The Alexander Technique and Asthma

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By Philip Pawley

Asthma is essentially a breathing problem. No, I lie: asthma is not a breathing problem. Asthma is one’s own inappropriate reaction to feeling unable to breathe. This somewhat revolutionary statement (revolutionary to people who don’t know about the Alexander Technique) has important consequences for the treatment of asthma. Before I can consider those, however, I need to demonstrate the truth of what I say: the symptoms of asthma result from a very usual, but inappropriate, reaction to feeling that one is unable to breathe.

The Alexander Technique and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

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By Martin Finnegan

What exactly is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?* Sometimes referred to as ME or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, it is a term that describes a chronic, debilitating disorder that affects the immune and central nervous system. Typical of its symptoms are a profound fatigue, totally out of proportion to a person’s physical activity and independent of mood, plus a range of other symptoms that can affect any organ of the body. The causes of CFS are unknown. Indeed there appear to be any number of apparent causes and in many cases the onset seems to be linked to a stress to the immune system such as an acute infection, especially viral in nature. After the stress or virus has run its course the symptoms do not abate as you would expect but set in, becoming chronic and are often associated with profound fatigue and feelings of general malaise.

Chronic Pain: How the Alexander Technique Can Help

posted in: By Other Teachers, Medical | 0

by Joan Arnold & Hope Gillerman with Terry Zimmerer

I found the Technique to be so beneficial in alleviating my own condition that I have been referring some of my patients for Alexander lessons for several years. -Howard L. Rosner, MD, Director, Pain Management Service, The New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center New York, NY