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Part II is here.

Part III is here.

Matt

Did you know NFL players use Rolfing® Structural Integration to get themselves ready for game day? Wayne Henningsgaard is the Rolfer(tm) for several Minnesota Vikings.

Muscle spasms and pain have racked an Oklahoma City woman so severely that her friends have described her body as a human pretzel. After 14 years of searching, she’s finding promise in a relatively unknown muscle treatment.

I’ll ruin the surprise and tell you that the treatment is Rolfing® Structural Integration.  Read the rest of the article for more of this woman’s story.

A friend once asked me, “What is Rolfing anyway?”

“That’s actually really simple,” I said.  “But to answer your question, I have to ask you a question.  How important to you are your health, your sense of happiness, your sense of presence, and your sense of self-confidence?”

“Those are all important,” replied my friend.  “Why?

“Well, how about your ability to concentrate and your sense of direction in life?”

“Yeah, those are important to me.  So what?”

“Well, you can only improve all those things when you feel good in your body and when your body functions the way it’s supposed to.  Over the course of our lives — with the accidents, tumbles, and assorted slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the reality that often we just plain don’t move our bodies enough — our bodies change.  They move from equilibrium and stop functioning the way they should.  We end up with generalized pain or tiredness or listlessness or any of a number of other things that make our lives that much more unpleasant.”

“I already have all those symptoms,” replied my friend with a gentle undertone of suffering in his voice.  “My back hurts all the time, and I can’t sleep well anymore.  But that’s just what happens when you age.”

“No, it isn’t,” I interjected.  “That’s the biggest mistake people make when thinking about their health, and it leads to pain and suffering.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  You can, even in old age, enjoy your life without those problems.”

The idea rattled his brains.  He seemed a bit irritated by my conviction, but he was still curious.  “Okay, then tell me how this all works.  It’d be nice if it were actually true.”

“Okay, let me give you an example.  When you build a house, how important is the underlying structure — the frame?”

“Really important,” my friend answered.  “Otherwise you end up with all kinds of problems with the house.”

“Okay, so why is the frame so important?  What force acts on the house all the time to make the frame so important?”

My friend thought for a little while then answered with a bit of pride, “Gravity’s always acting on the house.  If the frame isn’t set right, the house will eventually collapse.”

“Bingo!  And is that so different from the body?  The body’s always under the force of gravity, right?  How do you feel about the state of your frame?  Is it set right?”

My friend looked a little puzzled, but he started to get it.  “I’ve thought about that.  My frame is definitely not in the best shape.  I can see that in the mirror.  Plus, I sit way too much in front of a computer at work, and three years ago I tore my ACL skiing.  I still limp a little because of that little beauty.  So I think I get it now.  I don’t move around enough, my frame is out of whack, and gravity’s doing me in!”

“That’s it!” I said.

“So what can I do about it?  I don’t want to get anymore problems with my body, and I’d like to stay happy and healthy for as long as possible.  What am I supposed to do?”

“You pretty much answered it yourself.  Get in touch with your own body and get your frame back in order!”

“And who’s gonna show me how to do that?”

“Me, since I’m a Rolfer.  Rolfing helps put you back in touch with your body, gets your frame back in order, and teaches you how to move around efficiently in gravity.  Which brings us back to what I was asking you about earlier.  If your body’s frame were in good shape and you could move efficiently and easily, can you imagine what it would do to your health, your sense of happiness, your sense of presence, and your sense of self-confidence?

“Yeah, I guess I can,” answered my friend.

“Well, that’s Rolfing.  Simple, right?”

Photo courtesy of wikicommons user Collard

People often wonder how structural integrators can claim to elicit emotional change. Structural integrators claim that a sense of well-being can result, that sometimes our work is more effective at getting through emotional blocks than talk-therapy, etc. etc. We make pretty bold claims for some people to believe, so let’s look at the science behind such claims, shall we?

While structural integration does not have pain reduction as a stated goal, pain reduction is often a very welcome “side effect” for many, many clients. A large number of people seek out Rolfers® for pain relief.

If we limit the discussion to simply pain relief, then guess what? There is no theoretical question of whether there can be an “emotional” effect of structural integration. Current brain research is showing that pain, depression, and anxiety are very tightly linked in the programming of (at least) mammals. Ergo, you get rolfed, you get less pain, you get less depression.

In March 2008, a team of brain researchers at Harvard medical school published a paper investigating the relationship between pain and depression. The researchers observed that patients with pain often show signs of depression. They designed their experiment to investigate the mechanisms by which pain and depression might interact. After fiddling with some mice and some melatonin they came to a conclusion:

“These results suggest that there exists a reciprocal relationship between mechanical allodynia (Matt’s note: you can think of this as hypersensitivity to touch) and depression-like behavior and the melatoninergic system in the anterior cingular cortex might play an important role in the interaction between pain and depression.”

In plain English, that means that some chemical and a part of the brain are involved in the simultaneous presentation of depression and pain. They are strongly related at a very basic level.

Another team of researchers at the University of Toyama in Japan published research in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology on the relationship between anxiety and pain and stated:

“Clinically, it is well known that chronic pain induces depression, anxiety, and a reduced quality of life. There have been many reports on the relationship between pain and emotion. We previously reported that chronic pain induced anxiety with changes in opioidergic function in the central nervous system.”

They then went on to test the effect of antidepressants on the anxiety reactions of injured mice as well as their measurable hypersensitivity to touch and heat (pain). They found that the antidepressants they used

“…are effective for treating anxiety associated with chronic neuropathic pain and may be useful for treating neuropathic pain with emotional dysfunction such as anxiety. Furthermore, SSRIs (the class of antidepressants they used) show anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing) and antinociceptive (anti-pain- signaling) effects by acting on different brain regions.”

I’m not a proponent of drugging everyone because they have anxiety (FAR FROM IT!), but the research that this team did shows a clear relationship between pain and anxiety.

So if pain is directly related to anxiety and depression, and we know that structural integration can be great at relieving pain, then we also know that structural integration can have a direct impact on one’s levels of anxiety and depression

Markus Roßmann aus Bayern hat eine schöne Erklärung über die Philosophie und Ziele des Rolfings gefasst:

Ein Freund fragte mich einmal: „ Was ist eigentlich Rolfing“?

„Das ist eigentlich ganz einfach“, sagte ich. „Aber dafür muss ich Dir eine Gegenfrage stellen. Wie wichtig sind Dir Gesundheit, Lebensfreude, Ausstrahlung und Selbstsicherheit“? „Das alles ist mir natürlich sehr wichtig“, antwortete mein Freund, „aber warum fragst Du das“, erwiderte er…

Um den Rest zu lesen, bitte besuchen Sie sein Blog bzw. Was ist Rolfing? - Gespräche Teil I

***An English translation of this content is also available on this site***

(photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Owen Marcus, a certified Rolfer® in Idaho, is looking for female participants in a pilot study on the effects of structural integration on cellulite.

Currently, I am looking for five women who have cellulite who would like to go through a series of Rolfing sessions. In exchange for being interviewed, photographed (your identity can be concealed) and agreeing to follow the protocol of the study, I am offering 50% off my normal rate.

For more information, click here.

Before going to India to study Ashtanga yoga, my teacher in Ireland gave me just one piece of advice, which was to take it easy for the first week. I kept his advice in mind as I started to practice but ended up getting carried away with the energy in the shala, and I hurt my lower back while back bending. When practicing Ashtanga yoga, between each main pose you flow through a small sequence to the next main pose. Within each flow sequence there is a backbend called upward dog. You do this about 50 times in a session. Each of these upward dogs was terribly painful and other backbends were totally out of the question.

Some of the other yoga students recommended that I go to a chiropractor who had an office close to the shala. She helped get me to a stage where my yoga practice was helping my back recover instead of hindering it. She also said something interesting. She said my bad posture was putting strain on my back and that it was the root of my back problems. Then she mentioned that I should look into Rolfing. There was a Rolfer® in India that I had become friendly with, but he was booked up, so I couldn’t get any sessions with him.

As soon as I got back to Ireland I found a Rolfer that lived close to me. The changes to my body were profound. I found that I was able to stand naturally straight with no effort. In fact after the 5th or 6th session, I enjoyed the sensation of getting up out of a chair and standing up so much that for about a week I would do it just for fun. People, including my parents, asked me if I had gotten taller. It’s a weird experience having your parents ask if you are taller at my age. Others commented that I was remaining calm in difficult situations where before I may have let the stress take over. My knock knees straightened up significantly and the recurring knee pain that I had had disappeared.