Transparent Eye

I got Effortless Pain Relief by Ingrid Bacci, Ph.D. out of the library, and was making so many notes on stickies that I decided to by it on Amazon. The hardcover is available at a discount.

I really like this book, even if it is a bit New Agey. It’s got a lot of valuable suggestions which can be reconciled with scientific knowledge.

Ingrid Bacci has a Ph.D. from Columbia, but it’s in the field of philosophy, so it does not qualify her as a pain expert. Rather, she is an intelligent person who, like me, has suffered from chronic pain in the past and learned how to deal with it.

She mentions Vipassana, and teaches the body scan method, and how non-judgmental awareness can reduce pain.

Where I’ve found her particularly useful is in her emphasis on deep breathing. She’s not the first person to recommend brething from the diaphragm, but perhaps I’m ready to pay attention to that message now.

I have been a chest breather. But it makes sense that breathing more deeply gets more oxygen through the lungs and into the muscles. Shallow breathing isn’t so bad that you suffocate, but it may mean that the muscles don’t get the optimal amount of oxygen and become exhausted prematurely, which leans to fatigue and pain.

She alsp places great emphasis on posture, and smooth movement to reduce muscular tention. One thing she recommends is not locking your knees when you stand. I think there’s something to that, and will try it, as I find that my feet get very tired when standing in place. Unlocking the knees distributes the effort of standing to a variety of muscles in the body.