Testing Stretching Visualizations for Pain Relief

As a follow up to my preceding post on relieving pain with stretching and shrinking imagery (“Chronic Pain Relief with Visualizations, April 15, 2011, https://touchysubjects.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/chronic-pain-relief-with-visualizations/), I’ve been testing a “stretching” visualization with my foot. A few weeks ago, I hurt my right foot while playing basketball at my daughter’s practice; I’ve learned the hard way that inflexible footwear and jumping do not go together! Since then my right foot has been painful off and on, with some jerking “Aiiii!” instances when I accidentally hit my foot.

In the past week, when my right foot has been achy, which has been at least once a day, I’ve been visualizing my foot stretching forward, sometimes into infinity. This visualization is similar to the one conducted by the MIRAGE technology in the study at Nottingham University, except that it’s literally all in my head. Sometimes, I would combine forward stretching with stretching sideways or with shrinking. The results have been mixed but have included temporary reductions in the achiness/pain in my foot and decreasing pain as time goes by. Of course, without having a control (i.e. another foot with the same injury on which I conduct no visualizations… a little difficult to arrange, willingly anyways), it’s impossible to tell whether my results are due to the visualization.

In the study at Nottingham University, the arthritic pain was only reduced or temporarily eliminated when the exercise was conducted on the area that was painful. For instance, if the pain was in the index finger, the stretching or shrinking visualization had to be done on that finger and not on the entire hand. Based on those results, I’m now going to try the stretching visualization only on the left side of my right foot, including my big toe, where the pain can be felt.

I’ll upload another post in about a week to let you know how it goes. I’m very interested in hearing your stories about stretching visualizations and how they’ve worked for you.

Explore Energy. No Boundaries. No Fear.

Touchy Subjects is owned and operated by Brenda Piquette. All information on the Touchy Subjects blog is copyright Brenda Piquette 2010/2011. Note: This information is provided for entertainment purposes only and should be verified for accuracy.