Do you feel lopsided? Do you have pain in a limb, but not the other limb on the other side? If so, your brain could be holding you in a trauma reflex.
Muscles on the sides of our body contract in response to accidents or injuries to further avoid pain. Imaging stubbing your toe or worse - breaking a leg, your nervous system will instantaneously shift your weight to the other side to give the injured area time to heal. In the case of hurting the ribs on one side though, we tend to contract into that side to protect the area more. Once the area has healed we should ideally return to normal, but often this is not the case. We get used to holding ourselves in a particular way and it starts to feel normal.
We can habitually create a trauma reflex in our body too. Daily movements like holding a child on one hip or jobs where you use one side of the body more than the other can hike up and rotate muscles more on that side.
The following one sided sports and activities - tennis, golf, rowing, playing a guitar, violin or flute can all create tension in a trauma reflex pattern. Even sitting slumped to one side in the same chair night after night can help create habitual tension in the side of the body.
These things only really become an issue if you struggle to move freely in another direction or you develop pain somewhere.
We can tend to get fixated on treating the bit that hurts when we have pain. But, if we look at the bigger picture, we can see that muscles in the centre have learned to stay tight. We may have pain in the centre - but often with a trauma reflex there is pain in a limb. Often the shoulder, hip, knee or foot pain experienced is just the 'messenger' the main problem is tension in the centre of the body. Once the centre is released - pain reduces or disappears altogether!
Some possible consequences of a Trauma Reflex
Body Asymmetries
Bulging/Herniated Discs
Sciatica Pain
S.I Joint Pain/Dysfunction
Neck and Shoulder Pain
One sided Pain – Hip, shoulder, knee, neck etc
Scoliosis
Plantar Fasciitis
Uneven gait
Leg Length Discrepancy
Somatic movements that can help re – educate a nervous system held in a
Trauma Reflex.
Arch and Flatten Recalibration
The Side Bend
The Wash Rag Twist
I.T Band Release
Shoulder and Hip Circles
Twist and Curl
The Flamingo
Hip Hikes and many more….
Please do contact me if you have any questions or would like to work privately on any issues.
Sarah 07907 22 60 60
exploremovementcouk@gmail.com