How the Body, Mind,and Diet Interact
At this point, however, I want to make something clear
You may not find a single, easy answer. Your pain cycle will
likely involve more than one—or even all three—pain areas.
Most of us want things to be simple. It’s easier for us. In
other words, if you could determine that your pain is
originating from the emotional burdens in your mind, then
you’d have the solution: Create balance in your mind and
emotions. That could include adopting stress-management
techniques, visiting with a psychiatrist or psychologist, or
simplifying your life with fewer demands and activities. Done.
Check back pain off your list.
While solving back pain may sometimes be this simple, it’s
usually a bit more complicated
Your body, mind, and diet aren’t stand-alone
islandsEverything interacts and weaves together. Imagine a plate of
spaghetti. Some noodles are emotions, some are diet, some are
the physical body, but they all intertwine, continuously acting
on each other and feeding the effects back to you and your
life.
This is why it’s so difficult for doctors to properly diagnose
back pain. For one, they simply don’t make the time. The
demands of their jobs—to say nothing of the demands of
insurance companies—mean that they take only a few
minutes with you. It’s near impossible to determine in 15
minutes all the different things that may be contributing to
your back pain.
Second, most medical doctors aren’t aware of how the
mind, body, and diet can all affect your condition. Even if
they are, they may not use that knowledge when treating your
back pain. Instead, they’re going to follow their training,
which is to diagnose the physical source of the pain and
address it with drugs, surgery, or a referral to a specialist.
Of course, you now know that this approach will only
partially (if at all) address the problem. The three areas that
contribute to pain—mind, body, and diet—all interact and
influence each other. It’s very important to carefully and
objectively review all three areas in your life in order to
increase your odds of living pain free
An Example: Job Stress
Imagine a time when your career was exceptionally
stressful and demanding. Maybe you were just promoted and
trying to step up to the new position, or perhaps you were
concerned about losing your job and were working extra hard
to keep it
In either of those situations, multiple factors might lead to
back pain. Let’s visualize the complete scenario
Say your job involved some type of computer work, so you
sat at a desk all day. You put in longer hours than usual, kept
breaks short, and ate lunch without getting up. Your time in
the sitting position increased—putting you at greater risk for
muscle imbalances. Under normal circumstances, a light
muscle imbalance can be kept in check by frequent standing
and walking to stretch the legs, hips, and other muscles.
"But if you went through several weeks of “crunch time
your habits may have subtly changed without you realizing it.
You may have skipped some—or a lot—of those breaks away
from your desk.
Let’s also say that as part of your job you spent time on the
phone. Maybe you were in sales, coordinating a project, or
serving demanding clients. During “crunch time,” you
probably spent even more time on the phone than you
normally would have. Maybe you typically used a headset, but
it broke and you didn’t have a chance to get it replaced. Since
you were on a deadline, you used the regular handset and
wedged it between your ear and neck. Knowing what you
know now, you can see that the situation set you up for a
bout with neck pain. The awkward position of the neck could
very easily have pinched a nerve. And the lengthy period of
time in the sitting position could screw up the natural tilt of
your pelvis, pressuring nerves in the lower part of your spinal
cord.
At the same time, all those hours of sitting caused the
muscles in your rear end to suffer from insufficient blood
circulation, which can contribute to the development of a
trigger point. As if all this weren’t enough, let’s look at what
could have been going on in your life from a mind and diet
standpoint. The challenges at work most likely increased your
stress load. If you’re like most people, when you’re stressed
your breathing becomes shallow. Deep breaths are great at
bringing in more oxygen and helping you to relax, but if
you’re taking shallow breaths, you’re missing out on this
important benefit. The result is too much stress, too little
relaxation, and too little oxygen, contributing to, or
“activating,” trigger points in the muscles
So, now you have back pain caused (or made worse) by the
emotional or stressful burdens in your mind. But wait, it gets
worse.
In the midst of all this work and stress, it was probably
difficult to eat well. Perhaps you drank more coffee in the
morning to get going, increasing your caffeine levels. Maybe
you skipped breakfast to get to work earlier. By lunchtime
you were starving, so you snacked on potato chips with their
-high levels of processed carbohydrates and unhealthful omega
6fats
By afternoon, you may have repeated the process of coffee
(with lots of sugar), more potato chips, and maybe a cookie.
Instead of drinking water like you used to, you stuck with
coffee and caffeinated soda, thinking they would hydrate you
just as well. Little did you realize that caffeine is a diuretic
that forces water from your body, leaving you dehydrated
So what were the consequences of all these changes
All the junk food you ate also was pain- and inflammationenhancing
food. This increased the pain level in your body
Meanwhile, since you ate few healthful foods, you lacked the
natural anti-inflammatories that would have increased your
pain tolerance
At the same time, as a result of the dehydration, there was
too little water in your blood. This shifted the ratio of water
to toxins, which had two impacts: The higher level of waste
products in your blood stimulated more inflammation, and
the toxins accumulated in major muscle areas, such as in your
back, in the form of trigger points or knots—giving you back
pain, caused by diet
In this hypothetical example, I’ve given an extreme-case
scenario to show how the body, mind, and diet can all
independently cause back pain—and how all three areas
combine to exacerbate the problem
At this point, however, I want to make something clear
You may not find a single, easy answer. Your pain cycle will
likely involve more than one—or even all three—pain areas.
Most of us want things to be simple. It’s easier for us. In
other words, if you could determine that your pain is
originating from the emotional burdens in your mind, then
you’d have the solution: Create balance in your mind and
emotions. That could include adopting stress-management
techniques, visiting with a psychiatrist or psychologist, or
simplifying your life with fewer demands and activities. Done.
Check back pain off your list.
While solving back pain may sometimes be this simple, it’s
usually a bit more complicated
Your body, mind, and diet aren’t stand-alone
islandsEverything interacts and weaves together. Imagine a plate of
spaghetti. Some noodles are emotions, some are diet, some are
the physical body, but they all intertwine, continuously acting
on each other and feeding the effects back to you and your
life.
This is why it’s so difficult for doctors to properly diagnose
back pain. For one, they simply don’t make the time. The
demands of their jobs—to say nothing of the demands of
insurance companies—mean that they take only a few
minutes with you. It’s near impossible to determine in 15
minutes all the different things that may be contributing to
your back pain.
Second, most medical doctors aren’t aware of how the
mind, body, and diet can all affect your condition. Even if
they are, they may not use that knowledge when treating your
back pain. Instead, they’re going to follow their training,
which is to diagnose the physical source of the pain and
address it with drugs, surgery, or a referral to a specialist.
Of course, you now know that this approach will only
partially (if at all) address the problem. The three areas that
contribute to pain—mind, body, and diet—all interact and
influence each other. It’s very important to carefully and
objectively review all three areas in your life in order to
increase your odds of living pain free
An Example: Job Stress
Imagine a time when your career was exceptionally
stressful and demanding. Maybe you were just promoted and
trying to step up to the new position, or perhaps you were
concerned about losing your job and were working extra hard
to keep it
In either of those situations, multiple factors might lead to
back pain. Let’s visualize the complete scenario
Say your job involved some type of computer work, so you
sat at a desk all day. You put in longer hours than usual, kept
breaks short, and ate lunch without getting up. Your time in
the sitting position increased—putting you at greater risk for
muscle imbalances. Under normal circumstances, a light
muscle imbalance can be kept in check by frequent standing
and walking to stretch the legs, hips, and other muscles.
"But if you went through several weeks of “crunch time
your habits may have subtly changed without you realizing it.
You may have skipped some—or a lot—of those breaks away
from your desk.
Let’s also say that as part of your job you spent time on the
phone. Maybe you were in sales, coordinating a project, or
serving demanding clients. During “crunch time,” you
probably spent even more time on the phone than you
normally would have. Maybe you typically used a headset, but
it broke and you didn’t have a chance to get it replaced. Since
you were on a deadline, you used the regular handset and
wedged it between your ear and neck. Knowing what you
know now, you can see that the situation set you up for a
bout with neck pain. The awkward position of the neck could
very easily have pinched a nerve. And the lengthy period of
time in the sitting position could screw up the natural tilt of
your pelvis, pressuring nerves in the lower part of your spinal
cord.
At the same time, all those hours of sitting caused the
muscles in your rear end to suffer from insufficient blood
circulation, which can contribute to the development of a
trigger point. As if all this weren’t enough, let’s look at what
could have been going on in your life from a mind and diet
standpoint. The challenges at work most likely increased your
stress load. If you’re like most people, when you’re stressed
your breathing becomes shallow. Deep breaths are great at
bringing in more oxygen and helping you to relax, but if
you’re taking shallow breaths, you’re missing out on this
important benefit. The result is too much stress, too little
relaxation, and too little oxygen, contributing to, or
“activating,” trigger points in the muscles
So, now you have back pain caused (or made worse) by the
emotional or stressful burdens in your mind. But wait, it gets
worse.
In the midst of all this work and stress, it was probably
difficult to eat well. Perhaps you drank more coffee in the
morning to get going, increasing your caffeine levels. Maybe
you skipped breakfast to get to work earlier. By lunchtime
you were starving, so you snacked on potato chips with their
-high levels of processed carbohydrates and unhealthful omega
6fats
By afternoon, you may have repeated the process of coffee
(with lots of sugar), more potato chips, and maybe a cookie.
Instead of drinking water like you used to, you stuck with
coffee and caffeinated soda, thinking they would hydrate you
just as well. Little did you realize that caffeine is a diuretic
that forces water from your body, leaving you dehydrated
So what were the consequences of all these changes
All the junk food you ate also was pain- and inflammationenhancing
food. This increased the pain level in your body
Meanwhile, since you ate few healthful foods, you lacked the
natural anti-inflammatories that would have increased your
pain tolerance
At the same time, as a result of the dehydration, there was
too little water in your blood. This shifted the ratio of water
to toxins, which had two impacts: The higher level of waste
products in your blood stimulated more inflammation, and
the toxins accumulated in major muscle areas, such as in your
back, in the form of trigger points or knots—giving you back
pain, caused by diet
In this hypothetical example, I’ve given an extreme-case
scenario to show how the body, mind, and diet can all
independently cause back pain—and how all three areas
combine to exacerbate the problem
