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Introduction Within the German language-speaking region, RLS is described as the „Syndrome of the restless legs”. It is one of the most frequent clinical pictures in the field of neurology. Patients suffering from this syndrome often have difficulties giving a precise description of what actually happens in the acute phase of the disease. „Unbearable tingle inside the calves” or „Itching, twinges, ripping, shooting, tension, up until pains in the feet, calves and thighs” and „twitching of the legs, fully uncontrollable jerky movements of the legs”. When do such discomforts occur? These extremely unpleasant discomforts occur when the patient sits calmly, e.g. in the office, in the movie, while driving, in conferences, while reading calmly or lying quietly for relaxation. The pains are however worst when the patient lies down to sleep. The symptoms begin within 5-15 minutes of lying down and stop the patient from falling asleep. One is faced with the pressing need to get up again and walk around, move the body and eventually, subsequently experience a slight relief. While lying down, the problem begins with the need or better said, the compelling urge to initially, turn and stretch the foot and then the leg as a result of the tingle, tension and twinges. If one, under these circumstances, finally succeeds in falling asleep, the jerky movement of the leg(s) continues during sleep and this may in turn, rob the neighbor on the next bed of his sleep. Not only are the legs affected. The arms may also suffer the same predicament. They twitch and swing jerkily and in a fully uncontrollable manner at short intervals. The consequence is obstructed sleep and a resultant fatigue, poor concentration, irritability. It is estimated that approximately 12 million people suffer from RLS in the USA alone. Virginia N. Wilson describes this phenomenon in detail in his book „SLEEP THIEF, restless legs syndrome”, Galaxy BOOKS.
First, what is Feldenkrais? The Feldenkrais Method is a unique approach to human self-understanding and the improvement of function. It’s effectivness lies in the ability to access the nervous system’s own innate processes for change and reorganization. The Feldenkrais Method has gained wide popularity in the United States and Europe and is now utilized by a wide range of professionals in many different contextes. Feldenkrais exercices or „lessons“ consist of verbally directed, sophisticated movement sequences designed to create the conditions for improved functioning. Sensory-motor activity is utilized to free us from habitual patterns and allow for new patterns of thinking, moving and feeling. The lessons involve a tremendous variety of movements, helping to make the learning intriguing and enjoyable. I work in my own Feldenkrais practice in which I teach groups and administer individual treatments. One of my clients was suffering very seriously from the RLS syndrome. Each time he lay on the patient bed for treatment, he started feeling queasy after a few minutes. He would start stretching and turning his foot, thereafter, one of the feet or even both would start twitching strongly. Sometimes, it was more intensive, sometimes, less and sometimes, it was even so strong that we were compelled to interrupt treatment to enable him stand up, walk around and thereby, slightly relieve the discomforting impacts. Sometimes, the symptoms began with the initial cramping of the gluteus muscle. Until this point in time, I had no personal experience with this RLS. I was pretty helpless because whatever I did to help the clients yielded no positive result. Most often, whatever I did yielded the opposite result because the treatments calmed him down and that subsequently triggered off RLS even faster and much more intensively. The client himself has already tried everything possible to experience healing or relief. In his office, he repeatedly tried working on his feet or walking around occasionally. At his spare time, he went jogging, read all sorts of book but there was still no solution in the horizon. My own experiences with the Restless Legs Syndrome Diary As my own experiences began with the Restless Legs Syndrome Mid-December 2001. Somehow, I couldn’t fall asleep so easily as usual. Not just once, but repeatedly. That was a new experience because I always fell asleep in a jiffy after lying in bed. The phenomenon did not improve with time but became steadily worse until I could virtually, no longer sleep at all, after a few weeks. I rolled for hours in my blanket and when I finally fell asleep in the early morning hours, the sleep was only pretty superficial and brief. In the morning, I got up exhausted and felt dead beat for the rest of the day. As usual in such moments, i.e. when something special, new, unusual, abnormal happened in my life, I began wondering what I had done differently in my day-to-day life as opposed to the usual routine. Have I changed anything? Have I changed e.g. my eating habit? Have I had a different job or has anything changed in my style of working? Or did I have problems with insufficient time? Problem with work? Was I under any emotional or mental pressure? I did not have to search too long to find the answers because at the moment, I have been sitting at my office desk from morning till evening. That was something which I no longer did till today, i.e. within the past 30 years. I have been reading a lot these days and translating “Feldenkrais awarnes through movement” ® from English into German in connection with lessons for my Feldenkrais class and drawing up course programs from them all day long. All in the sitting position. That was something new.
During the numerous hours of sitting, I began observing myself and my body. Part of my attention was constantly directed at my body. I did it even at night when I lay on the bed. I looked at the body lying there, how it felt all over. My sleeping time was a sheer catastrophe. A few minutes after lying calmly under the blanket, one leg began feeling very awkward. At the start, it felt dull, heavy and somehow, hardened. This intensified after a few nights and the feeling of discomfort initially started from the foot. The ankle joint began to shrink as if cramping (but there was never a muscle cramp). I had the feeling that the ankle joint was shrinking inwards while the forefoot drew upwards towards the knee. It was like a ghost movement because I wasn’t doing it myself, it was simply happening. To break free of this uncomfortable phenomenon, I turned and stretched the foot and the leg repeatedly; but this had no relieving impact. The discomfort was so strong that it felt almost like pain. Thereafter, the entire leg began to twitch or swing, in conjunction with tensions on the thigh. It is very difficult to describe the feeling. Similar to ant bites or itching but dull and heavy; a very uncomfortable feeling of something threatening to pull off. It was mostly the left leg. These tensions on the thigh did not always occur in the same position. Sometime, it was more on the backside, sometimes, it was lateral and sometimes, it was more on the outward parts. A few nights after the left foot initially developed such a behavior which then spread to the entire left leg, my left shoulder and thereby, my complete arm began to twitch like springing, swinging and a few days later, the head did the same, it sprang forward or more precisely, it strikes out to the front. There was no advance warning like some sort of mounting tension or something itching; all of a sudden, my head surged forward or the shoulder and the arm. It was like a ghost hand pressing all the buttons and triggering off all that without me having the least control over them. I was like being remote-controlled. And it all started each time I lay down and the body was relaxed. When I got up again and walked around, it improved. Even in sitting, it also began to be uncomfortable and there was this compelling drive to stand up and move. 15th of January 2002 I had just retreated to my bed and was lying awake under the blanket following the intensive symptoms like in the last weeks. My attention was drawn to my sacral bone. I felt it and saw it, i.e. a part of it, notably the part that was at the center of the discomfort. I felt and saw the vicinity of one of the holes at the position from which the nerve cords emerge and extend down into the legs, on the inner side of the sacral bone. I saw one of these holes very clearly and the nerve cord emerging from this hole into the sacral bone. The nerve here is quite thick and it fills the whole hole in the bone. ThenI felt how pressure was transmitted from the rounding of this hole to the emerging nerve and this pressure irritated the nerve at the pressure spot. This spot was on the lower side of the hole, i.e. in the direction of the feet, the entire lower half of the „circle” (these holes or openings are in fact, not round like a circle). The irritations spread from this pressure spot through the whole leg downwards up until the foot. The pressure came from under, i.e. the sacral bone was „pressed upwards” through the long and persistent sitting.
The positions marked red indicate the positions from which the pressure on the nerves originated. A cross-section of the sacral bone and the coccygeal bone. The red spots show an exaggerated view of how the holes in the sacral bone can shift upwards and exert pressure on the emerging nerves in the process. Such nerves as do not run vertically downwards but forward in a specific angle are most strongly affected. The nerves running downwards in a vertical manner are less affected because there is longitudinal tension exerted on them if at all, and not pressure from the bottom edge of a hole.
1. Vertebra 2. Sacral bone 3. Coccygeal bone 4. Nerve cord running down into the legs Schematic presentation of the sacral bone and a nerve emerging out of it.
1. A normal emergence of a nerve from a hole in the sacral
bone. The nerve has sufficient space
2. The sacral bone is pressed upwards. In the process, the
nerve is drawn longitudinally and is
Front view of the irritated and strained nerves of the leg as they run from the sacral bone/pelvis down into the feet. The irritated and strained nerves of the leg as they run down from the sacral bone/pelvis down to the leg and feet from the back. 16th of January All through the day, I was busy on the office desk during my work with my attention also focused on my sacral bone. In the process, I was able to observe the following: I felt the lowest tip of the sacral bone, the coccygeal bone and its tip, the lowest end. This tip was subjected to pressure from below through sitting, as if one was supporting himself. At that spot, there was a feeling of exhaustion, heaviness and unpleasantness. While sitting, the weight of my body was borne not only by the sitting bone (tuber ischiadicum) but pressure was also exerted from the bottom upwards through the coccygeal bone to the sacral bone. 17th January Today, I felt the complete coccygeal bone not only the lowest tip of it. This whole part felt insensitive, tired and heavy and I could feel the pressure coming up from the bottom and taken over by the coccygeal bone. I felt how it supported itself from under. Towards evening, this insensitiveness, weight and tiredness spread out through the complete sacral bone.
The lowest part of the coccygeal bone affected by the pressure. The complete coccygeal bone that is detrimentally impacted by the pressure.
Sacral bone and coccygeal bone that are unnaturally subjected to the pressure from the bottom. Pressure occurring from long-term sitting. Experiments for better sitting Initially, I assumed that the underlay on which I sat also played a decisive role in my predicament. My office chair though, was of a very good quality – not too soft and not too hard. I used to use a cheap quality chair but very soon, that led to an awkward back-pain. I was able to use the present one without back-pain. I compared sitting with standing through which very clear and precise information is received by the nerves of the feet through a hard and distinctive underlay like stone or wood which in turn activates the pattern or program for standing etc. in the brain. I.e. the pattern or program which is responsible for the functioning of the muscles which supported the standing or walking etc. of the body and which was developed by the brain at infant age while the baby was learning to stand and walk independently. Or in simpler words, the precise information reaching the brain from the feet led to the generation of the necessary body tension which I needed to be able to stand and walk. If I, e.g. stand on a thick, soft foamed rubber, the brain receives completely different signals and a completely different tension which renders standing and walking much more difficult, is generated in the body. If I now sit on a very soft foamed rubber, the same thing happens. The base is not distinctive but diffuse and such information is then transmitted to the brain and the necessary program for “sitting” is not activated, i.e. the proper tension is not there. Sitting or even standing in this manner is cumbersome for the body because it is not sure of what is actually going on, it cannot hold on to any precise point of orientation and probably produce even additional protective postures. According to my observation, the two sitting bones were supposed to impact two distinctive resting points on the underlay. For this purpose, the pelvis was to be set upright in such a way that the vertebrae stand straight above each other like stacked bricks so that one is bearing the burden of the other, i.e. the vertebra, the skeleton bears the burden of the body not the muscles. If the muscles bear the burden, it leads to hardening, fatigue and back-pains. An underlay that is too soft adapts to the shape of the body and this may in effect, first lead to additional pressure on the coccygeal bone and sacral bone and secondly, the non-transmission to the brain, of the necessary information for sitting. I experimented on different types of underlay for sitting. First I sat on a flat, naked wooden board. Of course, this impacted the sensitivity of the sitting bones in a very distinctive manner (and painful too, because no one could sit this way for hours and weeks but I wanted to know what happens). Through this underlay, I got a precise feeling for the back, shoulders and head. I developed a clear impression of them. And I developed a feeling of stability, safety and calmness in the body. But even if the information through such sitting causes the generation of a distinctive impression of the body or a clear consciousness of the body in this position, it had no impact whatsoever, on the RLS; nothing changed. The only thing that changed was that I now had the symptoms not on the left but on the right leg. 19th of January The next thing I did was to take a wooden board and lay an approx. 3 cm thick wooden roll beneath it, i.e. not from waist joint to waist joint but in the middle directly under the coccygeal bone in the direction of the knee. The underlying idea was to effect a constant change in the pressure exerted on the pelvis and the sacral bone from under as a result of sitting on a moving underlay because it is impossible to sit on such a construction calmly. The brain thereby, constantly receives new information and the body, body tensions are compelled to adapt continuously to help me sustain my balance and cannot thereby, rely on an established routine program. Nothing thus remains calm. There is movement all the way and the sacral bone as well as the coccygeal bone are not able to rest against a base or permanently absorb pressure. Sitting in this manner kept me of course, extremely awake and the body constantly sought an ideal posture in this course of subtle balancing. The effect of this was that the pelvis was set up in the most ideal position where it stood most easily and was able to balance out in the fastest and easiest manner. The same happened to the vertebrae, the ribcage, shoulders and head. The body found the most ideal posture in order to be able to react fast and easily to every change. This also had no positive impact on the RLS. On the contrary. Under the blanket at night I felt the coccygeal bone and the sacral bone even more strongly; now, much more intensively on the left side once again. I even then, began to feel pains on the entire outer left part of the body from the sacral bone to the coccygeal bone. And I started kind of cramping all over the body.
The next thing I did was to take a piece of non-hard but firm foamed rubber. The technical term for it is “Foamolit”. It is a closed-porous polyethylene, black, ex-roll (this material also exists in the form of plates but they are quite hard.). I took a piece that is 2 cm thick in the size of 41 x 26 centimeter. I cut a triangle out of one of the long sides (see drawing).
I now used this piece of firm foamed rubber as underlay and in such a way that both sitting bones rested on the underlay and the coccygeal bone and the sacral bone so-to-speak, had downward allowances in terms of free space. They had no further opportunity for them to absorb pressure while sitting. In other words, the triangle that was cut out was set backwards directly below the sacral bone/coccygeal bone. Sat on the thing and went about my work. After about two and a half hours, I got up again to make tea. I had the following experience in the process:
First: I was able to feel the bones of my legs quite
distinctively (it may be said that it is impossible to feel
one’s own bones. But it is indeed possible as I was able to
experience in my capacity as a Feldenkrais teacher in the course
of exercising the Feldenkrais methods.). It was a pretty
pleasant and strong, clear feeling. The clear and distinctive
manner of sitting on the sitting bones alone without resting on
the coccygeal and sacral bone transmitted simple, clear and
distinctive information to the brain and thus led to equally
clear and distinctive experiences for my body in return, as was
supposed to be or could have been since such clear sense of
perception is a fantastic help in the detection of problems. How
do I intend to detect the problems in Position of the pelvis on the seat underlay from under
from above and of the body if I have no developed sense of subtle perception of this body? I had the feeling that “I have legs” which sounded somewhat awkward but is an experience which one cannot describe in words. One must simply experience it. I equally felt my knee, the ankle joints and the ribcage even the form of the ribcage as they are positioned in the body very strongly, i.e. distinctively and consciously. I saw how much clarity has been lost in the body or had suffered through the impacts of RLS. Or how clarity has been overshadowed by difficulties. This clarity now came back again. Secondly: The coccygeal bone and the sacral bone started itching and biting: at the back, on the exterior of the body, not deeply in the interior of the pelvis. In such a pleasant way that one does not need to scratch. This type of itching and biting is always an unmistakable sign for the relief of tension indicating that the affected spot is beginning to acquire improved blood supply once again. A protective posture has possibly been automatically developed at this spot of the backside of the sacral bone in the face of the pressure from the bottom. These tensions were now easing off and the irritations which went right down the legs had given way for improvement. Thirdly: As I sat down again, I experienced a strong and clear link between the sacral bone, vertebra and head. It could perhaps, also be said that the link here had been reestablished and was no longer disrupted by tension and hardenings. It was equally clear information which emerged through this type of sitting. This clear reaction of the body indicates that this manner of sitting is precisely the decisive factor which helped the body or enabled it to gain a better orientation and adjustment within itself and in open space, that is: to function optimally. In the “old” form of sitting in which pressure was exerted on the coccygeal bone and the sacral bone, the nervous system was massively irritated and hindered from functioning properly. Sitting on this underlay showed that it was the right thing for the body because the body never lies. 21st of January Until the end of my work at the office desk yesterday, I sat on the new underlay all through and took it with me everywhere that I needed to sit down. I laid it on the chair of the dinning table and on every chair in front of the television and computer. For the first time since weeks and weeks, I was able to fall asleep without difficulties last night. Quite normally. Not the least of the Restless Legs Syndromes occurred. And I slept through the night without interruption as it used to be in the past. 22nd January Of course, I was sitting again throughout the day yesterday, on the underlay whenever and wherever I sat. In the night, I was able to sleep again without difficulties like on the first day of the underlay. I didn’t have even the least RLS reactions neither in the feet, the legs, the arms nor the head. 23rd of January Yesterday afternoon, I deliberately worked without the underlay to find out if it will have any impact at all and what it may look like. While falling asleep, the known RLS reactions were there again. And I did not sleep throughout the night and was completely exhausted in the morning. In the morning, the complete external area of the sacral bone hardened up once again. It was stronger on the left than on the right. Yesterday, I did a lot of writing with the right hand. In the process, I leaned the whole body slightly to the left and the left side of the sacral bone should have absorbed more pressure because I brought a little excess weight to bear on the left sitting bone. 24th January The whole day yesterday, I used the underlay once again. Falling asleep was fully easy and the sleep all through the night was without interruption again. I had found the cause of my RLS and also had a solution. I was able to switch the symptoms on and off at will. Improving upon the seat underlay To make it as clear as possible for the body, the nervous system, I took a foamed material which was quite firm but not hard. After a few days though, it became too hard to sit on this type of material alone. I knew a saddler craftsman who applied the most different types of foamed materials for the most different types of seat and covered them with textile, leather or synthetic leather. I talked with him and asked him for a type of foamed rubber which remained stable, i.e. that does not shrink after a few weeks in such a way that it becomes useless but has some degree of solidity. He recommended a type with the designation “RG 65”. This designation refers to the specific weight. This softer material is however, much firmer than such foamed materials as can be purchased in departmental stores for seat cushions. This second material alone was too little for the intended purpose. I took a layer that was 2 centimeter thick and glued it on a 1.5 or even 1 cm thick layer of the black material. This combination functioned perfectly well and was quite pleasant to sit on. I did not have the least of symptoms any longer. 6th of February
Yesterday night as I retreated to bed to sleep, I noticed after
a few moments, that all the RLS reactions were there once again.
First, on the left foot again, then on the left thigh. I
reviewed what I did within the last few days and how. At the
moment, I was teaching three classes on Feldenkrais awareness
through movement ®. They all lasted between 1 hour and about 1¼
hours. The day before yesterday, I taught one
1. The lower, firmer layer 2. The upper, softer layer 3. The combined (glued) finished form of the seat underlay The double-layer foamed material: The firmer material down and softer material up class and one more class yesterday morning and one in the evening. Within these periods, I sat on a wooden bench. I forgot to use my seat underlay. These brief periods (about 3.5 hours within two days, I used the underlay at the office desk, at the dinning table, before the television) was sufficient to reactivate the RLS. While teaching the Feldenkrais classes, I failed to use the underlay unintentionally, I has simply forgotten. 13th February Yesterday, I sat again for 1 hour, ¼ hours without the underlay and in the night, it took my long to fall asleep. I felt a slight twitch in the leg and the foot contracted slightly. Else, I used the underlay ALWAYS, even in the car. Here, I use only the harder form of the foamed rubber, the black but 1.5 or 2 centimeter thick one. Sitting on this underlay The body must get used to the new way of sitting, above all, the pelvis and the sacral bone. As I started using this underlay on the first day, I began to experience slight pains and tension along the edges on the outer part of the body, where the sacral bone and the wing of ilium converge, along these edges, on the sacral bone. It was a slight muscle ache which emerged because the tendons and muscles in this area were now being used in a different manner. These muscles and tendons now have to function differently and that requires some amount of time to have established into a routine. It took approximately as long as a minor muscle ache would take, one or two days and nothing else was noticed. It was also possible that the slight muscle ache resulted from the fact that the affected muscles at the edge of the wing of ilium stiffened into a protective pattern while pressure was exerted on the sacral bone, i.e. stood constantly, were hardened and this protective pattern became unnecessary with the present seat underlay because the pressure was no longer there. In other words, the muscles became excessively fatigued and over-strained through constant holding and stiffening finally resulting in muscle aching.
Occasionally, I was also on the road and forgot to take the underlay along with me or I deliberately refused to take it with me, e.g. for conferences in other cities which I accessed by rail. If I sat normally and upright on a chair, it triggered off RLS. If I rested against the back of the chair, i.e. the back slightly tipped backwards, it also triggered off RLS. But whenever I sat and tipped my back forward, the coccygeal bone and the sacral bone absorbed no pressure and RLS is not triggered off. Quite recently, I attended a conference in which I sat all day long without the underlay and always leaned my pelvis forward. The result was that I had no symptoms of the restless legs. The coccygeal bone and the sacral bones had no means of absorbing pressure from under. It was like sitting on the underlay. The disadvantage of sitting in this manner, is simply the fact that it leads to back pains and may be tiring. It is easier for people with a flexible and sensitive body in which not only the back is leaned forward in such a sitting position but the vertebrae and the ribcage also play along in such movement.
Position of the pelvis which triggers off RLS.
Position of the pelvis which does NOT trigger off RLS.
Position of the pelvis which also triggers off RLS. One more sitting position which does NOT trigger off RLS I discovered another sitting position in which RLS was also not triggered off. One sits on only one sitting bone: on one side in a purely one-sided manner. That is done much easily by placing one leg over the other. That automatically shifts the body weight to one direction. It is however the same as leaning the pelvis forward. It is uncomfortable to sit in this manner for a long time.
Position of the pelvis which also does NOT trigger off RLS Does it also function for others? As already mentioned, I am presently working with a client who has been suffering from RLS since 30 years. I offered him to try out the seat underlay and told him that it worked in my own case and how it did. But he didn’t believe in it. Sometime though, he took the underlay with him to the office all the same, more for the purpose of not hurting me than in the hope that it may make any difference. After two or three weeks, I asked him if he is noticing any impact or if nothing at all was happening (he used the underlay only in the office, in the train and not at home). He said no, it was no use, everything has remained the same. I asked him how he uses the underlay and he showed me how he sits on it – with the cut-out triangle placed forward! That was of course, precisely the wrong way. The cut-out triangle belongs backwards, directly under the coccygeal bone and the sacral bone so that they have absolutely no contact with the seat surface! The client made a second attempt. As previously mentioned, only in the office. He did not use the underlay at home, in the train, in the car. After about six – seven weeks, during treatment, I noticed that he did not have restless legs for even one moment. All through the treatment, he was lying down quite calmly and this had never happened before. I said nothing and let him go. One week later, he lay down quite calmly again throughout the treatment period. Neither the foot, nor the gluteal muscle showed the least reaction. Since then, he experienced no further reaction. I had the RLS for only a few weeks and it disappeared in an instant with the seat underlay. But if one has it since 30 years with the nerves irritated and subjected to pressure since 30 years, then one requires a bit longer to recover and have everything calm down again and eventually have a protective pattern triggered off. I think however, that the entire process may be significantly accelerated if one sits only on the underlay which relieves the coccygeal/sacral bone of the pressure in the office, car, dinning table, before the TV and the computer. In the meantime, I am able to sit in conferences for a few hours once again, without the underlay or go to a restaurant without any major impact. Sometimes, I even forget it completely. A few months ago, I was sitting in an aircraft for a few hours and subsequently, for a few hours in a car. I suffered a few insignificant symptoms on this evening. If I have to sit without the underlay for a long time, I change the sitting position repeatedly in such a way that I have only a very minimal pressure on the coccygeal bone and the sacral bone or none at all. How fast does sitting on this underlay help or how fast can RLS disappear? With me, it disappeared virtually instantaneously. But I had the problem for only a few weeks before I was able to solve it. If one has it for years or even decades, it may take a bit longer as we have already seen. But the problems disappeared. Something that should not be forgotten and may happen is that the nervous system, the brain may have established a program, a pattern in the course of the RLS, meaning: if I sit down, the RLS is activated. Purely through established habit – “Sitting means RLS”. In this manner, one may have problems which no longer exist in the body but are simply triggered off again by the brain in specific situations through acquired habit; the program is not deleted. This is where a Feldenkrais teacher may be of help. Something that has long been established leaves traces behind. In this case, the brain has to be shown how it functioned before the emergence of these tracks, i.e. re-installing the pre-RLS program. It is the same as with other issues. E.g. as children, we had immense mobility. In the course of our life though, this mobility or part of it was lost through the insufficient or one-sided usage of the body. This creates a mobility pattern – we do the same things in the same manner repeatedly. In the process, we forget how it all functioned while we had far more mobility because we don’t use what we have and what we use, we use in a one-sided manner. The easiest example is that most of us hold the tooth brush on the right hand – always. If we for once, try to hold it on the left hand, it becomes difficult to do this pretty simple thing. We also no longer play and try out the most different options of doing things. As babies and kids, we acquired a huge reservoir of movements which we all learned by ourselfs. Of these today, we use mostly only very few of them or steadily lesser, the older we get. The pattern, the programs for them however, remain stored in the brain and we have the ability to access them and reactivate them once again. A unique method for this is the Feldenkrais Method. Questions Can the coccygeal bone and the sacral move? That can be said to be nonsense because the sacral bone alone is incapable of moving because it is so strongly linked with the rest of the pelvis and if the sacral bone “goes upwards”, the entire pelvis goes upwards with it as well. This “movement” cannot be imagined to resemble the movement of an arm, a leg or a finger. Such movements are micro-movements, i.e. very, very minimal. They can at best be perceived and for an untrained person, hardly perceivable but generally, hardly visible or not at all visible and have an enormous impact. How is that to be imagined? I once had a very interesting experience in my body with a micro-movement. At that time, I had massive pains in the sole of my feet. The pains became so intensive that I couldn’t walk any more. Before learning Feldenkrais, I wore padding in my shoes for twenty five years. During my training course, my feet “developed” back to their old and normal form and function so that I was able to remove the padding and walk without them. Now I brought them out again and placed them in my shoes hoping to get rid of my pains through them. It however, did not solve the problem of the painful sole of the feet but I was still able to walk and work again. What happened? The sole of my feet felt like having the lowest muscles – the muscles touching the ground on walking – completely torn apart; as strongly as if they were tearing. This means that the entire foot had collapsed. Neither muscles nor tendons were able to keep the feet together in a posture that was normal and necessary for standing and walking. I treated myself as far as possible. That always led to slight improvement for a few minutes or a couple of hours but the previous complaints recurred thereafter. Since that didn’t help, I had to obtain treatment from a third party. But the result was always the same. I had no idea what the reason for the problem in my feet was. I also consulted a doctor and he said “if the tendons in the feet can no more hold, nothing can be done. The situation must be accepted as it is. The best thing to do in such a situation is to wear padding to give the foot optimal support from below.” I then, had new padding made hoping that it will be more precise and better than the old one. But the result was that I developed pains in the knee and waist joints. I had to find another orthopedist and had a second pair done for me with the same effect. I placed the old padding into my shoes again and observed myself within weeks and months. The whole story lasted for approximately eight months. I then, began to feel that my pelvis had quite minimally taken up a position that was not normal and did not match the typical posture. The feeling I had was that the pelvis was standing slightly forward-up. Quite minimally and that there was somehow tension in the pelvis. This displaced position was neither visible nor was it measurable. A micro-movement of the pelvis. The feeling was definitely more than the actual movement. It is very much comparable with a hole in the tooth that can be felt with the tongue. The size of the hole felt is in reality, approximately three times smaller on the tooth. At the time I discovered this position of my pelvis, I was in a position to move it back to the original and relaxed position through targeted Feldenkrais lessons. At the same moment, in which the pelvis returned to its basic position, its usual location, the painful muscles in my feet got back their old and normal tension once again, all pains and tension disappeared at the same moment as the pelvis returned back to its old location and I was able to walk again at the same moment, quite normally and without padding and the least discomfort. It was amazing. (Just by the way – why did the pelvis change position? In the following weeks, I was able to observe that it moved occasionally, back to the unnatural position without showing a previous tendency towards it. It always occurred each time I got mad at something specific. If I didn’t see it, it would have remained there.) How did the pelvis get there? There are two small muscles at the base of the pelvis (transverses perinea superficialis) which contracted and “moved” the pelvis forward-up in a micro-movement. Why did it lead to such problems in the feet? Given this micro-movement of the pelvis – a movement/position that is unusual and unknown to the brain – the program for the feet was deactivated or not even activated. It is equally possible that protective postures played a decisive role. The program that was developed at infant age which generates the necessary tension in the feet for standing and walking was deactivated in the aftermath of a minimal change in the position of the pelvis (unusual data were transmitted to the brain from this position). If the pelvis returns to the proper state/position once again, the brain receives the known, correct data again which then activates the proper program and finally generate the proper tension in this case, in the feet. (It is not the micro-movement alone that is responsible for the whole chaos but the micro-movement in relation to the complete body, to standing, walking, sitting etc. Because the body always functions as a whole.) The chaos that was triggered off in the body emerged through a micro-movement of the pelvis, can hardly be felt, invisible, far away from the problem of pain in the feet. At the hospital, my feet would definitely have been operated, i.e. the tendons shortened in order to enable them acquire the “correct” tension once again. The “movement” of the sacral bone in the Restless Legs Syndrome in this case, was far smaller, much more minimal but the impact was enormous.
In her book “SLEEP THIEF, restless legs syndrome” Virginia N. Wilson writes in page 257: “Anyone suffering from RLS understands how torturing it is to travel any distance by car, bus or air.” And: “It is a relief to get to the airport and walk around there, and do some exercises to interrupt the long agony of sitting in an aircraft.” The problem of the RLS occurs through sitting, through long periods of sitting. In the process, pressure is exerted from underneath, from the seat surface, on the coccygeal bone and the sacral bone. The coccygeal bone and the sacral bone are however, not designed or developed to absorb pressure or carry load. If they are to carry load or absorb pressure in any way possible, then it should be from above, from the vertebral column, that is natural. This pressure from underneath causes a micro-movement of the sacral bone. This micro-movement causes traction or pressure on one or more nerves at the position in which they emerge from sacral bone. That leads to an irritation and impairment of the nerve running downwards to the legs and this in turn, triggers off the RLS. Why doesn’t everyone who sits a lot and long enough suffer from the RLS? The first question that comes to mind here is a natural one: why doesn’t everyone who is always sitting or working while sitting all life long, suffer from the RLS? The answer can only be: everyone has the same number of bones and the same number of muscles but everybody does not have the same size or the same proportion. People of the same size sometime differ in the length of their arms, perhaps by a few millimeters or in the size of the neck. A typical feature of different heights is the ribcage. In some people, there is a hand space between the pelvis and the lowest, the free ribs in the waistline. In others, the lowest ribs almost touch the pelvis because they protrude far downwards. In other words, even the sacral bones and the coccygeal bones may differ in length or they may be bent in different manner. It is also possible that the wings of ilium are two or three millimeters shorter and the sacral bone and the coccygeal bone are therefore closer to the surface of the seat. There are very many possibilities. It is however, interesting to know that the RLS often recur in the same family. Physical features are inherited. The most minimal difference may be a decisive factor for major problems. Even the form of the bones may be different. One more point can be added to this: if one does the same thing with his body over several years or decades, the body is decisively influenced. It changes it. A plasterer or a carpenter who has done his job all his life has different hands from someone who works on the computer or does fashion designing. One more point: the sensitivity of the bodies is different. If my sensitivity or sense of subtle perception or body-consciousness was not like it is, I would not have discovered the correlation leading to the RLS. I discovered it very quickly and precisely.
If you wish, you may perform a test. Sit upon a hard and flat
underlay, e.g. a wooden chair. Hold a finger beneath the tip of
the coccygeal bone and feel the end. Then relax the gluteal
muscle and the muscles of the abdomeni.e. let your weight sink
on the
The center of command of the body is in the brain. What happens in the body and how it happens is organized there. On a modern map of the brain, the regions of the legs, arms and head can be found right beside one another. If an overreaction of the leg nerves occurs in the brain, it may overlap into neighboring regions and impact these regions and inflict similar sufferings on them. The fact though, is that as soon as the irritations in the feet and legs cease, the arms and the head also cease to react. That speaks in favor of a reaction in the neighboring regions of the leg nerves in the brain.
According to my own experiences, the impacts can differ tremendously. One part of the leg or the other may be more or less impacted or impacted differently. It may feel dull, or more than stiffen or more irritated and all that in stronger or weaker intensity. Or the right leg and then the left leg alone may be affected at one time or the other. I noticed that the nature of the impact was related to the way I was sitting. The temporal duration played a role and above all, the way I was sitting, the position of my pelvis. Depending on its position, the pressure on the nerves also changed because the angle of the pressure was different. The pressure hit the nerve at a different position or there was more pressure at the same position. If I sat slightly more on the left side, it affected the nerves emerging from the left holes of the sacral bone more.
In my Feldenkrais practice, I worked repeatedly with patients with back pains and chronic back pains. The age was irrelevant in the process. I started giving them this seat underlay and asked them of the impact. The reactions were partially so: “I am able to sit five times more without discomfort”, - or: “That is exactly what I needed, it is now the only thing I sit on, also in the car, it relieves me tremendously”. – In other words, the underlay is quite suitable even for cases of back pain. The Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) with a psychosomatic cause? In the meantime I observed that there might be as well another cause for the RLS. It seems that this kind could have a psychosomatic cause. A participant of my “Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement” classes shows sometimes during a lesson symptoms of RLS. Since in his life he does not know daily and long hours of sitting, he is a joiner, the cause of his symptoms must be somewhere else. The reason for his restless legs could be this: Since years he had repeatedly had massive back problems. His back and stomach muscles are often under great tensions – the stomach muscles then are very hard. The cause for those tensions are psychosomatic. My theory is that if such massive tensions happen in the stomach and the back muscles at the same time, around the body so to speak, the pelvis is lifted up and the same could happen as in my case only from above and through muscle tensions. Of course I do not have any proof of this it is, as I said, just my theory. Medicaments as another cause for RLS There are reports of RLS problems which say that medicaments are pretendedly the cause. Whether this is really true is difficult to judge. It is possible that some medicaments influence certain areas of the brain and this in turn causes RLS problems. However it could be interesting to find out whether the above mentioned two points are part of an RLS case. Something else that should be considered If someone is confronted with the RLS problem since many, many years, it could very well be, that this problem has created a pattern in the brain. For example, like the so called phantom pain. That means, of someone has lost a leg, a hand, a finger and in this, no longer existent part, of the body can feel pain. This pain is caused by a pattern in the brain. If someone who has had RLS problems for a long time uses my underlay and gets no result, it can mean, that the irritation of the nerves are gone but not the pattern in the brain, that my have been built over time. Anyway, I would recommend using the underlay all the time while sitting even in the car or in train. Te pressures to the nerves have to stop completely otherwise the impulses to the brain continue. The RLS underlay for pregnant woman Experiences showed, that this RLS underlay could be helpful for pregnant women too because some of theme get RLS symptoms during pregnancy. Back pain and the RLS underlay It also showed, that this underlay can be helpful with back pain. Especially older people told me so.
First Printing, 2007 Text and Illustrations, Copyright © by Markus Enderli, Ottikon, Switzerland All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. |
