The Pain Relief Secret: How to Retrain Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, and Overcome Chronic Pain Paperback – September 1, 2019

I am 53 years old and I am so grateful to have come across this book! I truly believe everyone should read this!

The Pain Relief Secret is for anyone experiencing pain and wanting to do something about it. I take Sarah Warren’s online classes on somatics and have been reading her blogs for the last year so I expected this book to be thorough and clear and it did not disappoint. Ms. Warren is a natural teacher and healer—she knows a lot, knows how to communicate it and is generous and patient in what she shares.The book begins with a great explanation of how the pain networks in our bodies work—a great read for someone in pain, an athlete, a coach or a bodyworker—then the author details various approaches to solving pain, and then zooms in on the modality that has changed her life, mine, and probably everyone who has taken the time to give it a shot. That modality is somatics. Warren gives a thorough explanation of how and why somatics works, the history of its development and then proceeds to discuss specific pain issues—tension headaches, temporal mandibular joint syndrome (TMJ) frozen shoulder, sciatica, carpal tunnel syndrome, to name just a few, and gives links to a set of somatic exercises to relieve and sometimes to eliminate those issues. She then goes on to offer suggestions for how to alter habits that are contributing to these problems, usually related to posture and body mechanics. You cannot read this book or take her classes without becoming more aware of your body and how you use it and that is a key to a much healthier and happier life.The exercises are simple and gentle. The hardest thing about them for me is to resist competing with myself or pushing mself beyond what my body can do at the moment and to not let my mind wander—the way these exercises do their magic is that they reeducate your brain and that can only happen if you are doing the exercises slowly and with full attention. Properly done they become a kind of moving meditation.The book’s explanation of the how and why of pain is worth the price of the book. The links to somatic exercises that target specific body aches is worth the price of the book, times three, and the section on paying attention to how you use your body every day is right up there with eat your greens and ditch the sugar.

Good information, well presented. I've read a half dozen books with related information from other authors, but I feel like Sarah Warren's book gave me a better grasp and helped me to apply the movements better than other books on this subject. These ideas have been around for a while. I think it is information that is evolving and getting better. To me, it is similar to what many people in Physical Therapy are referring to as Neural Flossing, but no matter what you call this type of gentle exercise for pain relief, I am becoming a believer. When yoga and stretching take you in the opposite direction, actually increasing pain and decreasing your flexibility, the principals in this book may help. I have found relief from lower back pain even though I have only done the movements in a half-hearted manner. The relief I get makes me think if I slowed down and really followed Sarah's directions more carefully, I might receive even more relief.

I am savoring every syllable of this book, and I am not exaggerating when I say that this is among the best written and most deftly edited books on any subject that I have ever encountered. So fine is the writing, here, that the reader quickly gets the clear sense that its author is driven by a powerful sense of purpose that she understands can only be served by exceptionally high-quality messaging. And the authorś purpose is nothing less than banishing all the misunderstandings and fallacies that have stood, for too long, in the way of lasting relief for the untold numbers of humans who today live (or at least try to) with unrelenting chronic pain. I have read a sizable collection of manuals offered as self-help guides for chronic pain sufferers, including books on the specific therapeutic explained and advocated here (applied somatics), and even among the other works that attempt to educate readers about somatics, none comes close to this book in the ways in which it enlightens the reader. I am therefore now setting aside all these other tomes and plan to make this book my North Star as I move forward in my journey to end the pain.

If you thought the fountain of youth was a fairy tale, think again! Sarah Warren is on a crusade to bring the magical elixir of clinical somatic exercises to the world. These exercises have the power to free you from the grips of what you thought was old age. It isn't old age though. It's your body's automation run amuck.Throughout our lives, as we repeat certain postures and movements, our nervous system memorizes and automates these muscular patterns. Eventually, we don’t even have to think about these patterns. This is invaluable for playing ball, driving a car, or riding a bike. Unfortunately, though, our sensory-motor systems also respond to stress, trauma, bad habits, and inactivity. When this is the case, our automated reflexes eventually create muscular contractions that we can no longer voluntarily relax. These contractions eventually become so deep and unconscious that we can’t remember how to smoothly and efficiently coordinate our bodies so that we can move freely—and we become stiff, bound, and sore.Yet since this problem is a learned adaptive response it can be unlearned—and Sarah's book and powerful courses help you do just that! Her simple somatic exercises truly have the power to reprogram your muscle memory.I know this is true because it is doing precisely that for me. Every day I am amazed as my posture, mobility, balance, body awareness, and muscular control get dramatically better. And I thought the fountain of youth was a fairy tale! Come! Drink! See for yourself!