Simply sensation

I had the pleasure of teaching a course this weekend to a group of dance faculty and students. We were talking about various tools and strategies for improving strength and flexibility in the moment, focusing specifically on providing new proprioceptive and exteroceptive input to the brain.

Exteroceptive sensations include things like sight, sound, smell and touch, but for the purpose of this class we focused simply on touch and the various sensations our skin can feel and distinguish. There are different nerve endings and spinal cord tracts for different sensations (light touch, deep pressure, vibration, temperature, threat, etc) so we played around with a few of these. We created various skin sensations through rubbing with a towel (light touch), poking with the end of a paperclip (threat), and vibrating with an electric toothbrush (vibration).

One participant stated at the end that her neck pain (which she had been experiencing for a couple of weeks) disappeared for the remainder of the class simply after rubbing the area with a towel. And this is a great reminder for all of us! Sometimes, just providing different or new sensation to an area that might feel stiff or be in pain can make an HUGE difference to how our brain and body feel!

Try this today — pick an area of your body that might be experiencing some pain or stiffness. Rub that area with a towel (or use a toothbrush to provide vibration, or the end of a paperclip) while making sure to keep your mental attention focused on the sensation you’re experiencing! That is a critical part of this — the brain has to pay attention to what you are doing. And then see how you feel after about 30 seconds of stimulus, keeping in mind that you may prefer one type of stimulus over another. Let me know what you discover!