My left shoulder doesn't hurt anymore

Managing pains and injuries is often problematic in sports or in everyday situations, for example when suddenly one becomes aware of a stiff joint, or suffering when sitting in a bad posture at the computor at work or at home, or experiencing repetitive injury. Physiotherapy and taking painkillers are not always the only or best solution.

When I presented sophrology to a group of professionals back in September and mentioned the added beneficial effects of sophrology on physical dysfunction too, I felt I sounded like a magician, not to mention the smothered laugh I provoked when upon mentioning suffering from my injury someone said "I bet it's gone now".

Well yes, it is gone. I never said that sophrology did the trick of sorting out an injury by itself, but the process of sophrology and its everyday practise gave me the awareness of my body that is necessary to look after myself.

With my practise of everyday sophrology and body consciousness, I became aware of my bad posture sitting at the computor which was a result of a combination of things: sports injury in my left shoulder, laptop keyboard not centered, body compensating to avoid pain but actually making it worse, stress building up from the wrists up to the shoulders and neck.

I made slow progress, by being more mindful, more attentive to the body responses to situations, I bought myself a wrist support, made appointments with alternative specialists and added my sophrology exercises to my daily routines. The pain is generally gone, but recurs if I don't look after myself.

Taking a 5mn break every hour to refocus on oneself makes so much difference.

A client of mine who works mainly at her computor all day was asking me the other day:

How can I adapt the body scan and neck and shoulder exercises we did in the session when I don't have much time at work?

My answer: while still sitting at your desk, close your eyes, start being aware of your own breathing pattern for a few seconds, then gently become aware of how you are sitting, the points of contact of your body with the chair, what parts are touching the back of the chair, the seat, move your attention to your feet, how your feet are in contact with the floor, your hands and arms on the desk or your lap or on the arms of the chair...Focus on your face as you breathe normally, in particular on your forehead, your cheeks, unclenching your jaws, feel the air you breathe in and out in your throat, gently become aware of your whole neck and shoulders, softly dropping them.

Adapt the neck exercise from the session by chosing one option out of the 4 you learnt. Listen to how you are feeling.

Adapt the shoulder exercise doing it once as if shrugging your shoulders, by cautiously breathing in, bring shoulders up and tensing them, holding, breathing out and letting go of tension by dropping down shoulders.

Practise and enjoy!