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In the days leading up to hospitalization his thinking became severely deranged He would
become convinced that his friends were saints and that he was an angel responsible for
preventing a coming apocalypse Twice his state regressed to the point of catatonia which has
also been called tension insanity Catatonia is a rare form of psychomotor immobility in
which a patient holds rigid poses performs stereotyped repetitive movements and often
cannot speak
On the first occasion he was found by a mutual friend who called me to ask for help When
arrived found our buddy standing rigidly shaking with a pained expression plastered on his
face He would not sit or lie down and had been standing for two straight days He did not
respond to speech or any form of communication He squinted heavily The circles under his
eyes had become much darker than usual He made no eye contact and stared vacantly at the
floor He was normally a conscientious person but by the time arrived he was urinating and
defecating in his shorts When checked his breathing found that each breath he took lasted
about half a second and his tidal range was minimal
Most worrying of all was his physical bearing Although he was only his posture was
that of an old sick man He looked fragile and the tension in his neck and back seemed
excruciating Having lost all concern for selfpresentation he looked as if he had been standing
in a cold shower for hours All his muscles were braced recognized his tortured posture as a
direct expression of his painbody the suffering we all carry and attempt to conceal At that
point realized that if were in a catatonic state my postural deformities would similarly rise
to the surface
His catatonia made him very difficult to help There was nothing we could do to move his
rigid frame down the stairs and into the car When we tried to carry him he shook and moaned
violently and it became clear that he would need to relax if he were going to get to the
hospital So began massaging him started with his neck then moved on to his shoulders and
back His back felt crooked the curvature unnatural and deformed But we rapidly made
progress at first his spine resisted my efforts but every minute he loosened up a little more
PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
and within ten minutes he was crying with relief After he was able to hobble to the car and
sit down inside it
On our way to the hospital he uttered his only full sentence of the day If calm down
will die Experts consider catatonia to be a vastly reduced state of consciousness Yet from
this state he was able to verbalize perhaps the most entrenched albeit delusional conviction
that all humans have did my best to explain to him why this was an irrational and self
defeating belief will spend the rest of this book attempting to convince you of the same
The main takeaway of this chapter is that massage can convince your body that relaxation does
not come at the risk of death
Getting to the hospital though was not the end of his struggles For that visit alone which
turned out to be just the first of three he owed more than in medical bills asked
him what the doctors did for him that cost so much and he told me that they restrained him in
a bed and gave him drugs for two weeks He wound up dependent on those drugs and had to
be weaned off them slowly and painfully It is not clear what benefit the medicines and doctors
provided other than removing him from his stressful environment Certainly they conferred no
longterm benefit
believe that a year of weekly hourlong deeptissue fullbody massages would have
largely rehabilitated him At per massage this would have cost less than If this had
been his treatment think he would have had a much better chance at real lasting recovery
If he had received worth of massage therapy this would have bought him
massages That equates to an hourlong massage every week for years If had been in
charge of his health know how would have invested the money
After reading this chapter you will know how to massage yourself for free This will
complement and reinforce the other Program Peace techniques you are using to promote your
overall health
Use Compression to Remove Trigger Points Scar Tissue and Muscle Shortening
Recent estimates indicate that around percent of the atoms in the body are replaced every
year Despite this constant remodeling the body unfortunately preserves its muscle tension
It does this because it treats tension as an essential form of memory Our organism trusts and
values the specific pattern of trauma distribution across our various limbs organs and body
parts because that pattern is a historical record telling us exactly how best to be defensive
We were preprogrammed to conserve our tension increase it as necessary and die with it
but not to reverse it
Modern medicine has no cure for muscular tension There is no pill you can take to remove
its physical manifestations Compared to many other diseases and disorders there is very little
active biomedical research on curing muscular strain Some researchers attempt to treat trigger
points with injections therapeutic ultrasound or transcutaneous electrical stimulation but
none of these have yet proven very effective think basic and preclinical research on the issue
should be given the highest priority in medicine especially because persistent muscular tension
is a contributing factor to many mental and physical diseases Molecular pharmacologists will
eventually develop a drug that completely eradicates muscular strain but it will take decades
for such a panacea to surface Our bodies and minds dont have decades
Chapter Release Tense Muscle with Massage
That leaves us with nonclinical treatment options for the time being Massage combined
with diaphragmatic breathing is by far the best therapy available and recommend starting
your practice immediately have been using physical compression for years to rouse dormant
muscles all over my body Before began was covered in muscles that were painful to
compress Applying even light pressure almost anywhere stung Now all of these spots have
become painless even when subjected to significant pressure
Massage is effective for straightforward reasons Compression forces the muscle to relax
and allows it to reset to a lower level of tone It feeds slack into the injured muscle reversing
muscle shortening and reducing mechanical deformation at the joint It breaks down trigger
points as well as deposits of calcium It accelerates venous blood drainage and lymphatic
clearance Compression breaks up adhesions between muscle fibers and disintegrates scar
tissue freeing the fibers to slide past each other again It is unclear exactly what compression
does at the level of actin and myosin the microscopic proteins discussed in the last chapter
that form the structure of individual muscle fibers Many researchers believe that it detaches
strands of actin from myosin after they have become stuck together allowing them to function
freely again
Specific conditions that are consistently and successfully treated with manual compressive
therapy include headaches back pain neck pain shoulder pain carpal tunnel syndrome shin
splints sciatica TMJ fasciitis tendonitis and many other soft tissue inflammatory disorders of
the joints Given the prevalence of those conditions and the general level of muscular tension
that most of us develop over lifetimes of bracing and social submissiveness selfapplied trigger
point massage is a necessary life skill
Focus Compression on Tender Achy Muscles
One of the most studied therapies for combatting trigger points is a form of compression called
soft tissue therapy also referred to as soft tissue mobilization or myofascial release The
practice involves pinning down and squeezing an area of muscle with hard pressure for several
seconds The idea is to press firmly into soft tissue including skin fascia periosteum and
superficially and deeply located muscles The best locations for applying pressure are the
trigger points themselves which you can detect with your fingers They often feel like a small