Alejandra Vallejo-Nágera, psychologist: "There is a close relationship between emotions and pain that manifest in different parts of our body"

We live contracted.

Day in and day out, we have to deal with that

that 'escalates' until it invades our taste buds with a strange metallic taste.

Of the

and

, we better not even talk.

We have become accustomed to

nevertheless, we have become 'unaccustomed' to listening to him to find out the reasons for his 'complaints'.

That is precisely the exciting (and disturbing because of its importance and the little attention we pay to it in our daily lives) topic that the psychologist Alejandra Vallejo-Nágera addresses in

the program that premiered at the end of last year in the

.

It is a space in which one dives into "the

;

also in how "we have stopped listening to the messages that our body sends us to

" and in how to learn to use meditation as a tool to fix that "broken internal telephone"

"Not all

has a psychosomatic cause. However, one should think that when a pain recurs and, despite the fact that we try to find a solution by taking muscle relaxants -always prescribed by a doctor-, for example, it continues Without going overboard, it would be convenient to think that, perhaps, there could be a

, because

. Both are part of the same person and act equally," Vallejo-Nágera argues.

But what has happened to us?

Why do we no longer recognize or listen to our inner voice?

His explanation couldn't be easier to understand: "We spend too many hours sitting, working in front of a computer, and that area

An area that, curiously, is the largest in relation to the other senses and tells us everything about how our body feels. If we 'atrophy' it due to lack of use, there will come a time when

and these will end up manifesting themselves with more and more intensity until they become, in some cases, a disease.

;

When we find ourselves in a difficult situation, it reacts and, if we feed it (ignoring its warnings), it will gain weight until

."

Unfortunately, "

. Since we are very young, we are told -perhaps with the best of intentions-, to endure in situations as urgent for our bodies as urinate or eat. And something as 'everyday' as

even makes us forget to pee and, as a consequence, we stop hydrating properly.

Thus, without realizing it, "we are inhibiting the natural language of our body."

Something similar happens with breathing.

"One of the biggest causes of stress and anxiety is that people

. And, by not doing so, neither the blood nor the brain is adequately oxygenated, the 'mental fog' begins and, From there, a chain reaction ensues."

The journey that

Vallejo-Nagera proposes to

is absolutely fascinating and starts with something as basic as knowing that "

and that, when it does , each area in which it 'manifests' has a specific meaning.

"When we are faced with a difficulty, it

and, although there are no universal rules in this, we do find enormous coincidences."

If we talk about the

, from the psychosomatic point of view, "there is a difference between when the upper and lower part hurts (lower back)," he details.

Thus, "if the discomfort occurs in

, they usually have to do with the assumption of

. It is the typical pain experienced, for example, by the person who looks forced to assume the workload of a colleague or that she has to clean, every day, the room of her already grown children. The

, for their part, tend to bother when we have

with others ".

In many cases, he continues, "the

is revealed in the form of

or even in the appearance of

."

when faced with an adverse situation

that prevents them from speaking and expressing what they feel." .

On occasions when we feel very

, "what is going to suffer the most is the

area . For this reason, children and even adults, when they are very afraid,

."

When what hurts is the

(ovaries, uterus), "many times, if you 'research' from a psychological point of view, there is a

over time."

If it is the

, the point at which the ribs make an inverted V, "if you investigate, there is usually a

it. They are usually adverse experiences that have remained anchored. Therefore, it is advisable to review what moments and what external situations have caused us to feel pain there."

Behind discomfort in

, there are usually

.

"We find ourselves with the broken heart syndrome, which is a clinical syndrome that occurs in people who have had a brutal love disappointment."

Those

may also have a more focused emotion behind them.

"

that cannot be remedied (regardless of the fact that, currently, studies on the microbiota are helping a lot to mitigate them) have a lot to do with those situations in which we find ourselves in a

and we don't know how to solve it. Our meninges swell to tell us to find the exit as soon as possible because

".

PRACTICAL EXERCISES TO LEARN TO RECOGNIZE THE SIGNS OF OUR BODY

What can we do to re-acknowledge and attend to the voice of our emotions?

The key, according to this psychologist, lies in recovering

.

"There are five senses that we all identify as such, but there are two more to which society is deaf, blind and dumb. And, curiously, they occupy the most space in the brain. One of them is the

as when, for example, our heart rate or intestinal transit is altered. It is the perception that what is happening inside us. The other is

and, as I have said before, that sense is atrophying due to our sedentary lifestyle because it does not have to 'be aware' of posture or movement "".

Vallejo-Nágera recounts how he has observed that his third-year Medicine students sometimes "have a hard time distinguishing, with their internal gaze, the

. It is difficult for them to realize if they have supported properly the fingers and the soles of the feet, a very important detail on which the balance of the whole body depends (which, spending so many hours sitting, is not so necessary for us. It should be remembered that

and the fact of not having all the toes well supported on the ground can affect our shoulders".

This can be transferred to all parts of our body.

"When one organ makes the others sick, and

know this well , they are 'forced' to do extra work to replace their function. When

, other Parties have to make themselves available to make up for this deficit. And, if this situation persists over time, the pain will end up appearing".

For this reason, one of the exercises proposed in 'The voice of your body' is to recover our 'inner gaze'.

"The idea is not to look in the mirror to test the sense of sight, but to perceive the internal sensation that helps us

, if I have one toe mounted on the other, etc."

But first, he invites us to train

.

"We are not used, for example, to devoting the attention it deserves to our

, on which, beyond speech, the tension of the jaw, the wedding of the stomach or the throat depends. We do not realize the amount of muscles in the tongue and

. For this reason, I invite those who are reading this report to

and notice how

and behind the incisors. At the moment in which this happens, immediately, we will

.

Another one of his challenges is to "focus on our

which are full of muscles that, when tensed, make a lot of things happen."

"The

, he reminds us, depend on many

and, above all,

, which, curiously,

. If we relax it, we will notice how our posture and balance improve. In fact, another of the exercises that I practice in class with my students is to stand up and see

to verify that, by relaxing their jaws, it is much easier for them to maintain their balance."

In short, Alejandra Vallejo-Nágera emphasizes the importance of "understanding that

to listen to body language to detect time what is happening and remedy it".

Guidelines to improve proprioception

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GGM

"Proprietary perception is a progressive task that can be improved," Alejandra Vallejo-Nágera tells us.

And to achieve this, she proposes these guidelines:

1. Start small, focusing on one part of the body at a time.

2. Let yourself be guided by audios that offer instructions and so you just have to take care of following them.

3. Don't look in the mirror.

Work the internal gaze.

4. Do at least one posture attention exercise a day.

5. Learn to perceive how the footprint affects the knees and these affect the hips and these affect the shoulders, neck and jaw.

6. Use balls, for example, tennis balls, which help to massage certain areas and relax contracting muscles.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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