He fear It can be present in many ways in our lives. we can call you anxiety, uncertainty, stress, distress…or concern about the possibility of losing the peace of mind and security that we have gained. Even fear can be that unconscious terror of a life that seems to always require us to think about the future and not enjoy present. But also that fear, in all its aspects, can manifest itself in very different ways in our health. That’s why in his book ‘Fear hurts. Anatomy of emotions (Editorial platform), Dr. David Ponce, physiotherapist and osteopath (@osteopatiaclinica), guides us through the complex labyrinth of emotions and shows that some feelings can act as poison, while others can be a remedy.
Its pages explore the fear (learning to hug him) and him physical pain from different perspectives, seeking to understand its nature and discovering how it affects our lives.
When he talks about the four pillars of health, he mentions, in addition to diet, exercise and rest, emotional stability. Why does that concept stand out and not that of mental health?
I wrote the books ‘Back pain and emotions’ and ‘More love, less ibuprofen’ to explore the origin of the two world pathologies, backache and headachewhich are responsible for a large part of health spending and work absenteeism. And in this book I start from the concept that emotions will always be present, but the truth is that I have to say that emotional stability does not exist. Who is not going to be worried, sad or anxious throughout life…? It is normal for it to happen and it is something to happen. Emotional instability helps us value many things, but what cannot happen is that our emotional stability is full of radical contrasts.
What is the emotion that most affects you in that sense?
The fear. It is one of the emotions that are projected into the future because when we have it we always fear the future or what may happen: if I am going to be left without a partner, if I am going to suffer an illness, if there is going to be a war… But All those fears are in our heads. And here it is worth mentioning a percentage that psychiatrist Marián Rojas Estapé discloses and that is that 94.1% of what we think will happen to us will never happen to us.
Therefore in ‘Fear hurts’ I wanted to reflect how that fear can affect your body, your structure, your stomach, your muscles, your joints…
But fear, as he states in his work, has many names and we do not always know it as fear…
Yes, in fact in the book I talk about stress, anguish, uncertainty, anxiety… In fact in my practice I have always worked with psychology professionals because it is necessary to know all the names of fear.
And how is fear connected to pain?
Here Nietzsche’s phrase comes to mind that said that pain is inevitable, but suffering It is optional. In the case of physical pain we have formulas that allow the patient to place their pain on the so-called visual analog scale of pain (VAS) and that allows us to identify where they are. And according to my research, what I have been able to verify is that two people with the same pathology can have very different perceptions of pain depending on their emotional stability. People with emotional stability feel less pain. If I am afraid, substances, hormones and neurotransmitters are activated that are directly connected to the pain.
And how does this affect?
To understand the effect on the body, we must remember that the brain does not distinguish what is real from what is not. If I put a pencil in my mouth and pretend I’m smiling, my brain interprets that I’m happy. If my mind bombards me with messages about how unhappy I am and how distressed I am, I will secrete adrenaline and cortisol. And that will affect my immune system. Here we must pay attention to this fact: one minute of stress gives rise to six hours of lowering of defenses. Imagine what it will mean for people who are anxious or stressed all day, all week, or even for months or years. This stress will end up causing illness. Some studies partly associate the development of cancer with damage to the immune system caused by a distressed, stressed or depressed body.
Are specific pains connected to specific emotions?
Yes, in a very summary way we could tell it like this. Headache, neck pain, discomfort in the mouth or temporomandibular joint and, ultimately, all pain in the upper part are related to stress, anguish and anxiety.
Depression and mood changes are more related to the chest and dorsal area. And fear in general is related to the lumbar part.
What we do in osteopathic medicine is precisely that vertebrovisceral association that leads us to think about that connection between organs, muscles, bones, lymph and the arterial venous system.
And what about those people who seem to have no emotions?
They are the worst, because often in these cases their inner life is very agitated and very tense. This can usually be seen when touching them, as their muscles appear tense and rigid upon contact.
Some of these people have repressed their emotions since they were children and have not been able to express them and that is reflected in the body.
That is why it is so important to have a comprehensive view of what is happening to a person. In fact, I always tell my patients that I don’t treat necks or backs, but people. If you do not know their global nature, nor do you take into account their life and habits, it is impossible to help them or find the root of the problem they are suffering from.
We usually see the forward relationship between pain and emotions, but not the return relationship, that is, something emotional causes pain and illness… can one create pain or illness?
Yes, that is possible. The capacity of our mind is amazing and we still don’t know many things. What I intend with the book is to identify the emotions that are affecting you and have the tools to help you improve the situation. And that can happen by consulting different professionals in an integrative way.
One of the issues that fans of his books usually applaud is that he contributes his personal experiences with pain in them…
Yes, I have suffered a lot of pain on three occasions. But I always say that you have to embrace pain, even if it is something that causes stupor. And you have to hug it because it is a health watchdog that warns that something is not right. We have the habit of taking psychotropic drugs and anti-inflammatories continuously or even preventively. But you have to try to deal with the pain as long as it is bearable.
In his work he also refers to the fact that we have lost the ability to concentrate, focus and pay attention… Also in relation to our body?
We are glued to our cell phones all day. There is talk of a minimum average of daily use of four hours and to this we must add that the cervical spine is in a terrible position in which it begins to suffer a pressure on the discs of 30 kilos instead of five kilos. The damage to the body is obvious.
And also that disconnection makes us experience everything virtually. Some patients confess to me that they consult the GPT Chat for their ailments. We are not only disconnected from others but also from our own body.
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