Dr. Paul Little MD is Professor of Primary Care Research at Southampton University in England and was the lead Investigator of a recent large scale study that concluded that the Alexander Technique is an effective method of helping people with chronic and recurrent back pain. The study was published in 2008 in the British Medical Journal. Dr. Little summarizes the study and gives suggestions for back pain sufferers and for primary care physicians who treat people with back pain. Dr. Little is interviewed by Robert Rickover, an Alexander Technique teacher in Lincoln, Nebraska and Toronto, Canada.

Listen to the Interview here

Breath in, Breath out, this sounds simple, or is it?

We all know breathing is pretty important in order to stay alive, but do any of us do it? No, not really. Well, okay we might do a bit, just the bare essentials but we do not breathe enough or easily.

Watch yourself during your day and notice how many times you hold your breath. Every time we do an action we tend to hold our breath. When we are scared we hold our breath. We hold all our fear in our breath. What on earth does that mean? The body stores memory in every cell. If we are often frightened or angry we could store that emotion in our body, in the actual cell memory. Truthfully we store all our emotions in our cells, but it is the fearful and angry emotions that become toxic for us to hang onto.

Let’s briefly go back to the beginning.  Fredrick Leboyer was a French Obstetrician who was the first to write about the gentle birth process. He advised mothers to give birth in dimly lit rooms and have gentle music playing.  From reading his book one can ascertain that he understood that the transition from being an amphibian to an air breathing human was traumatic.  He suggested that the baby be placed on the mother’s belly directly after birth while the cord was still attached. This gave the infant a chance to take small sips of air while still being supported by the umbilical cord.  This allowed the infant not to be scared of the burning sensation that the new air made into the virgin lungs.  Thus the baby was able to take it’s time and grow accustomed to the sensation of breathing air.  Only then was the cord cut and the baby was breathing independently.

However, how many of us were born and instantly given a smack on the bottom, to the thrill of all around, hearing the new born howling.  We humans……Anyway, this traumatic entrance into air breathing is so frightening, that the infant registers that breathing burns, It is not good and so will do as little of it as possible. 

As a result many of us have to relearn how to breathe and to release the fear that is stored in the breath. This all sounds very odd I am sure, but many studies have been done and much research has gone into our breathing or lack thereof. I often remind my clients to breathe and they laugh realising that they were holding their breath without them being aware of it.

My teacher used to say: Breathe at least 3 times a day, we would all laugh but it was not until I became a teacher that I found the relevance to this joke.

The issue to take into consideration is that we are very brittle when we are tense. We know that when a drunken person gets hit by a car they have an uncanny ability to survive. When we are relaxed we are less likely to get injured.  When we are breathing we are relaxed.  As we get older we tend to be more prone to injury of one kind or another, so it is all the more reason to pay attention to ones breathing.

Take time to smell the roses, be in the moment, and BREATHE, BREATHE, BREATHE.

This is my equation for life. I truly believe that this is the secret to growing ‘young’ gracefully. Whether it be flexibility of mind or body it does not matter, both are equally important. I find those who are inflexible in the one area are usually lack flexibility in the other. Many of the more mature students I teach have the problem of stiff joints, often the hips and shoulder joints stiffen. The upper back becomes a solid mass of tension. Often these folk do exercise, they say to me that they love to walk, and I applaud them for it. However, they are still not stretching out enough and releasing so much of the built up tension. I often go for walks on the beachfront in Kohimarama and I watch passionate walkers doing their thing. Many of them never use their arms, so many of them are stiff as boards, other are leaning backwards as they attempt to walk forward, others still are using their lower back to walk instead of their legs. The tricky thing about this is that, many of you reading this are saying to yourselves, ‘this is not me’ ‘I don’t do that’. The thing is that you may well not be aware that you are doing these things. Your great intention is all very well but without any guidance from someone who has a trained eye to appreciate the finer nuances of movement, you may in fact not be doing what you have set out to do.

Stretching before and after a walk is very important, and doing it properly will be more effective. And what is properly? Ah there is the rub….

The Alexander technique is an education process whereby a student is taught how to use the body with less tension and stress. Therefore having an Alexander technique lesson will guide the student to greater awareness of what they are currently doing. Creating awareness is always the first step towards any change. We look at the biomechanics of the body, that is, how the body is designed and from that, freer movement can be established. We really are addressing the route cause of poor posture, instead of treating it. Emotional factors influence the way in which we use our bodies. We acquire habits of contraction which create rigidity and imbalance. Therefore the Alexander is a way of teaching us how to undo these fixed patterns, regaining our balance and freedom of movement.