{"id":2161,"date":"2019-01-28T08:44:35","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T07:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/taoofstefan.com\/blog\/?p=2161"},"modified":"2020-12-02T13:59:59","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T12:59:59","slug":"the-power-of-breath-how-to-manage-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taoofstefan.com\/blog\/meditation\/the-power-of-breath-how-to-manage-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Breath: How to Manage Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My intention for this article is to share how I handled a physically stressful and painful situation. I hope it will help you to learn from my mistakes and make the most of my failure<\/a>. To make a long story short: breath was the key to handle such a situation and is a useful tool to manage pain and stress.<\/g><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disclaimer<\/em><\/g><\/strong>: I am not a medical doctor and I don’t play one on the internet. This <\/em>article does not provide medical advice<\/em><\/strong>. I merely share my story and explain what I did. If you ever dislocate a joint, make sure to seek medical advice as soon as possible. Don’t treat yourself. Wrongly handling a dislocated joint can cause severe damage. I repeat <\/em>this is not medical advice, don’t treat such an emergency yourself and seek professional medical advice as soon as possible.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"manage<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Here’s what Happened<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I went to my gym for a workout session. My goal was to work on my compound lifts as I wanted to improve them. After a solid warm-up (something I always do), I started my workout. Once I was done, I did my cool-down, which consists mainly of yoga movements adapted to the muscles I worked on. I did the same that day and at the end did overhead shoulder stretches while holding a stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s when it happened. My shoulder muscles must have been too tired or tight. Either way, I didn’t feel any problem in particular. Right at the end, basically my last stretch, my humeral head popped out of the joint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My body started to panic<\/strong> once I tried to elevate my arm but couldn’t. I moved it around to get a feeling of the situation, trying to establish if it was serious and if something was broken or ruptured. It seemed OK (as far anything can be OK at that point). Panic struck again<\/strong>, bringing its buddies physical pain<\/strong>, fear<\/strong> and sweat<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manage Pain: Going Into Survival Mode<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once the pain started to arise, it hit me hard – and I am used to painful situations from my martial arts practices and competitions. Within moments it went from extreme pain to my body starting to shut down. I was starting to black out slowly. Thanks to my BJJ background (see here<\/a>, here <\/a>and here<\/a>) I was familiar with this feeling and started to manage pain with my go-to survival task points<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n