Medical Massage Therapist
Keep in mind that these articles are greatly simplified to help you understand the basics of human movement and how to maintain a degree of health and comfort as far as our muscles are concerned. They are in no way intended to diagnose specific problems you might be having.
So, what is nerve flossing anyway? We have two areas of our nervous system that we will discuss. The central nervous system and the peripheral nerves. The central nervous system is our brain and spinal cord, while the peripheral nervous system is the nerves that branch off the spine and innervate our muscles and organs. Nerves, like the muscles, need movement and stretching to remain healthy.
Nerves don’t like to be stretched the same way muscles do. In general, if you want to increase muscle flexibility you move the muscle away from its origin to its insertion. Nerves, due to their unique anatomy, do not respond well to the same type of stretch as muscles. Throughout the whole nerve pathway from its origin to insertion, nerves are encased in a protective sheath. To have full neural mobility, nerves are designed to slide and glide within the sheath. Problems arise for a multitude of reasons; the nerve gets stuck to the sheath somewhere throughout the neural pathway.
Skin, and deep muscle nerves are broken into two groups dermatomes and myotomes. Dermatomes are roughly the same from person to person and there is a map called a dermatome map that gives a good idea of what nerves branch off what vertebrae. For example, C2 through C6 innervate our shoulders and arms, T1 -T12 our thoracic region, L1- L5 our lower body.
Nerve flossing is a type of gentle exercise designed to stretch out and normalize irritated nerves. It is sometimes called nerve gliding or neural gliding. Think of your nerves as branches on a tree. They start out from the spine relatively thick and gradually branch off traveling through your fascia down into different muscles along the way.
As we age, the injuries and surgeries we had generate scar tissue, binding down and irritating our nerves. Sometimes, this phenomena can result in muscle tingling, numbness, weakness and pain radiating into other areas of the body along that specific neural pathway. If your muscles hurt, you can be sure that your nerves are irritated as well. We often say, “it’s all connected,” and it literally is.
Nerve irritation, fascial tension, binding, and restriction all occur at the same time. They can occur with overuse, repetitive use or after a strain or sprain. It often will generate myofascial trigger points that cause nagging pain that can go on for years.
Additionally, since fascia is literally everywhere in the body, it also has a great deal of vasculature or blood vessels traveling through it as well. If you have fascial binding it will choke off part of the blood flow to the nearby muscles. Muscles and nerves aren’t very happy when they lose blood, and they aren’t shy about letting you know.
Oddly, long periods of rest do not equate with relaxation either. This is demonstrated when a person has been bedridden for a time. The person who has been lying or sitting for extended periods of time gets up with pain and stiffness. Hence the adage “the two worst things for the body are overuse and no use.”
Nerve flossing is designed to combine gentle stretching to the affected area. It involves tensing one end of the nerve while simultaneously releasing tension on the other end. The great news is that when performed properly it feels fantastic.
Combining nerve flossing with a good solid massage can and will offer the client a tremendous amount of pain relief.
The good news is that after treatment there is a plethora of online material where you can find these easy stretches to help maintain pain relief. Some of them you can even do while sitting in your favorite chair. Keep in mind that a proper stretch should never be painful. If it is, back off the stretch until the pain stops. If you do them right, nerve flossing stretches can easily become the best way to start your day. After coffee or tea, of course.
Kreig Peterson is the owner of In Touch Medical and Therapeutic Massage located in The Mary Deal Building in Los Alamos. Kreig graduated with honors at (UTMI) Universal Therapeutic Massage Institute He then went on and graduated UTMI’S medical massage program in February of 2012 Kreig is a board certified Medical Massage Therapist. Kreig Peterson is available for consult at 505.410.6161. For more information go to https://ift.tt/2LpNLLj
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Peterson: Nerve Flossing – Yep It's Really A Thing - Los Alamos Daily Post
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