I recently met a man at a yoga class who was in his 60’s. When I introduced myself as an Osteopath he promptly told me that he goes to his Osteopath every 6 months for an MOT to keep things working well. He is obviously someone who looks after himself and wants to continue being active and mobile and is being proactive about it. It was great to hear him say that and he has my backing!
I am hoping to remain fit and healthy into my old age, yet I am also aware that I have to work harder at this the older I get!
I’ve been seeing my osteopath for the last few years for MOT’s and have benefited a lot – I might feel fine when I go but after a treatment I feel in even better balance.
The thing is when you are living in your body day in day out, and you don’t happen to be someone who is highly ‘proprioceptively aware’ (I’ll discuss what this means shortly) then it is easy to sink into habits and postures without any awareness that you’re doing so. Whilst your body can compensate for these habits they do accumulate over time. It might only be 20 years down the line that your body starts to complain about these compensations but by that time you have a 20 year build up.
So what does being ‘highly proprioceptively aware’ mean? The sense of proprioception is the way we can feel our body parts in relation to all the other parts – literally an awareness of ourselves, how we rest in space and how we move in space. ‘Proprio’ derives from the Latin proprius meaning one’s own, and perception. Receptors of proprioceptive sense are found in the joints, the muscles and more recently have been discovered in the connecting fascia (and according to Tom Myers there are 10 times more proprioceptors in fascia than muscle). They allow you to know where your body is and perform appropriate tasks without actually looking at it. The proprioceptive sense works in an integrated fashion with the vestibular sense (i.e. your sense of balance).
Try closing your eyes then with your right hand touch your nose and then touch a finger on the opposite hand. You are using your proprioceptive sense to do this. The first time you may miss your finger but usually this improves very quickly with repetition.
Someone who uses their body a lot –a yoga teacher for instance – will have developed a high sense of proprioceptive awareness through yoga practice. They will be very aware when one of their joints feels out of place or restricted due to the feedback from their practice. To contrast this with someone who has a desk job – they will have a reduced sense of proprioception due to reduced activity and reduced feedback. In this example the deskworker will not become aware of increased tension in the spine, and an increased flexion at the junction between the neck and the thorax until such point as it becomes painful. Even then very often this pain is simply ignored and stiffness creeps in further and further. Someone with less proprioceptive awareness can very easily be completely unaware of any dysfunction for years on end as their body feels ‘normal’ to them.
The benefits of going for an osteopathic MOT is to bring this awareness back into the tissues. I hear repeatedly from those I treat how different they feel after a treatment. More aligned, more balanced, more connected and more freedom in the tissues. That sense of ‘oh I can stand tall and breath deep now and it feels great’. Your normal had simply become your normal – but your body recognises afterwards when all of a sudden it feels different.
It’s so much better to do this BEFORE your body gets to the point of complaining and before there is too much build-up so that you keep your awareness and function at an optimal level. Osteopathy is of course not the only way to do this – there are other therapies which are brilliant such as Alexander technique. This is an amazing therapy for developing this sense of awareness. Regular practice like yoga and dancing area also very good for keeping this awareness functioning well and in fact movement of any sort which you enjoy is beneficial all and I would wholeheartedly encourage.<hr />
So just imagine for a second now, that if, like going to the dentist for a 6 monthly checkup, you also went for a 6 monthly checkup on your body? Doesn’t sound that farfetched does it? Granted our teeth are important – we want to keep them healthy and functioning well into old age but isn’t are body at least as important? Being able to walk well is one of the most important functions we have as human beings – it’s a baseline for health. If you could every 6 months get a checkup to see where you’re at, with an aim to minimise a lifetime of build up of postural compensations, wouldn’t that be great?
So no you don’t have to be in pain to go an osteopath, you can go along just for a check up and an MOT. There’s a good chance you will feel much better after a treatment (I know I do) and you don’t get that from going to the dentist do you!