Standing up to my fear

Yes, exactly so!

I too had to train myself back into doing things with full movement like leaning across the bathroom sink.

As you say, Dr. Sarno advised resuming normal activities for TMS pain because avoidance reinforces fear and perpetuates symptoms, while activity breaks the cycle and promotes recovery. And the text I quoted aligns with this by highlighting the sensory-motor cortex's small allocation—one-third for hands, one-third for face/mouth, leaving just one-third for the vast trunk, spine, hips, shoulders, neck, and limbs—making these areas prone to pain and movement issues due to limited neural "processing power". Science backs regular, as full as possible, movement to stimulate this under-represented cortex.

Movement delivers essential sensory input—"information" to the brain—refining control over sparse cortical areas, preventing deficits, and enabling return to activities.

Sarno's 85-95% success rate with this approach underscores its efficacy for non-structural pain. In other words, the science backs Sarno's advice given by him many years before much of the supporting physiology was fully explored.

 

@BloodMoon Thank you for sharing that video. That really makes sense that it might be the bilateral movement. Now, I did bite off more than I can chew-I ended up in a HUGE flare. I'm actually going to make a separate post about it because it is so wild right now. I'm doing all the calming things to help it out. And running did not calm it down this time!

@cafe_bustelo I love that I'm not the only that noticed that running made symptoms calm down. It is so weird. Now, I will say take baby steps on your movement. I think I overloaded my system in addition to some unexpected stress and it just made the perfect storm for a big flare.

 

I’m really sorry to hear this. I’ll keep an eye out for the separate post you mentioned, but just to say for now—maybe one small comfort is that you don’t have to sit with that uncertainty about whether things could have gone faster or differently. Wishing some calm for your nervous system very soon.