When Over-functioning Leads to Injury (and What to Do When Injured!)
It’s 8:30am and I’m supposed to be filming a strength training class for ScoliFocus, our App, before I start with patients for the day - but instead I’m nursing a neck injury that I sustained while lifting 55 pounds over my head this morning during my LIFTMOR workout.
I’ve done this lift dozens if not hundreds of times recently, and I’ve been at the same weight for a few weeks now, so what gives? Welp, yesterday afternoon I overzealously rucked (i.e. walking with weight on your back) with my new 30-pound weighted vest for 45 minutes, including some hilly terrain, with my best friend Sarah who no doubt was rolling her eyes at my overachieving self. It was a huge jump from my 10-pound weighted vest that I’ve been wearing for the last couple months.
I am a classic over-functioner. An over-doer. Type AAF. This stems back to my childhood, when I developed coping mechanisms to deal with chaotic and unpredictable family life. I’m certainly more aware of this part of myself than I was 15 years ago, and work to balance my over-functioning self with baths, breathing techniques, catnaps on weekends, spending time in nature with my kids watching them chuck rocks into a babbling brook, but I’m obviously still battling with it and am on the wrong side of victory today.
So, when life hands me a few sour lemons these days, instead of freaking out (like I used to do), I connect with my curiosity and ask myself, “how can I use this for some type of good?”
And here’s what came back to me: human connection. Vulnerability. Us humans will all have musculoskeletal pain at some point in our lives – it’s part of living. I’ve been saying lately, “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” Consider this preparation for the next time you are dealing with a bout of physical pain.
Straight from the Physical Therapist’s mouth, here’s what I’m doing in injury mode, I am taking my own advice that I offer to patients every day and I’m:
Not freaking out. Both our muscles and our emotions are controlled by the nervous system, so jumping into worry/fear/anger, etc. will worsen muscular tightness which often worsens pain, and our natural reaction is to worry! We literally need to swim upstream against our primal instincts and re-train our brains. We can use the newer part of our brain to quiet down the primitive part of our brain – see box breathing technique below.
Placing my microwavable flaxseed-filled heat pad on my neck and shoulders throughout the day. Heat is best. (Ice has officially been debunked as it slows down the healing process). I prefer the microwavable heat to a heating pad because it naturally cools down after about 20 minutes, versus an electric heating pad keeps going and going and often “cooks” the skin of those who use them chronically - the skin will have discolored patches if you’re wondering what this means/looks like.
Foam rolling my upper back/shoulder blade muscles throughout the day. This is a self-massage technique that I teach my patients all the time. I’ve already rolled out twice and plan to do it during my lunch break and when I get home from work. I typically roll for 2-3 minutes at a time. It feels like “the good hurt” i.e. kind of painful while it’s happening but also feels like it will feel better after, similar to a deep tissue massage in just the right spot. If you don’t have a foam roller (like my friend Caley who desperately texted me from the island of Grenada after straining her neck on vacation on horseback) grab a tennis ball or something like it and use that instead - it works just as well, if not better if the strain is more one-sided.
Box breathing as I drove to work this morning: inhale for a count of 4, hold the breath for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 4, hold the breath for a count of 4, repeat. Most breathwork including this technique signal the nervous system to be calm, quiet, relaxed, and restful.
Keeping moving. Our innate reaction can be to freeze when we’re in pain: to call out of work, to plunk ourselves on the couch and watch bad TV, to avoid doing any exercise at all (especially if we hurt ourselves while exercising). We need to resist this temptation. Exercise creates improved blood flow which creates a healthy healing environment. If we injure our necks, we can still take a walk (sans 30 pounds weighted vest) and actually benefit from it. We certainly can (and should!) modify our activity when injured, but that is much different that opting out of physical activity all together.
Mentally taking stock of my recent over-functioning escapades: yes, I’ve been doing too much. I’m a mom of 3 young children, a wife, a business owner – these things alone keep me busy. Add in my interest and love of exercise and movement practices (I work out in my basement 5 days per week, walk/ruck with my friend once per week, take an adult gymnastics class once per week, and chase my kiddos around the playgrounds non-stop on weekends). My pursuit of fitness gets me into hot water sometimes. I’d like to think I’m learning and growing in this journey called life, repeating my mistakes less, but I am human and therefore imperfect and will continue to make some mistakes, so here we are. Sometimes I think of these times as the Universe’s way to force me to stop, re-evaluate, slow down, and begin again.
I’m happy to report that 24 hours after I injured my neck lifting, the symptoms had dramatically subsided, if not disappeared altogether. Even though I know that the above program works from a professional standpoint, it’s still somewhat surprising to me from a personal standpoint – I marvel at how capable I am of addressing my own musculoskeletal pain, how much agency I have over my body, when in the past, I’ve felt so powerless over physical pain.
We are all this capable of this type of self-care. We all have at least some agency over our bodies. Many of us just need to be reminded and given the right tools to do this.
As I mull over the bigger picture as it relates to this blog, it’s not lost on me that life has changed dramatically for us humans in the past 200 years. It’s likely that our ancestors were more connected to their bodies, and that even present-day tribal communities are more connected to their bodies and breath than we modern day humans are. As our brains have grown larger, we’ve become a cerebral species, spending more time executive functioning in our frontal lobes than “feeling” what’s happening in the rest of our bodies – in our muscles, joints, viscera, etc. We are disconnected from our physical selves. The above suggestions get us out of our heads and back into our bodies, connecting with our breath, the way our ancestors knew how to do effortlessly.