Can you imagine reducing your pain level to zero?
I am so amazed by how Mary Jaksch reduced her pain level to zero! I can’t help but feel compelled to share her story because it might just help you too.
Mary is the heart and mind behind the popular blog Good Life Zen and the co-creator of the A-List Blogging Club. She’s an authentic person. Not someone prone to exaggeration.
Mary has rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition that causes swelling and pain in the joints. She decided to conduct a self-experiment on the healing effect of exercise. Mary stopped her medication and began a gradual program of exercise. In this amazing 6-minute video, Mary explains her approach and charts her progress from a pain level of 6 out of 9 to zero over an 8-month period.
If you suffer from any type of chronic pain, probably the last word you want to hear is ‘exercise.’ I understand. It may seem an impossible feat to even get started. But I’m going to ask you to suspend your beliefs for six minutes and watch this short video.
Mary’s results are mind-boggling. They truly bowled me over.
Yes, her pain did increase at first. She had some flares, pain, and swelling. But the more she gradually increased her exercise, the more her pain decreased. Given that Rheumatoid Arthritis is an auto-immune condition, her success seems to also illustrate the positive effect exercise has on balancing the immune system.
Need Support?
The link above takes you to an article about the Great Fitness Challenge. You’ll have to scroll down a bit to read Mary’s story of pain reduction and access the video.
As you can imagine, Mary’s faith in exercise is now sky-high. She’s created the Great Fitness Challenge to support others who would also like to get fit. She says:
“I’ve found that what really helps on the journey of fitness is to join a group of supportive people who hold the same aspiration.”
I’m joining the forum myself as I need help with consistency and gradually increasing the amount of time I give to daily exercise.
There’s no saying her approach to pain reduction will work for everyone, but why not check it? The Great Fitness Challenge isn’t just for people with pain. It’s for anyone that wants to get fit.
You might also want to check out my page on chronic pain for additional ideas. I’ve radically reduced chronic pain in my life too.
I discovered that my pain symptoms were caused by delayed IgG food sensitivities and IgG inhalant sensitivites. Getting tested, changing my diet, and reducing my exposure to specific inhalants did the trick for me. Delayed sensitivities could also be a factor in your pain puzzle.
Of course, you should check with your physician before starting an exercise program!
How’s your fitness level? Do you have any fitness plans for the New Year?
If you liked this article, please share the link with others. Thanks so much! Sandra
That is a remarkable turnaround. I’m not sure all cases of RA would respond as well as Mary’s did, but it would certainly be worth the try.
My wife has a lot of chronic conditions for anyone, but especially someone only 56. She has managed to cut her daily pill intake from over 20 to just 3. She has moved back from diabetic to pre-diabetic and is controlling her fibromyalgia and neuropathy pain. Her primary tool has been weight reduction through diet.
As soon as she decided to stop going to doctors constantly she started to get better. They did not have answers and only depressed her. By opting out of the system she has improved tremendously.
Your wife’s story is also a remarkable one! I’m so glad you shared it here. Inspiring stories of successful healing encourage others.
Mary’s approach probably won’t work for everyone with RA or other chronic pain conditions. There are many different factors that contribute to illness and everyone is different. But like you said, it might be worth a try.
Medical doctors play an important role, but it is often a limited one. There are many conditions they don’t understand and are unable to treat. Treat usually involves suppressing symptoms, not healing. Generally, I prefer alternative approaches, but modern medicine sometimes is essential.
Thanks for sharing your wife’s story.
I practice taekwondo. I started almost 3 years ago with my daughter. Then, when she went off to school, I continued on my own. I recently got my brown belt, and I am devoting this year to training for my black belt, which I hope to earn by the time I turn 60, which is exactly a year from this weekend.
I love TKD because it blends an inner discipline of mindfulness with an outer discipline of physical fitness. (Really, any physical activity can be blended with mindfulness, so this is not unique to martial arts.)
I have learned so much about my body through this practice. As one of only three “senior” (in terms of age) members in the school, I have had to tailor my practice to the realities of a body that has been around several decades longer than many of the other students. The mix of ages, abilities, and belt levels in class is a wonderful experience in itself.
I admire Mary’s story so much. We have so much to learn about our bodies, like finding the balance between pushing through pain and listening to pain’s warning to stop. I do believe that the body has its own wisdom and when we mask it through the more usual approaches of medication, we can lose opportunities to partner with our body to grow healthier.
Thank you for sharing this inspiring story.
Hi Galen,
Yours is an inspiring story too. Congratulations on achieving your brown belt. I will be cheering you along toward your black belt! I too really like the idea of applying mindfulness in any exercise practice. That will be one of my fitness goals too. I really like your perspective on exercise and partnering with the body.
I decided to join Mary’s forum. I’m starting out with 30 minutes a day including my basic Qigong exercise and some time on the rebounder. My goal is to gradually increase.
Thanks so much for your inspiring comment.
Sandra ~
Have you ever heard of the Miracle Man?
After a plane crash paralyzed him from the neck down, Morris refused to accept the unanimous medical consensus that he would never walk or breathe again on his own. Instead of accepting his physical limitations, he used his mind and creative visualization to make a miraculous recovery.
http://nrhatch.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/only-if/
Another post with links that might interest you and your readers:
“Her body quickly began unfolding. Within one month of starting the three-times-a-week guided-imagery sessions, she could sit up, walk around her condominium, and shower without help. Perhaps most significantly, she was able to receive hands-on physical therapy, which further reduced her pain.”
http://nrhatch.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/using-visualization-to-ease-chronic-pain/
The mind is amazing! And exercise is THE miracle drug.
Good Luck! nancy
Hi Sandra,
I’m so glad you wrote about this. Mary’s video is amazing, and an inspiration for everyone. I have a regular and vigorous yoga practice that I am certain helps me to feel so good at this stage of my life. I am a great believer in exercise for well being.
Thanks for adding your impressions of the video, Gail. I’m glad you have such a strong practice of yoga. It is beneficial in so many ways.
I love this story. Before I continue, I’m a healer, I don’t have any medical training, and everything I share is taken from observation and experience; I’m a story teller ;) I’ve had an immediate response with RA, many partial and then gradual responses, and also many no responses. Personality and environment (family, friends, the past – childhood, western medicine) are big factors in recovery. Unconscious thinking – the clients, family, friends, and community – is, in my opinion, the biggest factor in preventing healing. Self-awareness, to become the observer of self and see without perception and influence, is a great healing exercise. This is why the practice of meditation heals. When we exercise we’re essentially meditating and the therapeutic benefits of movement are enhanced. We don’t need to meditate to meditate, we need to live. Life is about movement and flow, and so is healing. Healing is filled with paradox, so it’s difficult to pin point one factor: detachment works for some, concentrated focus for others, scepticism is great, so is belief, extremes of giving up and not giving up both work, and . . .
In energy healing, with any illness or injury, the sooner we treat it the better the response. We have to turn the illness off before it becomes who we are. Our energy fields harmonise with our environment – you’re sick, you have (?) “Oh, I’m sick.” I call it the chameleon response. The most frequent advice I give my clients is to become active – movement shifts subtle energy and all body systems return to a harmonious healing state.
It could be that I’m wrong. I’m not afraid of being wrong; I’m averse to being idle. I was ill for many years: solvent induced neuropathy, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue. Even with all my faith and connection with spirit -I was still able to heal others – I couldn’t self-heal. I avoided medication, all the side effects they warned against I already had. After being ill for 2 years I watched Esther Hicks ‘Secret Behind the Secret’ with Abraham. I’m able to do what Esther Hicks can do, I have an ‘Abraham’, but after watching I had an epiphany moment: heal myself. Essentially, I reprogrammed my energy field; I changed my identity. I wrote a list of things I am, not what I believed or what I was told. I placed my hand on the list and healed the list. I spring cleaned the house for 6 – 8 hours. Prior to this I’d collapse wiping a bench, or carrying a bag of groceries. I was in constant pain, I was having all the symptoms of a heart attack up to 6 times a day, and dozens of other symptoms. For those hours I was pain and symptom free.
There is an ebb and flow effect that happens in our energy fields and I’ve not identified – everything I imagine – what controls the timing. I plummeted back into illness for two weeks, but I focussed on those few hours and not the illness. I healed myself.
Sandra, I hope my comment’s not too long.
This is really fascinating, Simon. It makes me think you should write a book. There is so much good stuff here! For example, “Self-awareness, to become the observer of self and see without perception and influence, is a great healing exercise.” I like your point about how totally different approaches work for different people. This is wonderful: “The most frequent advice I give my clients is to become active – movement shifts subtle energy and all body systems return to a harmonious healing state.” I didn’t know you had such extreme health problems. It’s amazing to hear your story of self – healing… “healing the list.” This has given me a lot to think about. Illness can come about for different reasons, so different approaches work for different people. And sometimes it’s a matter of time, until a karma finishes. I am going to write about that soon I think. Your comment has really made me think. It’s great. Not too long! Perfect. Thank you so much, Simon.
Thanks! I’m actually writing a how to healing book now. I’ve already one completed manuscript I’m querying agents about now. Over four months I regularly went into an altered state similar to Edgar Cacey, and Jesus and His family used me to talk about their lives. In the process I had no idea what I was saying until I played the recording back. It was similar to Neal Donald Walsch’s experience. I have flashes of Jesus’ lifetime daily and sometimes with more clarity than my own life.
That’s fantastic. Good luck with completing your manuscript!
To recover from a brain injury, I did cardiovascular exercise daily for two years and Bikram yoga about 4 times a week. I have NO DOUBT that this is largely responsible…along with other things like meditation and visualization… for my full recovery. Now, I have reduced it to doing yoga or cardio daily.
I always worked out before, but for vanity. Now, I do it for health. I am in the best shape of my life. I feel great….strong,vital and powerful. I have not been sick in 4 years since I have been doing this. Not so much as even a cold.
I will keep exercising like this until I am 100 or longer. It is the key to health…along with diet and mental health.
Debbie, You are an amazing inspiration to me. I love hearing some of the details of your recovery program. It’s amazing to feel “strong, vital and powerful.” I am seriously impressed by you.
Hi Sandra, this is a powerful story. My grandmother had RA and was mostly housebound for the last 10 years of her life. Obviously, I want to avoid that fate. I am trying to develop my own ideal mix of exercise and rest to get over the chronic mono, which I believe is the reason for my chronic pain. It’s helpful to know that Mary started small, and it took a while for results to kick in, but they really made a big difference a a few months down the line.
I am also glad that I am ending the “doctor phase” of my illness and am now working on what I can do for myself. There is little to no medical treatment for my illness anyway.
Hi Jennifer,
I think you are on the right track working with your illness and pain. We each have a different mix of causes and triggers and thus need our own unique treatment approach. I’m so glad you are finding your way and ending your “doctor phase”! I’m wishing you a year of profound healing!
Wow, quite a story! Thank you for sharing this, Sandra.
My husband, an ex-pro superbike racer who has broken over 50 bones over the years (you can imagine the potential for arthritic issues) – totally endorses exercise. It’s his best medicine, especially for the lower back injury he sustained over twenty years ago.
Naomi, That’s amazing – breaking over 50 bones and still exercising. Another inspirational story!
Dearest Sandra,
THIS IS AMAAAZING, and confirms the path I am taking and have always taken to heal and stay healthy. It made me think of all the children who spend 12 years of their early life sitting at a desk all day long for almost 10 months out of the year, and they are taught to be STILL, not talk or get up without permission. And now they are cutting out physical education (along with art). Not good.
When I lived in the wild, movement was just part of my lifestyle, gathering food, lugging water up hill, and all kinds of other chores that required movement, lifting, lugging, bending, stretching, etc. But now siting at a desk all day long, in front of a computer and predominately indoors, WHOA!! Talk about a disastrous effect on my health and well being. I am seriously rethinking my entire life. Although my husband and I walk almost every night when he gets home and I do some light jogging/walking mix, it’s not enough for me. I have always been HIGHLY active. And was stronger than most men I knew. I love movement.
My culture has this belief that being out of shape or not physically fit just naturally occurs with age. Not true. It comes with not moving. :) I know people in their mid 80s who climb steep icy mountains, canoe white water, go winter camping at 12,000 feet and more. They look my age, 57, and are so fit and healthy because they are active.
I also have always experienced what Simon said, which is to live my meditation. It is so powerful. It hit me one day in the rainforest that meditation is a state of BEING, a way of living life, not something the we do separate from our day to day living. What I discovered was the in our right place, doing the things we LOVE doing, the things that instill vitality, great passion, peace, joy, love, ecstatic excitement, or wonder, where we forget ourselves (mind, thoughts, stress, worries, etc) then we are in a state of health and healing. I am seriously rethinking my life in this way as well. As oppsed to thinking about success, or what I should do to make money, or should do to be successful, or ought to do because that’s what people DO, etc. (Which is soooooooo arduous, grueling, grinding….) LOL! :) Instead I am trying to focus on what makes me instantly feel light, uplifted, happy, EASE-FULL, joyous, REALLY myself/ME (regardless of what anyone else thinks of me), THOSE are the things I am moving toward.
Change like this can take a lot of trust in yourself, the Universe or Spirit of Life. It often means changing one’s life, let go of things, old thinking, people, or situations that do not instill or support this change, that do not foster full on vitality. It really means being creative in our thinking and feeling, it means REALLY scrutinizing social conditioning, and better yet, shedding it completely and listening to our hearts. It means embracing that which brings us joy and ease.
Yesterday I told my husband that I am going to make a list of all the things that DO and all the things that DON’T, instill vitality, peace, joy, etc., and then I am going increase the DOs and stop the DON’Ts. I like Simon’s idea of the list as well.
Thank you for sharing this. I think I am going to turn my comment into a post. I am laughing right now, because I have a folder on my computer titled, SANDRA INSPIRED POSTS, which is full of comments I left on your blog, that YOU inspired in me. I kid you not. LOLOL!! I just love you dear soul. Thank you SO much. I needed this today. Love, Robin (Hugging you) !!!
Hello Dear Robin,
You really hit the target on so many cogent points in your comment. You are so right that movement has always been a naturally part of life until recently. The story of children sitting in classrooms all day is a sad one indeed. It’s amazing how far off track we have gone as a culture. I’m recognizing that more as I am reading about the elements, the fundamental fabric of both our environment and our bodies (earth, water, fire, air, and space in the Tibetan tradition.)
I really like the point you make about aging is not equal to a decline in health. Movement makes such a big difference as we age.
I’m so intrigued and curious about the transformation you are going through at the moment and where it will take you. Being in touch with ourselves is so crucial as well as living in tune with our life purposes as you speak about so eloquently.
I liked Simon’s list idea too!
You’ve left some incredibly inspired comments on my blog. I’m glad you’ve captured them in a file and use them for blog posts to feed us with your magic, wisdom, and inspired words.
All my love, Hugging you back!
Wow..Thank you, Sandra and Mary for sharing your story. I love the stories in the comments as well..here is another:
Gosh, one year and a half ago, I was diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer and told I wouldn’t live through the holidays. While I work in the local hospital, my own care is holistic based, so I postponed surgery and without a doubt knew that neither chemo nor radiation would be introduced to my body. Much like Simon and Robin, my life is a meditation..so I focused my energy on love, pure genuine love..much as I use to heal others, I poured into my self. I allowed my “bubble of love” to be my children and I, and only introduced pure/genuine into that bubble. With a combination of fresh food choices, exercise, and healing methods such as meditation, yoga and chakra healing, I required one minimal surgery one year ago, and have been cancer free since. No internal bleeding, no invasive anything.
To maintain that status, I may not compromise by allowing “less than” to enter my realm. “Less than” may at times feel comfortable, but it is poison…”less than” to me is busyness, drama, clutter, time away from basics. “More than” to me is laughter, creativity, passion, time in nature, silence, space for my heart whispers and dreams, love, peace, joy…my life is truly as magical as I allow it to be..so I allow for wonder filled magic each and every day!
I celebrate Mary’s journey, yours Sandra, and all who shared in the comments. “Proof” that love truly does heal..and anything is possible when we allow it to be!
Joy,
Yours is an incredible story! It offers so much hope and inspiration. Creating a “bubble of love” as a guiding force is a wondrous and magical way to heal. I am so happy for your healing! This really spoke to me:
“To maintain that status, I may not compromise by allowing “less than” to enter my realm. “Less than” may at times feel comfortable, but it is poison…”less than” to me is busyness, drama, clutter, time away from basics.”
It takes so much courage to make that commitment to yourself, which is at the same time a commitment to your family and to the world. I’m awed by your dedication and your natural radiance. You are a tremendous inspiration to me.
Thanks for telling your story here. I’m sure it will also touch many others in a positive way.
Sandra,
That is an amazing story. Thank you for sharing it. I did not know you could reduce your pain to zero when suffering rheumatoid arthritis! That is incredibly inspiring and hopeful. And the comments here are quite incredible as well. I’m more motivated to exercise now, thank you :)
Lynn,
I find it amazing myself. I hope others will be inspired and this approach will help them too!
Hi Sandra,
Yes Mary’s story is amazing. I attribute my own wonderful health to growing up and working on a produce farm. We MOVED all day and half the night long. Mostly hard work in the fields but also play in nature. Then as a teen I began smoking and as a young mother I quit because I wanted to be a role model to my girls. When I quit I replaced it with running. I’ve ran for 20 plus years. My doctor told me recently after a bone scan I have the hips of a 30 year old.
I’ll see you in both forums;)
Tess,
That’s an amazing report from your doctor. As someone who has always been adverse to physical movement, I admire you so much. May I follow in your inspiring footsteps.