Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
by John E. Sarno
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Book Summary Information
Author: John E. SarnoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1991-02-01
ISBN: 0446392308
Number of pages: 193
Publisher: Warner Books
Accessories:
- Airborne Effervescent Health Formula, Original Orange, 10 Tablets (Pack of 3)
- RESPeRATE Blood Pressure Lowering Device
Book Reviews of Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
Book Review: 24 Years of Back Pain Gone Overnight
Summary: 5 Stars
{{EDIT Nov 2020}}
32 months later, still no back pain. I think it's safe to say that this is a permanent cure. I continue to do Jim Johnson's back exercises once a week for preventative insurance.
{{END EDIT Nov 2020}}
{{{EDIT}}}
2 full years of no back pain! Right at my 2 year anniversary, I did have a pain flair-up episode. My first (and hopefully last) since reading the book and curing myself. Why did it happen? My theory: having been out 6 1/2 months with a shoulder injury, I had not been doing any swimming. It was the day after my first mile after having just restarted my swimming routine again.
I had done quite a few laps of breast stroke and the next morning I was standing and I just moved a little bit in an erect position and bam, the lower back pain flashed broadly. Wow, bummer, I thought I had cured this.
But wait. Introducing Jim Johnson PT (physical therapist). If you are suffering from any myofascial condition I can't recommend JJ strongly enough. Read his back book. It will tell you how to avoid a back flare up like mine. I had just started his very simple and non-time consuming exercises (maybe only one or two sessions, not long enough to have built any significant new strength).
Had I been doing JJ's exercises I bet I wouldn't have had the flare up.
But having read Dr Sarno's book helped me beat this flare up in less than a week. I knew that I did not have an injury, I just had experienced spasming muscles for whatever reason. So with this knowledge and his advice, I laid low off the back for a few days then started challenging it with walking.
I kept telling myself the truth: "you're not injured, just go about your normal activities as much as you can and your muscles will get back on track." Well it sure worked. After a week I was swimming a mile again, and doing my fast walk up hills.
I could have easily freaked out had I not read this book. Had I freaked, this pain could still be with me, just like my story below.
Anyway, there's more to back pain than Sarno's genius and generosity. I love Dr Sarno to death because for only ten bucks he helped me cure 24 years of back pain.
But do check out Jim Johnson's "The Multifidus Back Pain Solution", you'll be very glad you did.
{{{END EDIT}}}
A friend of mine suggested I read this book about a year ago. I went to Amazon and read the comments and found both positive and negative comments. The fairly consistent chorus of negative comments led me to decide not to buy it. It was that and the fact that I just didn't believe that the mind could "heal" the very "real" and debilitating pain that I had experienced for 24 years.
Several months after my friend's recommendation, I found that my back had started to hurt more in direct correlation to an emotionally stressful situation that lasted several weeks. Since I was doing nothing physically that would have elevated the back pain, I realized that there was a psychological connection. So I bought the book, paid for the overnight shipping so I could read it on the plane to my surfing destination.
Surfing has always been hard on my back. My previous surfing trip to New Zealand was compromised by my back pain, I surfed about half as much as I could have without the pain.
On the plane I skimmed thru much of the first chapters and read the ones about the cure. The next day my back pain was gone. I surfed 5 days straight in powerful surf with some really heavy wipe-outs that would have killed my back without the knowledge in this book. On one wipe-out I was slammed hard to the bottom, hip-first. That would have normally put me out for a few days, but I surfed the rest of the day completely pain free (except for a bruised hip). I was able to surf with abandon, without fear, with joy again.
I can't express in words how elated and amazed I am and how grateful I am to Dr Sarno for this book.
Obviously, by reading the comments it doesn't work for everyone. I have a theory about that. In his book Dr Sarno says that the suppression of emotions are what cause the back pain. But the clincher for me was this fact that he laid out:
(I'm paraphrasing) The largest bone in the body, the femur, if broken will heal itself and you will be able to run a marathon on it again. If a muscle tears, it will heal itself also. The human body heals itself physically, period. There is nothing special about the muscles around the lower back (or anywhere else). It makes no logical or medical sense for a muscle strain or injury in the back to cause pain for years.
It was this statement that made tremendous sense to me. Literally overnight, I decided to not believe the b.s. I was telling myself subconsciously -- that I had a "bad back". The pain has been gone ever since. It's been 3 months of consistently pain-free life. Walking a distance of 10 blocks used to cause the pain to get worse, as did sleeping on a soft bed, or sleeping on my stomach or slouching in my chair. None of that bothers me any more. I hike 3-5 miles regularly, play volleyball (that would have destroyed my back), sleep on my stomach, slouch in my chair if I feel like it, no longer bring an air mattress to hotels. What a tremendous liberation -- it's really amazing!!
So back to my theory of why I think it doesn't seem to work for everyone:
Under-developed rational thinking skills.
In the U.S. and probably in all of western society (at least), we are not taught how to think rationally. It took a few months or more for me to learn (or re-learn) how to truly think rationally. I now know that my back pain was a myth that I had believed in. I have since proven that it was a myth, but it takes a very deeply rooted belief to create the kind of pain I experienced, and for so long. My theory is based on having enough of the proper mental skills to destroy that myth. My hypothesis is that those who read the book with poor results are lacking rational thinking and myth-busting skills.
My rational thinking skills were helped tremendously by the philosopher Stefan Molyneux (of freedomainradio dot com). I really think that it takes a mind that is well versed in rational thinking to truly grasp the power of Dr Sarno's book and to truly destroy the myth of back pain that is deeply rooted in the mind.
To truly and deeply understand that the body heals itself and that it makes no sense that the muscles around the lower back -- that they, and only they, just don't heal -- takes genuine rational thinking skills. Actually, I think it's the myth-busting rational thinking skills that listening to Mr Molyneux's podcasts and reading his books can help with immensely. So if Sarno's book hasn't helped, try taking the "red pill" of rational thinking and myth-busting that Mr Molyneux delivers. It will be the most potent (and liberating) red pill you will ever take.
So read Sarno's book, put it into practice, and if it doesn't work within a couple weeks, work on your rational thinking skills and read it again.
Summary of Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
One of the world's foremost back doctors examines new treatments to relieve pain without exercise, meditation, or physical therapy.Healing Back Pain promises permanent elimination of back pain without drugs, surgery, or exercise. It should have been titled Understanding TMS Pain, because it discusses one particular cause of back pain--Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS)--and isn't really a program for self-treatment, with only five pages of action plan (and many more pages telling why conventional methods don't work). According to John E. Sarno, M.D., TMS is the major cause of pain in the back, neck, shoulders, buttocks, and limbs--and it is caused not by structural abnormalities but by the mind's effort to repress emotions. He's not saying that your pain is all in your head; rather, he's saying that the battle going on in your mind results in a real physical disorder that may affect muscles, nerves, tendons, or ligaments. An injury may have triggered the disorder, but is not the cause of the amount or intensity of the resulting pain. According to Sarno, the mind tricks you into not facing repressed emotion by making you focus on pain in the body. When this realization sinks in ("and it must sink in, for mere intellectual appreciation of the process is not enough"), the trick doesn't work any more, and there's no need for the pain. (Healing Back Pain should not be used for self-diagnosis. Always consult a physician for chronic or acute back pain.) --Joan Price
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