Practice may not make perfect but it can make permanent. The nervous systems ability to learn can either work for you or against you, depending on whether or not your ergonimics are optimal. If they are not, then you can develop habits that are difficult to break out of. If they are, then complex motions like accellerating a clubhead to 130mph and sending a golf ball 300 yards down the green can become as automatic as tying a shoelace.
The ability of the nervous sytem to learn can also work either for or against you during recovery from injury, however here its not about biomechanics, its about biochemistry, which has to do with diet. If your biochemistry is off, you can get thrown in an artificial world of lingering pain.
If your body chemistry is good, it’s more likely that your recovery will go like this.
shortly after the injury your pain divides into two types, motion related and present at rest, both have a purpose and pain with rest goes away faster because you only need it until you figure out what part got hurt so you can keep from using too much during the healing process
the point is, after a minor injury the pain goes away pretty quick and goes away completely and you can trust that pain
But if your body chemistry is not good, the pain level drops but persistent inflammation blocks your pain from going away and keeps the pain signal alive
you don’t know if you are better or not and this is when we have to do special testing to look for signs of healing or signs of persistent inflammation
inflammation feeds on vegetable oils and sugars, which is why we’ve pulled those out of your diet.
Here’s where things can go really wrong. If your body chemistry is very pro-inflammatory and the pain keeps on going, then your nerves get to a point where the pain they have been practicing for so long can take on a life of its own. This is the pain matrix.
The pain is real, but it no longer reflects the reality of the state of injury and I see people trapped in it every day.
here’s the nervous system practicing pain
The more the pathway gets used, the more permanent it gets. Your nervous system is just doing its job, learning but because your body chemistry is very imbalalnced, the nerves are learning a very abnormal behavior
Now we’re looking inside the injured tissue of a person on a bad diet. The injury generates free radicals, which are high-energy particles that bang around in your body and lead to more inflammation that leads to more pain. There’s nothing in this person’s tissues to stop it.
Now we’re looking inside the tissues of someone on a good diet.
These colored balls represent a family of antioxidant and the point is you need them all
why do you need so many?
each one takes its turn to step down the level of energy and pass it over to the next antioxidant at a lower energy state
the energy gets reduced until it can be converted into water and get flushed out of the body
the energy gets reduced until it can be converted into water and get flushed out of the body
Antioxidants help your body get rid of excess free radicals which gets rid of inflammation which reduces phantom pain signals and can free you from the pain matrix
supplements won’t do it because they don’t have the full family
that’s why nutrient intense foods like this are so essential to a healthy diet, in combination with reducing empty calories as we’ve been doing
telling people not to eat fat is telling them not to eat veggies
you need fat to make veggies taste better because fat helps release the flavors and helps you absorb the fat-soluble antioxidants
Inflammation can trap you in a pain cycle that’s tough to break out of.
I want you to think of these guys, bitter tasting, fresh vegetables as the superheros that are going to help you break free of the pain matrix.