet have to support the weight and movement of our bodies. If the muscles in our legs and feet have extra tension in them, then that pulls these joints tighter and so they have to contend with both this extra tightness and our weight and movement. In the arms, they are not usually carrying our weight, but we may be lifting things, using tools or playing sports, sometimes with a lot of force, or even doing something repetitive such as typing. As with the lower limbs, extra tension and extra force to the joints.

This extra force or pressure can lead to wear in the cartilages, causing friction, roughness, debris and inflammation. It may lead to the cartilage wearing through leading to osteoarthritis, where the bone ends in the joints are grinding, causing swelling and pain. (Osteo = bone, arthro = joint, itis = swelling and pain– so you tell the doctor your joints hurt and he tells you you have arthritis, which means your joints hurt!)

When your body notices damage and inflammation, it sometimes thinks it is under attack by a foreign organism. So it tries to identify unique proteins in the area of damage and makes antibodies to attach to these proteins. Your white blood cells come along and recognise the antibodies and attack the cells that they are attached to, as if they were an invading organism. This is called an auto-immune response and when the tissue being attacked is joint tissue, it is labelled as rheumatoid arthritis (arthritis coming from the rheum, or fluid of the body.)

By learning how to let go of unnecessary tension and allowing your body to work freely and efficiently, you reduce the risk of damage, and to whatever degree it can, your body will then try to heal itself.

Muscle Pains

The situation is similar in our muscles. Muscles work in pairs or groups, so that one set of muscles relaxes its background tone (normal background contraction that keeps our bodies stable) in order for the opposite set of muscles to contract and move a part of us. With excess tension, the relaxing muscles do not relax enough and so they resist the contracting muscles, so that these have to work harder.

The excess tension also constricts the blood flow to the muscles, so that when worked hard, they sometimes do not have enough oxygen to work properly, forcing them to make energy anaerobically and causing a buildup of lactic acid, making the muscles hard and sore, restricting their movement and limiting their power. This can happen to sports people and people doing heavy manual work. It can also happen with poor posture with some of the back muscles overworking themselves to keep the person up, but failing to develop full strength and becoming swollen and painful.

Again, the solution is to learn how to let go of excess tension, so that the muscles can work easily and powerfully, without resistance and without lactic acid buildup. Muscles are very good at healing themselves, given the right conditions. However, they are often painful as they heal: this being their way of telling you to use them gently so they can heal more quickly.

RSI Repetitive Strain Injury

A special case is when muscles, tendons, ligaments, and their sheathes, or nerves are damaged by repetitive movements. These are usually associated with work, known as WRULDs or Work Related Upper Limb Disorders, but also can come from sports, hobbies or housework and gardening. Examples are carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow, tendonitis ( damaged or irritated tendons) and bursitis, where fluid collects around a joint in the knee, elbow or hand.

The usual treatments are cortisones and surgery. However, relaxing away your background tension is a good start. Then learning how to perform tasks, even energetic ones, without the habits that went with the tension, and with the maximum of freedom and minimum of effort to get the job done. 

Once you have learned the technique, you will also be much more sensitive to your body’s needs, limits and abilities and will learn how to adapt what you do to prevent problems. If you are in a situation where you are not given a choice to look after your own health, you will find it easier to weigh up your cost benefits in that situation and if possible leave. Most workplaces are now very sensitive and litigation shy, and are even keen to accommodate good, healthy working practices. My experience has also been that people become more confident having learned the technique and will more readily stand up for themselves.

Tension Headaches

One specific form of muscle pain is tension headaches. Here, a band of muscles in your forehead, pull your scalp forward, while a band at the back of your head, pull them backwards. This stretches your scalp, irritating it and pulling it tight against your skull, irritating that as well. This is often accompanied by a tight jaw, where the jaw muscles are attached in a fan shape to the sides of your skull, and as they tighten, they pull against your skull, irritating it as well.

Most tension starts in your neck, but easily spreads to your scalp and your jaw. By relaxing your neck, it is easier then for your scalp and jaw to relax by thinking of them doing so.

Some Migraines

Although many migraines have a chemical origin, irritating the blood vessels in your brain, some migraines are due to pressure on the blood vessels in your neck from tight muscles. This reduces the blood flow to your brain, which in turn produces spasms in the internal blood vessels.

Once a migraine has started, it is less easy to relax it, but thinking gently of it relaxing may be one of the most useful things you can do. Obviously, keeping it calm and relaxed in the first place will reduce the likelihood of having migraines.

Poor Posture Kyphosis Scoliosis and Lordosis

There are two main sorts of postural problems: 

Those caused directly and often gradually by background tension, and giving way to the extra effort required to stay upright and therefore slumping

Those caused by disease, old age or congenital differences

The former are obviously the easiest to deal with. As usual, getting rid of background tension and re-stimulating your natural poise and buoyancy, will allow those without underlying problems to gradually straighten out and stand straight (with just the natural curves) and tall. John Cleese, the very tall actor of Fawlty Towers fame, claimed he grew six inches as a result of the technique. Obviously, he did not grow, he merely straightened out and rose to his right, full– or rightful, natural height.

For people with osteoporosis, with congenital extra curvature, or for whom old age has not been kind and they have developed excessive curvatures, there is still hope. Bones can very gradually change shape even in older people (this is how they became more curved in the first place) and there is scope for at least some straightening out.

However, one’s extra curvature may not fully resolve, but even with deeper curvature, you will still be able to stand and move more easily and with greater poise. It is your built in buoyancy, which when it is allowed to operate, will draw you up to the best balance and alignment possible.

General Mobility – Especially for Older People

There have been many studies into general mobility, especially in older people, with one titled:

I never thought I could do that…”

Again, this is achieved by reducing background tension and learning to trust your natural poise, buoyancy and coordination to move you easily and freely. I am currently 75 and go caving, swimming, fixing antique railway slate waggons and riding them downhill under gravity.

Managing Parkinson’s Disease

The Alexander Technique obviously cannot directly cure Parkinson’s disease, but it can help those suffering from it. Research in 2002, 2005 and 2015 all showed that lessons in the technique could help sufferers to more easily initiate movement (a major problem for sufferers) and then be smoother and more coordinated. I also worked with one of my uncles who was suffering with it, and again, was able to get him to be able to initiate movements much more easily and move more smoothly and accurately.

Apart from helping a sufferer to relax more, by starting movements deliberately from their head and neck, they stimulate reflexes in their spinal cord. These get them to stand up, walk, move in the right direction, handle objects and sit down again. It does not slow the neurological progress of the disease, but it does extend the time during which they have a reasonable degree of movement and coordination.

Mental and Emotional

Our bodies and our minds are intimately entwined. Alexander himself coined the term Psycho-physical to describe how they were two aspects of one and the same thing. As Alexander teachers, we experience how thinking directly affects the body and how the body affects thinking. In fact, in the Alexander Technique, we bring about bodily changes specifically by how we think. Or as one person put it “What you think is what you get.” Therefore it is only natural that we should be able to change how we think and feel by changing our physiology.

Trauma

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s popular book The Body Keeps the Score describes how our bodies hold tension as a result of trauma. Alexander teachers are familiar with this, experiencing more tension in trauma victims than other people. Dr. van der Kolk recommends Yoga as a possible treatment to release this tension, and no doubt it works, though I suspect he is unfamiliar with Alexander Technique.

As Alexander teachers, we work very gently and carefully with trauma victims. Their tension feels like a protective shield to them and this shield needs to be let down very gradually. Frequently, when a pupil experiences a release, it lets out suppressed pent-up emotions and they will often weep. This is a cathartic letting go, rather than a flashback, as unconsciously, they would only let go of the tension if they feel safe. They may relate an incident or incidents to the teacher or they may process and release the trauma without this.

I would suggest they also consult a well established NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) BWRT (Brainwork Recursive Therapy) or a Havening practitioner to make sure any other backlog is resolved. These use the same basic principles as EMDR, but are generally less harrowing.

Anger and Depression

A famous Snoopy cartoon shows Charlie Brown all slumped, saying “You’ve got to do depression properly”– and as he stands straight with a smile “You can’t do it while you are standing up straight”– and slumping again “You’ve got to get into a real slump to do depression properly!”

It is well known that posture and mood go together. While smiling as part of an Alexander exercise, I even experienced that it evaporated my being very angry at someone for something that had happened earlier in the day. I then stopped smiling and felt “Who stole my very righteous anger from me?” It was a few more minutes before I relented and allowed myself to smile again, at which point the anger melted away again. This is not to say that either depression or anger are irrelevant– they have important psychological functions: they are trying to motivate us to try to remedy their causes. However, when there is nothing to be done, at least for the moment, then the emotions and the posture and body chemistry that goes with them are unhealthy for us, producing cortisols that literally eat us from the inside.

Without the habitual background tension, it is still possible to be depressed, or better still, concerned, or to be angry, but it is less likely to get stuck and you can release out of it far more easily. In fact Richard Bandler, the originator of NLP, claims the secret of life is to “Feel good for no good reason!” This way, you handle life better and resolve problems more easily. The Alexander Technique is a useful step in this direction.

Bipolar

Many years ago, when I worked 12 hour shifts for several days at the BBC, I would collapse on my first day off, daunted and depressed at the daily tasks that I needed to do at home. Towards the end of a three or four day break, I would suddenly have a burst of energy and go at everything like a bull at a gate. Once back at work, I was well regulated, but the cycle would repeat again once I was off work again. The work was not demanding, nor was my workload that onerous once I got home.

When I first started having Alexander lessons while I was still working at the BBC, I had much more presence of mind, patience and self restraint. I realised that I needed to rein back on my sudden surge of energy when it came. I would then work three or four days on 12 hour shifts again, but when I came off shift again, I did not fall into my usual pit of despair, but rested a bit and got to work on my own tasks gently when I was ready. This way I was a lot more productive and also happy in myself.

Possible Conditions

These are conditions, which although not normally acknowledged to be helped by the technique, nevertheless, could either potentially be helped or there is some evidence that it has helped.

Abdominal Problems – Hernias Reflux

Stooping and excess tension in the torso cause higher pressure inside the torso and especially inside the abdomen. This compresses the abdominal contents, specifically the stomach and intestines. This does not usually cause hernias– protrusions through the abdominal wall, but heavy lifting, straining on the toilet or even sneezing, in the presence of this increased pressure sometimes can.

A very common, though unrecognised hernia is a hiatus hernia. Here the very top of the stomach bag is pushed up through the diaphragm when a person holds their breath and strains on the toilet. This either traps acid in the oesophagus or allows it to flow up into it, causing acid reflux or heartburn.

The usual response to this is to take medications that inhibit acid production in the stomach. This seems misguided to me– the stomach was not making too much acid and in some older people, may not be making enough, and your stomach needs to be making acid to digest protein. A better approach is simple chalk tablets e.g. Rennies etc, to just neutralise the acid in your oesophagus.

The better approach is to get rid of background tension, after which the sphincter muscles will relax more easily and the movement of the bowels can more easily expel your waste products. The technique also promotes patience and trust in your body’s systems. Finally, it promotes awareness, with which you can refrain from holding your breath and trying to force things out by sheer pressure– our body’s do not work efficiently that way.

Abdominal and inguinal hernias are also caused by too much internal pressure. This could be lifting, especially with either or both your upper or lower body bent forward, and especially by blocking the breath or lifting very suddenly. Some violent sneezes may also cause it.

Abdominal hernias are where some fat or part of the intestines protrudes through the front of the belly. More commonly, especially in men, an inguinal hernia is where the fat or intestine protrudes through the crease between the lower abdomen and a leg.

Hernias do not repair of their own accord, and usually need surgery. However, the risk of hernia can be reduced by reducing background tension, learning patience and care, trusting your body’s wisdom to handle things carefully, and to not hold your breath.

Abdominal Problems – Internal Organs

Your heart, liver, pancreas, spleen and kidneys are all in your abdominal cavity and are all subject to extra pressure if your abdomen is tight or you habitually stoop or bend your lower back. Generally, we do not ascribe problems with these organs to postural problems or excess tension, but they are obviously better off without them. A course of Alexander lessons is unlikely to reverse any problem with any of these, but it may be a wise investment to allow them to work optimally without the extra pressure.

Baldness – Male Pattern

The official line on male pattern balding is that it is an excess of a powerful form of testosterone– dihydrotestosterone or DHT, that causes it. Scientists have found it at the site of withered hair follicles, so it was assumed to be the cause, and therefore the cure is something that stops DHT being made from ordinary testosterone in the first place. Unfortunately it also suppresses your sex drive and although hair grows back, it withers away again if you stop the treatment.

However, Rob English, a medical researcher claims that it is scalp tension that robs the hair follicles of blood, and therefore damages the follicles. DHT is thought to be a secondary effect of the follicles shrinking and withering. His remedy is to massage your scalp, thus promoting blood supply. And if you scratch your scalp, it causes inflammation– bringing more blood to the scalp.

Of course, an alternative approach would be to relax your scalp, so that the blood flows back naturally. In fact one of my fellow trainee Alexander teachers started regaining his hair during his second year.

Blood pressure & Heart disease

As mentioned, excess tension squeezing blood vessels and higher abdominal pressure can restrict blood flow, raise blood pressure and put an extra load on the heart. Obviously, by reversing the tension and abdominal pressure, you make your heart’s job a lot easier.

This does not account directly for arterial plaque, though my experience is that people tend to make better decisions, having learned the technique. So they are likely to research dietary and lifestyle options to improve heart health. My understanding is that it is too much saturated fat, rather than dietary cholesterol, which may lead to buildup of plaque in arteries. Some research indicates that vegans, vegetarians and those on low saturated fat diets live longer. People in Okinawa, Japan and Seventh Day Adventists are the main source for these findings. Incidentally, whatever is good for the heart is usually also good for the brain, reducing the risk of stroke and dementia.

Smoking is also a major risk, probably due to it forcing the adrenal glands to produce excess adrenaline, which not only tenses both the body and arteries, but uses up a lot of vitamin C in the process. The vitamin C is essential for healing any day to day wear and tear in the arteries– otherwise, plaque forms over the damaged areas. Some people may find it easier to stop smoking as a result of learning the technique.

Breathing Problems

One of the first signs that his technique might have therapeutic effects was that Alexander’s asthma, which he had had from early childhood, cleared up. It is very possible that he had been distorting his larynx since early childhood, or that he even developed this habit unconsciously in order to try to breathe more easily. Either way, the distortion irritated his larynx, especially when he distorted it even more when he recited. 

However, Alexander initially seems to have had a lot of background tension. This taxes all the body’s systems, which can lead to oversensitivity and allergies. By no longer distorting his larynx and reducing this background tension, it seems he removed the triggers for his sensitivity and his body became more tolerant. Given this beginning, it is surprising that there seems to be no research into the technique’s effectiveness.

By releasing background tension and naturally straightening their bodies through natural poise, most Alexander students effortlessly achieve significantly greater breathing capacity. This allows for:

• • • Greater energy production for sports, exercise and physical work
    • Louder volume for public speaking, singing and instrument playing
    • Allowing longer between breaths for the above
    • Better oxygenation of your body, promoting better health and more rapid healing
    • Clearing out carbon dioxide more efficiently which reduces acidity in your body

Chronic Fatigue

My former wife and my daughter both have chronic fatigue and I have had several female friends with the condition, some of whom have recovered. There is no evidence that the technique can reverse the condition, though it is likely to make recovery easier, and the patience, restraint and discretion that is part of the process, is invaluable for managing one’s energy in order to not overextend your resources.

My daughter also developed numbness in her left arm and down her left side and also spasms in her left arm and chest. By very carefully easing her out on a table or sometimes across a bed, and by extremely careful extension of her arms to the side and above/beyond her head, I was able to get the spasm and tension to subside. Over time, greater strength has also returned to her left side and arm. 

Unfortunately, she was unable to get the same results from other Alexander Teachers in her area. However, as she lives remotely from me, I have now taught her two eldest daughters how to work with her. If you have CFS or ME and want me to work with you, I can also train suitable carers to work with you as well.

Raynaud’s Syndrome and Numb Fingers

I used to very frequently have numb fingers, with them turning white or purple from lack of circulation from even the slightest bit of cold. Having learned the technique, I found I could relax my arms and hands and stop worrying about it. I found that the blood would then return within a few minutes, especially if I paid attention to something else and forgot about it.

Although it can be concerning to some people, it seems to be a natural reaction to conserve body heat. It is caused by constriction of the small circular muscles around the arteries to the fingers– and no amount of massaging or shaking of your hand will get the blood past the restriction. Furthermore, fingers can go up to about eight hours without blood supply, so as long as the blood returns a lot sooner than that, apart from discomfort, no damage will have been done. Seriously numb fingers might imply another underlying condition, so it is wise to consult a doctor if there is much of a problem.

Tinnitus

There are many possible causes of tinnitus, however jaw clenching can cause it and there is a possible cause of tinnitus that may have been overlooked.

It is possible that long term tension in the guy rope like muscles at the sides of the neck– the sternocleidomastoid muscles, may cause a buildup of lactic acid in the mastoid processes, the knobbly bits of your skull, just below your ears. If this reaches the auditory nerve and irritates it, it is likely to send false signals to the brain, which would be interpreted as sound.

The sternocleidomastoid muscles are the ones that pull your head and neck forward and down. By relaxing your neck and relaxing your jaw, both these possible causes could be remedied.

Not Fully Successful

These are musculo-skeletal conditions for which, although the technique will set up ideal conditions for healing, the technique itself does not or cannot resolve.

Frozen shoulder

A frozen shoulder or adhesive capsulitis is where the bag containing the body’s natural lubricating fluid, around the shoulder joint, sticks together on the inside. This restricts shoulder movement and makes it very painful as the stuck bits start to get pulled apart. It usually occurs after a shoulder injury or an injury nearby, though often some years afterwards.

The usual treatments are manipulation through physiotherapy, steroid injections, or keyhole surgery. However, a small clinical trial comparing physiotherapy with Bowen Technique came out in favour of bowen. Having had both my left and right shoulders affected about 18 months apart, and already being a fan of Bowen technique, I opted for that, while also having physiotherapy in the NHS. The bowen technique seemed to clear it up both times, far quicker than the physio was expected to do. Meanwhile, while my application of the Alexander Technique may have helped, it did not resolve it.

A specialised (though rather forceful looking) Chiropractic technique to free up the top joints of the neck and skull, called OTZ, also has apparently shown some clinical success with frozen shoulders, though I cannot vouch for it. I have been very impressed with Bowen technique and its twin Neurostructural Integration Technique or NST. They are very gentle and either of these would be my recommendation.

Injuries

I suffered a broken leg in 1993, when I got knocked over by a very small lorry. The thin shaft that connects the top of the femur to the ball that goes into the hip joint socket, got pushed into the top of the femur by  2 centimetres. This shortened my left leg and also caused the 4 muscles that control the joint and my pelvis to have to work very much harder than before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Toyota-HiacetruckH10.JPG

Having already learned the technique, I was able to find the best new alignment of this joint, but the overworked muscles would occasionally spasm or suddenly collapse. I found that subtle manipulations from a Bowen practitioner helped these muscles to rebalance, relax and stop collapsing, twinging and aching.

I have found Bowen and NST to be effective in dealing with sprains and strains and also for correcting some jaw or temporo-mandibular joint problems.

Skeletal displacements

After recovering from my accident in 1993, I found it more difficult to sit up or stand straight. There was always a bit of a curve in the upper middle of my back. It didn’t usually hurt unless I really tried hard. Eight years later I was attending a seminar with Dr Richard Bandler, the originator of Neuro-linguistic Programming or NLP. A core principle of NLP is to model how successful people achieve what they do, and he had been invited to model the process of teaching Chiropractic. He was giving a demonstration of the techniques and I asked him about my difficulty with sitting and standing straight. He had me sit on the edge of a massage couch and slowly bend over as he palpated my back and spine. He then quite firmly, but slowly, pushed a bumpy bit, which clicked, and I was told to straighten up slowly. He had apparently repositioned the end of one of my ribs, which it seems, had been dislocated in the accident.

He claims that chiropractic (and presumably osteopathy) moves should be done slowly, so that your body can register the change and not spring bones and joints back out of line to where they were. I have a preference for Osteopathy over Chiropractic, partly for this reason, and partly as I am suspicious of some of the latter’s claims and origins.

The Alexander Technique can draw you and your bones and joints into alignment so long as they have not been displaced too much, but not everything clicks back into place automatically just by extending you, and extra skill and manipulation is sometimes needed. Misaligned spinal joints and the sacro-illiac joints are examples. So, for displaced joints, I would recommend Chiropractic or preferably Osteopathy. For sprains, jaw problems and muscle spasms, I would recommend Bowen or NST.

How to Get the Benefits

The fastest way to get the health and wellbeing benefits of the Technique is by having one to one lessons with a qualified teacher. Since qualifying myself, I have developed ways to make the Technique far easier to understand and to teach you much more quickly and easily.

For many people they can get the results they want within ten lessons for as little as £500. However for some health conditions, this may take longer and you may want occasional top ups, though my aim is not just to resolve your situation, but to enable you to continue to recreate the benefits of the Technique for yourself.

If my classes seem a bit of a stretch, I am happy to receive regular payments over a timescale that is realistic for you– get the work when you want or need it and pay when you can afford it.

Book a Free Lesson

Feel free to get in touch with me today on 07791 930028 and book your free introductory lesson. I cannot promise to heal anything, though many conditions have been know to improve through the Technique and it is also one of the best ways of managing conditions and one of the best preventatives that I know of.

 

David Owen 07791 930028