The Myth of Ageing!

The Myth of Ageing

“Age is neutral as far as health is concerned.Age has never harmed anyone, and has it never killed a single human being.It is what happens to us during the ageing process that harms and kills human beings”

Thomas Hanna – Somatics- reawakening the minds control of movement, flexibility and health.

It seems fitting that I am writing this book summary and discussion whilst in Ikaria, Greece (one of the Blue Zones where a National Geographic project shows a high percentage of inhabitants live to 100) and the first thing to talk about is the Ancient Greek riddle of the Sphinx.

“What is it that has one voice and becomes four footed, two footed and three footed?”

Oedipus provides the answer: “the human being who crawls on all fours in infancy, walks on two legs in adulthood and leans on a cane in old age”

The presumption and programming of our modern day society is that to grow old is to become infirm – I often joke with my yoga students that on market day in our local town you will see people walking around bent over (just like the signs we have outside our Old Peoples Homes of people bent over walking with a stick!!) because its the only day of the week they have got out of their armchairs!

It’s obvious we all say, “ageing causes us to become stiff and aching” – its always been this way.

But why, is the question that we need answering.

If our modern day scientific medical system can extend our lifespan to 80 years+ with miracle medicines why does it not prevent us or teach us how to protect ourselves against simple bodily stiffness, aches and pains? We may live longer but do we live better?

I think that as humans in the western world we are basically quite lazy – nowadays we have so many ways to take short cuts as time seems to be our most precious commodity. I am always worried when I see youngsters more than half my age standing on the escalators with their heads bent down looking at their phones when there are a set of stairs right beside them that I make a point of always walking up and down.

We now understand that our bodies are not just a physical machine of separate systems – we know through the study of fascia that everything in our body is connected and this includes the emotional experiences we have that can be stored within the physical structure. We also understand that any experiences we have in this life will have an effect on our bodies, structurally and mentally.

The Somatics work of Thomas Hanna back in the 80’s states that the myth of ageing is by and large both avoidable and reversible – now I am INTERESTED!!

Many people in every generation continue to function perfectly actively right up to the moment they die, it is know as “successful ageing” Even Sophocles who gave us the riddle of The Sphinx wrote his last play when he was 90.

How is it that one person can age well and another is hobbling around in their 60’s?

During the course of our lives our SENSORY MOTOR SYSTEMS continually respond to the daily stresses and traumas with specific muscular reflexes. These reflexes repeatedly triggered create habitual muscular contractions which we cannot voluntarily relax. These then become so deeply involuntary and subconscious that eventually we no longer remember how to move freely. The result is stiffness, soreness and a reduced range of movement.

This habitual state of forgetfulness is known as SENSORY MOTOR AMNESIA. its basically a memory loss of how certain muscle groups feel and how to control them.

I recall now how I felt 31 years ago when I went to my first yoga class. I could not understand how the “old ladies” (they were about the age I am now!) could move and stretch way more than I could and were also stronger – I was confused, slightly mortified and thought I’d left it too late to start this yoga lark!

I was pretty much “out of tune”, , with my body and only really noticed it if something went wrong (illness or injury) or I couldn’t do something I wanted to do (lack of strength or flexibility)

SENSORY MOTOR AMNESIA has nothing to do with age. It can be caused by trauma, accidents, surgery, repetitive movements from a job or a sport, too much sitting (the average westerner sits for 14.6 hours daily!)

The good news is SENSORY MOTOR AMNESIA can be avoided and it can be reversed. You can use the ability of your unique human central nervous system.

1. To unlearn what has been learned
2. To remember what has been forgotten

HOW DOES THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM FUNCTION

There are 2 sides : A Sensory division and a Motor division

From the brain running down the spine to the tailbone – Sensory nerves emerge from the back of the spine and motor nerves emerge from the front

Sensory nerves – everything we sense outside in the world and inside our bodies – our perception of the world and ourselves

Motor nerves- everything we do in the world and every movement we make – the movements of our muscles and our skeleton and our fascia

They are two sides of the same coin that integrate in the brain

The Sensory nerves carry to our brains all the info of what is happening in the world as well as in our bodies, then provided with this info the brain integrates the incoming sensory info with outgoing commands to the Motor system. These are mainly subconscious , so just like the fish that does not notice the water, we don’t notice their ceaseless operation.

I often talk to students about the Habits we have as humans and how they save us a lot of conscious thinking time. When we first learned to drive a manual car, we had to focus and concentrate so hard on what movements to make when and now it is all programmed in we don’t even have to think about it. Even if you drive an automatic nowadays you could still get into a manual and it would all come flooding back.

There are many lessons of movement we have adopted over our lifetime, another example is how to turn the page of a book – the feedback loop from the hands to the brain eventually work it out as a child and we are then programmed to do it automatically.

If anything malfunctions in either the Sensory or the Motor system then it causes a fundamental deterioration in the quality of our lives- so much of this we associate with ageing but Thomas Hanna’s work questions this premise and illustrates the body can heal itself.

Chronic Muscular Tension

Muscles are designed to contract (grow shorter) The contraction occurs with a specific electromagnetic signal from the central nervous system. When the signal stops, the muscle relaxes back to its former length. It only takes energy to contract the muscle, not relax it. Full voluntary control of a muscle is the ability both to contract the entire span of the muscles and to relax it fully to its entire length.

We are often so out of touch with our body mind connection that we do not realise we never fully allow our muscles to lengthen back to their completely relaxed state and we buildup a degree of chronic tension over the years of repetitive movements or a stressful job.and the muscles then begin to feel hard and sore. We are told that the muscles are weak but it may be that they are chronically over worked and tired from contracting all the time. The chronically contracted muscle is like a motor that you can’t turn off, it continues to burn up energy and we therefore feel tired and exhausted.

Glycogen is stored in muscles for the energy of contraction and its constantly being burned up, the combustion of glycogen turns into Lactic Acid and the more this builds up over time the more the muscles sensory cells become irritated. This acidity builds up around the pain receptor cells and the body struggles to flush it away so the muscle constantly feels painful.

We know this from trying a new Gym workout or Boxercise class or using our muscles in ways we haven’t before.

But, as we age we can accumulate stressful or traumatic experiences and this build up can cause a distortion of the structural integrity of the body (we appear lopsided or have wear and tear on a joint due to constant muscle tension and imbalances)

I have seen students come to a class and when asked if they have had any illness or injury or surgery they say “No” and then when I see them sitting completely lopsided I ask them again – are you sure , not even when you were a child? “Oh yes I did fall out of a tree when I was 11.” When asked if you had any treatment or did anyone look at it, the answer usually is “the doctor said it was fine and just to rest”

Age has nothing to do with this as we can see the same thing happens in young people who have had illness, surgery, accidents or a stressful family life or lived in a war zone – their bodies mirror the same chronic muscular tension and distortion of an “old person”

For example: kids in war areas exposed to constant bombing, show sunken chests, permanently raised shoulders, hyper curved necks etc Traumatic injuries or major surgery in young people can cause the same chronic muscular contractions which in older adults are attributed to ageing.

When we consider the human body has almost 800 muscles and that all of them are stocked with sensory cells, we can appreciate why our wellbeing depends on sensory information fed back to our brains by our muscles.

Thomas Hanna believes that Muscular Reactions to Stress can be overcome. It is possible to feel “young” at any age.

Practically this means to have muscles that are not constantly over tensing but are in a state of comfort and control.

One of our basic tasks as humans is to gain greater and greater control over ourselves, learning to flow with the stresses, strains and traumas of our lives, like a cork floating on top of the waves.

I often joke with my students that we come to a Yoga Class thinking its just about relaxing and stretching but it is so much more than that – not only are we trying to control our physical structure (arms, legs etc) we are also learning to make a connection between controlling our breath and mind and thus linking the body and mind all together.

What does “Somatic” mean?

There are 2 ways in which a Human Being can be viewed :

From the outside in – by a physiologist or physician we look very different- we see a body with a certain shape or size. A ‘he, she or them” a 3rd person view

From the inside out – when we view ourselves we are aware of feelings, movements and intentions – a quite different , fuller perspective? An “I, myself” a 1st person view, being aware.

You are the only person who can see and feel the “real” you

The outside view is of a “Body”

The inside view is of a “Soma” a Greek word meaning ‘a living body”

We are simultaneously self sensing and self moving objects whilst at the same time we are observable and manipulable objects.

Modern Medicine has so far failed to perceive the myths around ageing because they don’t really view that we are all self aware, self sensing and self moving, or that all systems of the body are connected.

Instead we are all treated as the same “bodily structure” and we have specialists that deal with one system only.

We are all exposed to the same physical and organic forces of nature and can all have similar experiences , but we can also suffer many different experiences both physically and emotionally and we are affected by them differently as individuals. One persons stress is another persons motivation.

Thomas Hanna believes we can all also learn to become aware of our internal subconscious functions, thoughts and processes and change them.

I am pleased to report since this book was published the work of Gabor Mate in Psychoneuroimmunology and Bessel van der Kolk (The body keeps the score) is enabling the scientific community to begin to embrace the mind body connection. (Hallelujah!)

The unconscious (subconscious) levels of the brain:

It’s hard to imagine we are unconsciously contracting muscles without being aware of it isn’t it?

Thomas Hanna suggests that instead of being told we have the following issues and require these invasive treatments:

1. A nerve being pinched – nerve blocks, pain medication
2. A bone spur- scrape the bone away
3. Bursitis – anti inflammatory
4. Arthritis – pain meds and anti inflammatory, joint replacements
5. Tendinitis – pain meds and anti inflammatory

We can learn to re programme and what has been forgotten.

The Neocortex of our brains is an immense collection of nerve cells and is the seat of the voluntary learning and control that takes place in the rest of the brain – the source of all our conscious actions it is always adapting and learning. As we mature it begins to learn all the complex abilities and movements we need to function in society. (Driving the car, turning the page of the book etc)

Maturation is the growth of greater and greater cortical learning and will continue indefinitely UNLESS negative conditions force the brain into emergency reactions in order to feel safe and survive. This is when we revert back to our primitive survival instincts (fight, flight, freeze or fawn) and protect ourselves with involuntary reactions to stress or trauma – resulting in Sensory Motor Amnesia. (see my blog post on Paper Tigers)

A perfect example of this happened last week when Andy injured his foot and found it almost impossible to walk. After a few hours he proudly announced “its fine I’ve worked out what to do to stop it hurting – if I just turn my foot outwards and just put the weight on my heel only then there isn’t any pain and I can walk “

Genius! The body finding a way to protect itself from pain, however, if once the injury has healed he doesn’t remain aware of the changes his body made (by constantly becoming conscious of his movements) then this adaptation of walking that way will become a subconscious habit and could eventually lead to an imbalance in the whole of that left side of his body causing knee pain, hip pain and lower back issues.

How much better would it be if we could always return control of our muscles to our voluntary cortex after moments of stress or injury etc – this is the hope of Somatics

• Viewed Internally and Structurally Sensory Motor Amnesia is a single Somatic problem
• Viewed Externally and Structurally Sensory Motor Amnesia is a multitude of mysterious medical problems.

“Age” is a neutral term just like “life”………To live is to age

In our medical profession and Scientific research, age has a mysterious meaning- even though by definition it has no pathological significance , it has strong pathological significance in our current medical profession?

It is the mysterious cause of so many symptoms in elderly humans that we currently cannot really help, beyond covering up the symptoms that we have labelled as an “itis” (the words it and is)

Over the years Thomas Hanna taught many many patients to reprogramme their Sensory Motor Amnesia (the parts of themselves that were functioning incorrectly on auto pilot)

The complaints listed were all “Chronic” and included:

Painful feet, toes, legs, buttocks, chests, arms, hands, shoulders, backs, necks and jaws

Their symptoms included:

Sciatic pain in the back and legs, swollen knees, varicose veins, weak ankles that turned over too easily, stiff ankles that would not turn, leg cramps, pins and needles, eye aches, chronic tension headaches, tinnitus, shallow breathing (tired all the time), constipation and inflamed joints to name but a few!

All had been told there was nothing that could be done apart from pain killers, anti inflammatory or surgery.

They had been diagnosed by specialists as having neuralgia, scoliosis, kyphosis, lordosis, arthritis, bursitis, osteoporosis, spinal stenosis, bone spurs, carpal tunnel syndrome, compressed discs, herniated discs, slipped discs, bulging discs, degenerated discs, allergic reactions, post surgical trauma, hypochondria and in the end a fancy name for “un diagnosible pain”

Often told they were incurable and therefore the fault of old age.

Hanna never says these people were “cured” as he says curing and treating is done to a passive patient and that relearning the way the body should naturally move is just that, a “re-learning” and a “remembering”. The patient is doing that internally themselves from the brain to the muscular system – its not someone else replacing or removing something or masking the symptoms from an external force.

From a Somatic viewpoint the Sensory Motor Amnesia particularly of the muscles of the body’s centre of gravity were the causes of these functional problems.

Curious to discover what the key Somatic Movements are and if they could help you with some chronic symptoms? I will be taking new clients on in January 2027 and also offering small group classes.

Please email me : enquiries@carolebaker.co.uk