Clenching, toe-curling and breath-holding are compensation patterns, not quirks. A North Vancouver RMT explains what they mean and shows a striking case.

Most practitioners don't light up when a new client says the word "migraines." I do. That might sound like an odd thing to say about a condition that flattens people for days at a time. But migraines are one of my favourite symptoms to treat, and there are three reasons why. Reason 1: You know whether it's working With a lot of chronic pain, progress is fuzzy: "I think it's a bit better?" Migraines are different. People who get them can usually tell you exactly how often they

Something I see in my clinic all the time: a person walks in already convinced their body is broken. Not because of how they feel, but because of what they've been told. A scan report full of alarming words. A practitioner who said their neck was "a mess," "full of knots," or "the worst I've seen this week." An x-ray described as "bone on bone," or a back that supposedly looks "like an 80-year-old's." They often hurt more after being told these things, not less. And that isn'

If you've ever wondered why a knee you hurt years ago still aches, why a surgical scar that healed cleanly still feels "off," or why pain keeps moving around and outlasting every scan that says you're fine, then this post is for you. The answer often comes down to a single question your nervous system never stops asking: am I safe? In a previous post I wrote about neuroplastic pain and Dr. Howard Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain model, the idea that much chronic pain is a learne

Here is a sentence that has changed thousands of lives: most chronic pain is real, but it is not always coming from damaged tissue. Often it is coming from the brain itself - from nerve pathways that have learned to produce pain and keep firing long after any injury has healed. That idea is the heart of Dr. Howard Schubiner's book Unlearn Your Pain. Dr. Schubiner is an internal medicine physician who was himself a patient and student of the late Dr. John Sarno, the pioneer wh

If you've been through physiotherapy and still can't get back to the sport or activity you love, you're not alone. The most common reason traditional rehab falls short? It targets muscle strength before addressing the real root of the problem: motor control. When the nervous system detects faulty sensory input or perceives threat, it activates protective mechanisms that inhibit muscle activation. No amount of strength training will override that. Until the underlying motor co

At the heart of chronic pain, recurring injuries, and even athletic plateaus lies one powerful and often overlooked force: your nervous system’s need to feel safe. In every moment, your unconscious mind is scanning the environment—internally and externally—for anything that might be interpreted as a threat. It does this not just through your senses, but also through memories, old injuries, scars, postures, and ingrained movement patterns. This background safety-monitoring sy

This is the supporting evidence for my blog about how chronic pain can be caused by prior trauma... The Mind-Body Connection in Chronic...

For many people, surgery is just the beginning of the healing process, not the end. Weeks or months after a procedure, you might find...

Sensorimotor Repatterning (SMR) is often unlike anything clients with chronic pain have experienced before. By the end of the first...

Clients often express astonishment at how quickly Sensorimotor Repatterning (SMR) therapy can produce noticeable changes in motor...

In SMR, we adapt the body to the bike rather than adjusting the bike to fit the body. According to the SMR theory, over a lifetime, the...

SMR theorizes that chronic muscle cramping often occurs because the cramping muscle is compensating for an inhibited (dysfunctional)...

Pain is an output of the brain, not an input. If the nervous system feels unsafe, it will likely output pain as a safety response. Key Points: Chronic pain results from faulty movement patterns, which are triggered by a perceived threat by the limbic system. The Limbic system prioritizes safety over function. The baseless “fact” that it takes 3000-5000 repetitions to “re-train” proper movement - is completely untrue; movement can be re-trained in minutes. SensoriMotor Repat

42 muscles were tested bilaterally. That's 84 muscles tested in total in the first session. 28 of those muscles were objectively noted as...

Your “Neural Edge” is the point at which the nervous system is forced into a safety response.

Pain is an output of the brain. When we injure ourselves, the brain assesses signals from the body and decides if outputting pain is...

Feel like you are running or cycling, but your Glutes aren't pulling their weight? You are in good company. I meet very few runners or...

Have you been told that surgery is imminent? I'm not against surgery. However, I think it should be the last option. Surgery is...

It is generally understood that emotional stress can lead to stomachaches, irritable bowel syndrome, and headaches. Still, people might...