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The 3 Roots of Chronic Pain and How to Address Them | Leigh Brandon image

The 3 Roots of Chronic Pain and How to Address Them | Leigh Brandon

How to Actually Live Longer
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Leigh Brandon is a highly respected Functional Medicine Practitioner, CHEK Practitioner, CHEK Faculty Instructor, Active Release Techniques® Therapist, Emotion Code Practitioner, author, and podcast host. With nearly 30 years of clinical experience, he takes a truly holistic approach to health, wellness, and performance—helping clients achieve results even when other methods have fallen short.

A lifelong learner, Leigh has trained with some of the most brilliant minds in health and wellness, including Paul Chek, Bill Wolcott, Dr. John Veltheim, Dr. Michael Leahy, Dr. Bradley Nelson, and Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt. His relentless pursuit of knowledge, combined with hands-on experience, allows him to transform cutting-edge insights into real-world solutions for his clients.

Since 2010, Leigh has been part of the CHEK Institute Faculty, teaching and presenting internationally in Europe, the USA, and Australia. He has also published five health and fitness books and created multiple online professional education programs, further extending his impact in the field.

Leigh Website & Socials: https://www.bodychek.co.uk/

Leigh's Chronic Pain Breakthrough Blueprint: https://www.bodychek.co.uk/freepainguide/

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Transcript

Introducing Lee Brandon

00:00:01
Christian Yordanov
Hey folks, k Christian Jordanoff here. Welcome back to the show. Today we have a great guest for you. His name is Lee Brandon. He's a highly respected functional medicine practitioner. He's a Czech practitioner, Czech faculty instructor, ART active release techniques therapist, emotion code practitioner. He's an author, podcast host.
00:00:21
Christian Yordanov
And he has over 30 years of clinical experience. So he's a very well-respected, as I mentioned, he's in the Czech Institute. So he is on the faculty there with Paul Czech. He studied with heavyweights like Bill Walcott, Dr. Dietrich Klinghart, and a few others.
00:00:40
Christian Yordanov
And we had them on the other podcast, I think it last year, maybe

Understanding Chronic Pain

00:00:44
Christian Yordanov
the year before. I can't remember talking about his latest book, on adult acne and overcoming it and today we're going to talk about the topic of chronic pain and resolving that so lee thank you so much for joining us today man
00:00:56
Leigh Brandon
Yeah, Christian, it's good to be here. Thanks for having me back.
00:00:59
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah. um Super, super interesting topic to me. Actually, I had somebody a couple of months ago talking about ah different way of approaching ah some of this, you know, imbalances in the body that can cause chronic pain. So what's, um just let let's start high level and we can we can, you know, drop down deeper.

Diet's Role in Pain Management

00:01:20
Christian Yordanov
What's your kind of approach to addressing chronic pain in a nutshell, if you if you would?
00:01:26
Leigh Brandon
So I would say approach chronic pain from three different aspects really. So first you've got the structural, which we can go into.
00:01:38
Leigh Brandon
Then you've got the nutritional, which is often an aspect that most people tend to look over or not realize is involved in the, in in and the issue.
00:01:51
Leigh Brandon
And then the final one, which is a broad subject that covers actually a lot of subjects. And that's, that's the neurological aspects as well that I guess keeps people in pain once the pain has already done its damage, so to speak.
00:02:06
Christian Yordanov
Okay. So actually, let's maybe start with nutritional because that this is, as as soon as you said it, um I'm like, okay, so what can what can cause pain?
00:02:17
Christian Yordanov
I know prostaglandins can cause pain.
00:02:19
Leigh Brandon
Hmm.
00:02:21
Christian Yordanov
And I know if we eat a lot of, you know, omega-6s from nuts and seeds and see obviously seed oils, that can increase prostaglandin production. and there some of those are pain signaling molecules.
00:02:32
Leigh Brandon
on
00:02:32
Christian Yordanov
So I'm thinking that that's probably one angle, but I couldn't really think of much else on the spot there. What's kind of... Maybe can you enlighten us a little bit on that topic?
00:02:40
Leigh Brandon
yeah sure so there's a number of aspects to it so obviously with a poor diet that can increase you know you've mentioned prostaglandins but it can increase inflammation generally in the body again you mentioned and seed oils vegetable oils um you got things like processed sugar alcohol
00:02:57
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:03:04
Leigh Brandon
All of those things can, if you like, irritate the nervous system and create an immune response. like They can irritate the gut lining. They can cause ah what's called a leaky gut, which I know you know all about, which basically means that, let's call it foreign material, goes through the lining of the gut into the bloodstream. And again, that's where you get the immune system, goes on alert, and that's what creates systemic inflammation.
00:03:35
Leigh Brandon
Another another aspect of those food sensitivities, which again, I know you know about the key things or the most common things I tend to see are gluten containing foods, pasteurized dairy products.
00:03:49
Leigh Brandon
Another key one or common one is soya products. I know in the US corn tends to be quite high on the list for a lot of people, but you can literally be sensitive to any food and we're all very different.
00:04:03
Leigh Brandon
um but again, they have the same effects. A, they can, again, create or help towards a leaky gut, but they also stimulate that immune response. They stimulate inflammation in the body.
00:04:18
Leigh Brandon
Now, the

Toxins and Inflammation

00:04:19
Leigh Brandon
reason that's important is because, and and there's more reasons I'll go into in a moment, but the reason, because people might be thinking, well, what's that what's that got to do with pain? One of the things that,
00:04:33
Leigh Brandon
increases your likelihood of feeling pain is inflammation, right? And what it's what it's also doing, it's feeding inflammation into the nervous system.
00:04:44
Leigh Brandon
So this will be covered when I talk more about the neurological system. But basically, whenever there's a ah perceived threat in the body, and inflammation is a threat because it's a foreign body or a perceived foreign body in the body, what it will do is the more inputs into the nervous system the more the body thinks it's in danger so pain is a protective mechanism if you like it's an ah it's an alarm system for want of a better phrase so if you think of a fire alarm in your home if there's a fire you will want it to go off to alert you to a problem so pain is there to alert
00:05:26
Leigh Brandon
alert to us or should I say, to alert our conscious mind of something our subconscious mind is aware of. Just like if you were just about to tread on something sharp, obviously, unless you were crazy, you wouldn't do that consciously.
00:05:44
Leigh Brandon
but let's say your foot's just hit something sharp and it triggers off the pain sensor in the base of your foot, sends a signal up your um nervous system, up your spinal cord, into your brain, and your brain will say, oh, I need to do something to stay safe, which will probably be, and need to stimulate the hip flexor muscles in that leg to lift the foot off rather than push it back down, as an example, right?
00:06:10
Leigh Brandon
So the other the other things with foods, Another key thing is is toxins. So again, what a lot of people may not realize is that in our food supply, there's actually quite a lot of toxins.
00:06:23
Leigh Brandon
So whether it's the MPK fertilizers that are used in non-organic um crops, whether it's herbicides, pesticides, and obviously the key herbicide is glyphosate, that we know absolutely destroys our gut.
00:06:37
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:06:40
Leigh Brandon
um You know, many people call it an antibiotic because actually kills the all the bacteria in our gut, which is essential essential for health. um Depending on what soil, again, it's grown in, you could have heavy metals in the food as well.
00:06:53
Leigh Brandon
And this isn't things you can, you know, just run under run under the tap and and wash it off. It's in the food.
00:06:59
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:06:59
Leigh Brandon
right So again, toxins, foreign bodies, especially if you've got a leaky gut, it's going to get into your bloodstream, it's going to create inflammation.
00:07:10
Leigh Brandon
so So there's quite a lot to the nutritional aspects of pain. And it's really key that
00:07:21
Leigh Brandon
if you're in pain, it might well be one of the things that you need to do to overcome

Structural Imbalances and Pain Relief

00:07:27
Leigh Brandon
it. It might be the only thing. So I've got an example of someone. So I worked with this guy. ah His name was Trail.
00:07:33
Leigh Brandon
He was a chief executive. And he came to me with... predominantly like a sore, aching sternum, breastbone. And whenever he ate anything, his throat would swell up he would choke, he couldn't swallow the food and he, then he had trouble breathing.
00:07:53
Leigh Brandon
can you imagine that's pretty frightening thing to happen, right?
00:07:55
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:07:57
Leigh Brandon
And he would, and he went to several doctors and most of them were just kind of shrugging their shoulders saying, no, we don't really know what that is. One of them diagnosed him with costochondritis, which is inflammation, on the cartilage, on the ribs that,
00:08:14
Leigh Brandon
kind of made sense to the sternum thing but didn't make any sense with what was going on in his throat whenever he ate anything and one doctor suggested cutting open his sternum open up his ribcage and having a look inside just in case they might find something which he was petrified by by that option he had lost by time he came to see me he'd lost 17 kilos in weight so he was looking very slim because he was scared to eat. So he actually stopped eating.
00:08:47
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:08:48
Leigh Brandon
Like some days he could get you some fluids in, but he actually stopped eating because he it was just too frightened. Because imagine if he can't breathe, that's really scary.
00:08:57
Christian Yordanov
ah
00:08:58
Leigh Brandon
so So he came to me and he said, do what what do you think it is? And I said, well, I don't know what it is, but it seems to make sense to me that you're having some kind of reaction to something that you're eating because every time you eat,
00:09:11
Leigh Brandon
you're getting swelling in your throat. that That makes the first kind of sense to me. So I said, look what we'll do is we'll run a test and see if you've got any sensitivities going on to food. So we did that and it came back and he came up with all these sensitivities.
00:09:30
Leigh Brandon
So we did we did an elimination diet. We cut out the foods that he tested positive to. And within a few days, he started feeling better. and thought There was improvement.
00:09:41
Leigh Brandon
It was slow, but there was improvement. Weeks went by, he's getting better, months went by, and now he's back to eating the same volume of food he was eating previously.
00:09:50
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:52
Leigh Brandon
Then his you know his energy levels started coming back. He started feeling emotionally much better. you know Imagine lot safer because he's not choking every time he eats.
00:10:03
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:10:04
Leigh Brandon
And and then, you know, we stopped working together. He was doing

Neurological Factors in Pain

00:10:07
Leigh Brandon
OK. And then about six months later, he just happened to be in London where I was working at the time. And he came to see me. Now, I opened the door and I and I literally said to him, can I help you?
00:10:20
Leigh Brandon
And he said, Lee, it's trial.
00:10:21
Christian Yordanov
he' was a different guy
00:10:23
Leigh Brandon
ah What? Right. Because he'd put those 17 kilos back on.
00:10:26
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:28
Leigh Brandon
And he looked like a professional rugby player, like, you know, packed on with muscle. And I was just absolutely shocked. um And he was, you know, he was obviously absolutely delighted because he'd spent, God knows how much money going from doctor to doctor.
00:10:45
Leigh Brandon
and He was going to private doctors, specialists, and they just didn't know what to do with him.
00:10:47
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:10:51
Leigh Brandon
And to me, it was quite simple. So now all the pain had gone, all the, you know, his His throat wasn't swelling up and he was doing great. And and interestingly, you know, he's he's referred family members to me over the years and they're all doing great as well now.
00:11:07
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:11:08
Leigh Brandon
um and it But it shows it shows the importance that nutrition can play. And, you know, not always, it's not always a case of, oh, yeah let's just change your nutrition and everything's going to be fine.
00:11:22
Leigh Brandon
But oftentimes it's one of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. But and in his case, it was entirely nutritional. And what was interesting was he was actually a CEO of a supplement company, which was quite interesting.
00:11:36
Christian Yordanov
whoa
00:11:37
Leigh Brandon
He's gone to do other, you know, on doing other things now, but you know, what it, What it did for me is it just filled me with so much satisfaction, and how I could help someone that was in such a dire position.
00:11:50
Leigh Brandon
Literally, and they were scared of that. They thought they were going to die because they couldn't eat.
00:11:55
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:11:56
Leigh Brandon
Right. And to be able to help someone in that way just really filled me with the you know the biggest satisfaction possible in terms of what you do for a living.
00:12:03
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:12:05
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, man.
00:12:06
Leigh Brandon
And, you know, that was that was a real motivation for me to continue helping people with pain.
00:12:06
Christian Yordanov
Sure.
00:12:13
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, it's it's interesting. Like, I mean, headaches, like I absolutely, that's the one of the first thing I i'll think is because I remember back in twenty ah in 2017, 18, 19, my mother at that point had IBS diagnosed for more than 10 years. So she was about 13 years diagnosed and the doctors did absolutely like nothing, absolutely nothing.
00:12:37
Christian Yordanov
Right. um Luckily, they didn't make her worse because that's a very common thing. if the If they're useless, they'll frustrate you, but at least they won't harm you. But if they're not, they could be very harmful.
00:12:49
Christian Yordanov
So anyway, she at one point, she she was basically after every meal, she was either writhing in pain, like something in her and her stomach, holding herself and all that, or would have a horrible headache.
00:13:02
Christian Yordanov
And then we we did a food sensitivity test and basically half of the foods that that test tested for were reactive.
00:13:08
Leigh Brandon
Mmm. Mmm.
00:13:08
Christian Yordanov
So that was 90 foods out of 180. So yeah, so now, i mean, now we we don' we do this with almost every client as well.
00:13:11
Leigh Brandon
wow
00:13:16
Christian Yordanov
And I'm surprised what things come back as reactive. There was one lady, um she had lemon for whatever reason was just off off the charts.
00:13:28
Christian Yordanov
And even on after like a six month retest, it was still very high, like very still inflammatory. But she removed a bunch of foods and just like over the course of a weekend, she reported just so much water retention kind of dissipating.
00:13:44
Christian Yordanov
And then, i mean, just the the weird stuff coming up as reactive for people like banana. like you you It's also like people think I don't eat that food, therefore I can't be reactive to it. But when we use more sophisticated lab ah food sensitivity tests, your immune system at any point in time can be reactive to foods that are normally benign. And what I find is...
00:14:08
Christian Yordanov
the chicken is actually coming on oh coming back as pretty reactive in ah in a decent percentage of people. Probably because it's so saturated with omega-6s because a lot of those chickens are eating just corn and soy predominantly, you know, but it's it's definitely an underrated.
00:14:28
Christian Yordanov
And as you were talking, i was like, yeah of course. Like I remember in my autism book research, gluten-free, And casein, you had the the opioid-like peptides, like the gluteomorphins and the casomorphins, and they interact with the opioid receptors, so they could they could definitely trigger different kinds of pain and other symptoms as a result of that.
00:14:37
Leigh Brandon
oh
00:14:49
Christian Yordanov
So but it's ah but a lot with ah it's a much deeper topic than I even considered, man.
00:14:55
Leigh Brandon
Oh.
00:14:57
Christian Yordanov
So in terms of, let's talk about structural stuff. Now, I've i've had this issue that when am doing a project and I'm deep into the project, am pathologically focused to to the point where it's it's literally causing me pain. Like I remember with my first my first book, I was spending like 10, 14 hours a day at the computer for eight months.
00:15:22
Christian Yordanov
And I messed up my back and my neck. And then with my my second book a couple of years back, again, my neck, I ah could at one point I couldn't turn it, you know, to the one side. It was so bad. and I had to go to the chiropractor over a month to kind of get myself. But what i what happened with my last book is I started going to Pilates once, just once a week.
00:15:43
Christian Yordanov
And that my trainer, she completely kept me together just with one Pilates session a week. So

Athletes and Structural Corrections

00:15:49
Christian Yordanov
since then I've bought my wife, she's now a Pilates instructor. I bought her, her own reform. We've converted our garage into a Pilates studio for her.
00:15:57
Christian Yordanov
So I really understand the, the, the sort of the importance of doing things like that to prevent structural pain, like neck back. But kind of give us your insights on this.
00:16:05
Leigh Brandon
and
00:16:06
Christian Yordanov
How do you approach structural stuff? Where do you do like in-person testing where do you start?
00:16:12
Leigh Brandon
yeah i think the first thing to make people aware of is i look at the body like a bicycle wheel so obviously a bicycle wheel you want it to spin straight and true right if a bicycle wheel is buckled what you'll find it has some spokes of the wheel will be too tight other spokes will be too long and loose.
00:16:37
Leigh Brandon
And what you need to do is to tighten up the loose spokes and lengthen the tight spokes so that they're optimum length tension so that you've now got a nice straight spinning wheel.
00:16:39
Christian Yordanov
Thank you.
00:16:51
Leigh Brandon
The human body's similar in a way, but instead of the spokes, we've got muscles and our muscles can have different length tension relationships. So What you often have in the body, particularly in today's society, is on one side of ah of a joint, you'll have muscles that are excessively tight and muscles on the opposite side of the joint are therefore excessively long and often holding a lot of tension.
00:17:23
Leigh Brandon
Right. So what that does is first of all, that puts abnormal stress through the muscle itself. So that's increasing your likelihood of some kind of muscle pain, muscle injury.
00:17:35
Leigh Brandon
But probably more importantly, what it's doing is it's putting excessive stress through the tendons. So that's the bit that joins the muscle to the bone. the ligaments that help to support the joint that those muscles cross and the joint itself.
00:17:50
Leigh Brandon
So you often get excessive forces in one, two or even three planes of motion. So we live in a three dimensional world. And when the body's not well aligned, i.e. it's structurally out of balance, there's excessive forces going through specific areas.
00:18:10
Leigh Brandon
Now, something like a ligament has a tensile strength greater than steel.
00:18:17
Christian Yordanov
well
00:18:18
Leigh Brandon
So people say, well, how do you how do you sprain a ligament if they're that strong? Well, the reason is,

Rethinking Pain as an Alarm System

00:18:23
Leigh Brandon
is because if you've got a ligament and it's being stretched, let's say 18 hours a day, that's putting a very low amplitude, but long tempo stress through that material.
00:18:39
Leigh Brandon
And over time, that tensile strength will become weaker So what i remember back in 2002, so there was a footballer that played for England called Michael Owen.
00:18:52
Leigh Brandon
He was like a superstar, relatively young still footballer at the time. And he was playing in the match in the World Cup and he went to change direction and his knee just completely collapsed inwards and he completely ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament.
00:19:08
Leigh Brandon
Now the movement he he did should never have ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament. but it was clear that that ligament would have been getting weakened over time because of some muscle imbalance that he had in his body. And he did also suffer from hamstring issues before that.
00:19:27
Leigh Brandon
And the hamstrings and the anterior cruciate ligament, they kind of help each other out in terms of what they do.
00:19:28
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:19:34
Leigh Brandon
So, I guess probably the best example I've had was um I was working with a rugby player called Billy. So he he had been having injuries for three years when he came to see me.
00:19:47
Leigh Brandon
And what what he was getting, he was getting pain in his in his front of the thigh, so in his quadriceps, and also in his groin. He could play about three matches and then he'd be on the sidelines. So he'd go see the ah the physio.
00:20:03
Leigh Brandon
He might get some massage. He might get some acupuncture, maybe some stretches to do. And after about three matches on the sidelines, he'd go back and he'd play three matches. And after the third match, he'd be injured again. so there's lots of threes there. Three years, three matches on, three matches off. was pretty much...
00:20:20
Leigh Brandon
a rough a story of of what happened to him. So he was semi-professional. He had been playing in the, or for a club that played in the Premier League in and England, but he was now playing level down. So he was semi-pro, but still high level, you know, second tier English rugby.
00:20:42
Leigh Brandon
And he came to me and he said, look, I've basically got two months of off season until I go back to the preseason training for next season.
00:20:53
Leigh Brandon
This is what's going on. Do you think you'll be able to help? So I said, look, I can't guarantee I can help, but you know I can certainly help you the best I can. So ah did a very in-depth physical assessment on him.
00:21:08
Leigh Brandon
So found all of his imbalances in his body. designed what we call a corrective exercise program, showed him how to do the exercises and the stretches.
00:21:21
Leigh Brandon
And he went off for four weeks, did the program. And that was really laying the foundations of what was to come. and So he came back after four weeks, I reassessed him and now I had to design a new program. Now,
00:21:35
Leigh Brandon
I said to him at the time, it would be great if you had a longer off season because I want to be able to get you so you're so robust, you're not going to get injured playing for the next season or two.
00:21:48
Leigh Brandon
But I only had four weeks. So I had to make a bit of a, you could call it educated guess. You could call it educated risk taking because I knew in four weeks time he was going to start preseason.
00:22:01
Leigh Brandon
So I said to him, well what what do you do in preseason? And he said, well, we tackle bags. We do agility work. We might be doing sprints. We might be doing fartlek type training, but they weren't doing full on tackling and passing and kicking all that kind of stuff.
00:22:20
Leigh Brandon
So I thought to myself, right, well, he needs to be strong enough to at least survive that. So I gave him his next program that built upon the foundation but it what what I wanted to make sure that he was strong enough to survive what he was about to do.
00:22:37
Leigh Brandon
It was a little bit risky. I would have liked to have spent longer with the foundation, but that's what I went with.
00:22:44
Leigh Brandon
So he did that four weeks of ah training. He started his pre-season and to cut a very long story short, what he did was throughout the season, he just went and just swapped those four week programs throughout the season.
00:23:00
Leigh Brandon
And he played the whole season, didn't get injured once, played every single game. And at the end of the season, he said to me, he said, I've never felt so fit and strong.
00:23:11
Leigh Brandon
He said, I was bursting through tackles. I was more agile. i was changing direction quicker than ever. And I was kicking and punting longer than I've ever done before. And that was, but ah you know, we only worked on his structure.
00:23:25
Leigh Brandon
That's all we worked on.
00:23:26
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:23:27
Leigh Brandon
So again,

Comprehensive Pain Management Approaches

00:23:29
Leigh Brandon
that was just another example I look back on and and just think how rewarding for me, right, as well.
00:23:34
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:23:35
Leigh Brandon
It's really rewarding that you know this guy, he he was in love with rugby.
00:23:36
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:23:39
Leigh Brandon
That's what he loved to do. you know he identified himself as a rugby player, but you know how much longer would it been would he have been able to play in the way that he was?
00:23:49
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:23:51
Leigh Brandon
He might have had one, maybe two seasons, and he probably would have dropped down levels as well.
00:23:56
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:56
Leigh Brandon
because you can't keep expecting the coach to keep picking you if you're always injured.
00:24:01
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:24:01
Leigh Brandon
Right.
00:24:02
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:24:02
Leigh Brandon
So, so that was, that was really great working with him. um In terms of the neurological side. So this goes into, this can potentially be a whole podcast in itself.
00:24:18
Leigh Brandon
But again, the thing, the thing that's important to understand is that pain is, ah is like an alarm system. It's a bit like, i mean, there's lots of analogies, but if you think of your, if you're driving your car and you get an engine warning light come up on your dashboard, it's telling you that something's wrong.
00:24:40
Leigh Brandon
And what you should do in that case is take it to your local mechanic. They diagnose the problem, they fix it, and then you go on your way and the light won't be on anymore.
00:24:52
Leigh Brandon
What sadly tends to happen is that people get into pain
00:24:58
Leigh Brandon
They often go to ah medical professional of some sort and quite often the first port of call is medication, painkillers, anti-inflammatories.
00:25:13
Leigh Brandon
In my analogy of the engine warning light on your dashboard, that's like taking it to your mechanic and they cut the electric signal going to the bulb of the warning light.
00:25:22
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:25:24
Leigh Brandon
Or they'll give you a piece of like get a piece of black tape and put it over the light and you can't see it.
00:25:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:25:28
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:25:31
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:25:31
Leigh Brandon
So you haven't addressed what the root cause the problem is, right?
00:25:37
Leigh Brandon
So what happens with what we call chronic pain. So chronic pain generally is pain that lasts longer than three months, okay? What often happens is that someone has an initial injury, ah tissues heal, but the pain remains.
00:25:58
Leigh Brandon
So what's happening here is your alarm system is still going off. So let's say let's just use it as a fire alarm in your house, right?
00:26:09
Leigh Brandon
You're in your house, the fire alarm goes off, You realize there is a fire. You get out, you call the fire brigade. The fire brigade come along, they put the fire out, but the alarm's still going, right?

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00:26:23
Leigh Brandon
You might even rebuild the whole house because it completely burnt down, but the alarm is still going off, but there's no fire. So what's happening there is that your nervous system has become overstimulated.
00:26:41
Leigh Brandon
Now, the areas of stimulation can come from many different areas, so it could be structural. Right. So if there is any structural stress on the body that can be inputting into the nervous system.
00:26:55
Leigh Brandon
If you've got any of the things that we spoke about nutritionally, that can be inputting into the nervous system. Or it can be other types of stress. So it could be emotional stress.
00:27:09
Leigh Brandon
It could be financial stress. It could be relationship stress. It could be that, you know, as a child, you had some kind of trauma.
00:27:20
Leigh Brandon
So, you know, the common ones, you know, physical, sexual, and it can be emotional trauma as well.
00:27:26
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:27:26
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:27:26
Leigh Brandon
You know, not feeling loved by your parents can be quite a trauma.
00:27:30
Leigh Brandon
Now, what your body doesn't realize is that when there's all these inputs into the body, it doesn't realize that there's no actual physical threat.
00:27:44
Leigh Brandon
It's just that your nervous system is over sensitized. We call that central sensitization because it's sensitization of the central nervous system.
00:27:54
Leigh Brandon
So what we need to do in those situations is, is to calm it down. Now, A really interesting example, and this is this is a story I love to tell. So I was actually finishing my check training in California.
00:28:09
Leigh Brandon
And at the end of our training, they fly in a client for you to work with. And the lady I worked with, I can't give you her real name, so don't have permission to talk about the story, but I'll call her Karen.
00:28:22
Leigh Brandon
So she flew in from Hawaii. And she was a marine biologist. She was 50 years old. and she'd been in pain for 25 years, right?
00:28:33
Leigh Brandon
So when you consider that, you know, our sales turn over every two years, she didn't have the same body that she had 25 years ago, so why is she still in pain, right?
00:28:43
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
00:28:46
Leigh Brandon
Now, what was interesting about Karen, all her pain was on the left side of her body. So left neck, left shoulder, which pain radiated down her left arm and she had pain in her left lower back. Now, interestingly, 25 years previously, she um she hit her back on something sharp and on a different occasion, she fell off a mountain bike and landed on her left arm.
00:29:17
Leigh Brandon
So you think, well, that was that was the cause of the pain, right?
00:29:24
Leigh Brandon
So I did my usual physical assessment. well I looked at a nutrition. And before I started working with us, I got a whole whole load of paperwork, health questionnaires, all the health history, everything.
00:29:42
Leigh Brandon
And when I looked at her pain, I thought, okay, so left side of the body. Now we know from a lot of Eastern philosophy, like traditional Chinese medicine, Ioveda, et cetera.
00:29:54
Leigh Brandon
They look at the body as the left side being of female energy and the right side of as male energy.
00:29:58
Christian Yordanov
Mm. yeah
00:30:01
Leigh Brandon
And because she had pain in her kind of neck, shoulder, arm region, in the kind of Eastern philosophy ah of the chakra systems, interesting interestingly, there's a picture of the chakras behind me.
00:30:15
Leigh Brandon
um The neck, shoulder, arm relates to communication. So I just thought, I wonder if this is part of the root cause the problem. So in our first consultation, ah said, so I'm just curious, what's your relationship like with your mother?
00:30:34
Leigh Brandon
Because quite often, it normally relates to a close relative, right? And it would normally be a parent. So I ask her that question. And, well, let's just say I opened up a massive can of worms with that question, right?
00:30:50
Leigh Brandon
So, i mean, this woman was so polite and calm and sweet. She was a lovely, lovely woman. And she said, don't talk to me about my mother. She never loved me.
00:31:02
Christian Yordanov
a
00:31:03
Leigh Brandon
My sister was her favorite. She never gave me any attention. We haven't spoken for years. We don't get on. And thought, wow, that' that's hit a nerve. That's interesting.
00:31:15
Leigh Brandon
So what I did, I did design an exercise program for her. did teach her about nutrition and lifestyle. you know We went out for lunch together every day so I could kind of show her how I ate.
00:31:28
Leigh Brandon
But most of the time we spent together, so we had four days together. And most of that time, i actually coached her in a technique called nonviolent communication. And the idea was that she would go home and reach out to her mother and try to reconnect, let's say, with her mother and and and be honest with her and tell her how she felt as a child and how she's feeling now.
00:31:56
Leigh Brandon
And I kind of explained to her why I was asking her to do that and how it could be related to her her bodily pain. So we worked together for four days. she went She flew off to Hawaii. I flew back to the UK.
00:32:10
Leigh Brandon
Six months later, I get a letter from Hawaii. And I think, ah, that will almost certainly be from Karen. So open up the letter. And it says, Lee, I can't thank you enough.
00:32:22
Leigh Brandon
Not only is my neck, shoulder, arm and back pain gone, but I reached out to my mother with made up We've got an amazing relationship now and we see each other every day and we're enjoying every minute we have together.
00:32:34
Christian Yordanov
Wow. That's amazing, bro.
00:32:38
Leigh Brandon
So what that can sometimes tell us is that our bodies are often trying to tell us something that we need to address, whether it's your posture, whether it's your diet or whether it's your relationships or whether it's your
00:32:38
Christian Yordanov
amazing.
00:32:57
Leigh Brandon
whatever stress it might be. Right. And that's why, you know, my teacher Paul check has termed the phrase, the pain teacher. Pain is always trying to teach you something, whether it's don't push down hard, any harder on that foot, because it's going to go through that nail or stop eating that stuff because whenever you do, you get shoulder pain or you need to sort out your relationship with your mother.
00:33:23
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:33:24
Leigh Brandon
right It's always trying to tell you something. And the important thing is if. If you can't work out yourself. What it's trying to tell you, reach out to someone who can read the body and help you decode what it's trying to tell you and then point you in the right direction if you need any more help in terms of how you can actually overcome that.
00:33:49
Leigh Brandon
Now, what I would just add is and so I've given you examples where. one was predominantly structural one was predominantly nutritional one was predominantly what i would call neurological but my experience is there's always more than one factor and sometimes all three are involved and an interesting thing so there's lots of things that have been coming out in recent years about pain science and one of the things that's generally accepted discussed is that they say there's no such thing between posture and pain right and they'll brit they'll pull up studies proving proving the case but when you actually look at the studies and when you look at a meta-analysis which means looking at a group of studies when you look carefully at them they actually prove that they there is a relationship between the two so i'll give you an example one
00:34:47
Leigh Brandon
In the meta analysis, it would say, well, we have one group of people who had lower back pain and we got them to do extension exercises of their spine. We got another group to do flexion exercises of the spine.
00:35:00
Leigh Brandon
And the results were the same. Some people got better. Some people were the same. Some people got worse. So therefore, it doesn't work. But what they didn't do, they didn't assess them before they started and say, well, this group needs extension.
00:35:16
Leigh Brandon
And this group needs flexion and this group needs something else. Right. So you have to be careful when it comes to. Just following what people tell you that the science actually means now in a lot of people, it might be that
00:35:29
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah. yeah
00:35:34
Leigh Brandon
their posture, their structure isn't involved. That's definitely the case. You know, in my case of ah Karen, I just, I don't think physically was a major factor.
00:35:45
Leigh Brandon
I gave her exercises to do and they probably did help, but I don't think that was the major factor. But what I've seen is as an example, the most common pain slash injury I've worked with over the years,
00:36:02
Leigh Brandon
is when people have damaged discs in their lumbar spine. That's been the most common.
00:36:07
Leigh Brandon
Every single one of them without fail have had the same kind of posture, particularly in their lumbar spine.
00:36:15
Christian Yordanov
Like what's what's that like? Uh-huh.
00:36:17
Leigh Brandon
So it tends to be flat. Right. So ah allegedly normal lumbar curve is between 30 to 35 degrees of extension. So that's that's when the lumbar curve says at its optimum level in terms of dissipating forces from above.
00:36:35
Leigh Brandon
Because obviously it has to dissipate force for the entire spine, right? And that's why as you get lower in the spine, the discs and the vertebral bodies get bigger because it has to take more load.
00:36:44
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:36:44
Leigh Brandon
Up in the neck, they're pretty small, but down by the sacrum, they're pretty big.
00:36:48
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:36:50
Leigh Brandon
And it's really, and it you know, again, it's if you if you understand how the structure works, that's quite simple because If your lower back is more flattened, it's gonna put more stress through the front of the disc.
00:37:04
Leigh Brandon
And the back, so the disc is like, it's kind of spongy. so a bit like a donut. It's got a nucleus in the middle, which is like the jelly of the donut. Well, if you squeezed one end of a donut, the jam or the jelly, whichever way you wanna call it, is gonna move away from the bit you're squeezing, right?
00:37:22
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:37:22
Leigh Brandon
Exactly the same things happens with the discs. So if you're sitting all day, which most people do, they generally sit with ah slumped lumbar spine, a flat spine.
00:37:34
Leigh Brandon
So the disc is getting pushed posteriorly for X number of hours a day. right Again, remember, ligaments are very strong, but if they're constantly being stretched,
00:37:47
Leigh Brandon
at some point they're gonna go. And it's the same with the discs. The discs are very strong, but if you're constantly putting load through it, at some point, the smallest little thing, and you're gonna be in trouble.
00:37:58
Leigh Brandon
And I've experienced that myself, right? I've blown a disc out of my lumbar spine. And people often say to me, well how did you do that? And I said, I just woke up one morning and I couldn't move.
00:38:12
Leigh Brandon
You know, I wasn't playing rugby, I wasn't in a car accident. I did um deadlifts a couple of days before and I was doing a lot of Bikram yoga, which I think was actually part of the issue.
00:38:23
Leigh Brandon
I think Bikram yoga was wasn't right for my body.
00:38:24
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:38:28
Leigh Brandon
And so, you know, I know, and know what it's like to go through such a serious injury. And that put me in a really good position in terms of being able to empathize with people because I've been there, I've lived it.
00:38:39
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:38:42
Leigh Brandon
But the the interesting thing with my back injury, mean, first of all, I was really embarrassed because had already been helping people heal from that kind of injury for what would it have been 12 years by that point.
00:38:55
Leigh Brandon
And i kind of thought, well, with all my knowledge, how does that happen? But we're all human, right?
00:39:01
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:39:01
Leigh Brandon
And interesting, were talking about writing your books.
00:39:01
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Mm.
00:39:05
Leigh Brandon
I was writing a book at the time and I was spending a lot of time seated. i wasn't doing as much exercise I would have liked. I wasn't getting as much sleep.
00:39:13
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:39:15
Leigh Brandon
And the region of my spine that was injured is in the region of the second chakra. So the second chakra, one of the things it relates is the water element and it relates to the rhythm and flow of your life.
00:39:31
Leigh Brandon
Well, my life didn't have any rhythm and flow because it was go, go, go, go. go i was I was so focused on getting this book finished because ah had a meeting planned in California with the people that were going to publish the book and it was set in the diary. The the flights were booked.
00:39:50
Leigh Brandon
And I had to get it finished. but Hence I was spending so long doing it.
00:39:54
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:39:54
Leigh Brandon
So it was a bit of a double edged sword that, you know, I'm, I'm writing this book and it was on biomechanics, a tennis biomechanics. And literally, you know, four weeks before I'm due to fly out, I get a blown disc.
00:40:16
Leigh Brandon
And when I look back, yes, there was structural aspects to it for sure. know, was sitting too much. i was doing the wrong kind of movements in Bikram yoga, excessive wrong movements, but I was also way too busy.
00:40:31
Leigh Brandon
And sometimes what pain will do is it will, it will force you to slow down if you're, you're making yourself too busy.
00:40:42
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:40:44
Leigh Brandon
So my My learning from my own experience with that injury was ah need to really make sure no matter what I'm doing, no matter what goal I've got, no matter what deadline I've got, ah have to set a core value around making sure I've got enough rest and recovery time.
00:41:04
Leigh Brandon
Yes, there might be the odd day where, you know, you've just got to grind it out fine. But then the next day, you've got to make sure you give yourself that time to rest, get to bed early, make sure you're eating right, hydrating right.
00:41:17
Leigh Brandon
All those things, they're going to help you recover.
00:41:20
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, bro. So that is so true. and It feels like right now that's the kind of situation I mean, because the last few months have been so busy. I'm doing so much work up here in the office. Some days I finish at 10 o'clock and all I have time is for a quick little meal.
00:41:37
Christian Yordanov
And then I walk the dog for an hour kind of outside in the darkness. because it's too hot to be outside in the day. And then I'm back home and then bed. And then it's been like that for too long. And my have this lower back pain from sitting at the... And I have... This chair is really good. It's like a 700 euro chair, you know.
00:41:58
Christian Yordanov
And I also have a really nice um ah kneeling chair. So I can interchange between the two.
00:42:03
Leigh Brandon
oh
00:42:05
Christian Yordanov
of The kneeling chair really allows you to... for for the back to be a bit more mobile and you can, there's a bunch of different positions, but nothing is helping right now. Until a few days ago, i was like, you know what, screw this.
00:42:18
Christian Yordanov
So the first two hours of the workday, instead of being up here working, I'm just like out with the dog, walking around, doing some, you know, something on the mat, ah like some just basic exercises, foam rolling.
00:42:31
Christian Yordanov
And it's already starting to improve. And I think it's just... my body telling me dude like there is actually there is actually more to life than work ah so but but it's also like yeah the thing about you writing a book and sometimes I joke with people when they're like oh my god your wrote a book that's so impressive i'm like I'll tell you one thing though that I learned is writing a book about health is the least healthy thing I've ever I've ever done it's the most unhealthy thing you know yeah yeah brother
00:42:41
Leigh Brandon
Yeah.
00:43:00
Leigh Brandon
Yeah, I can relate to that. Definitely relate to that for sure. But I mean, I've written another book since that one. And I did it in a much better way. I didn't, I had the only deadlines I had with my own.
00:43:13
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah. yeah
00:43:15
Leigh Brandon
So yeah, i could I could be a lot more, like i could write it in a much healthier way.
00:43:20
Christian Yordanov
Exactly. And that's kind of the plan for the next one. I already have it planned out, the the the topics and the the chapters. I just said said to myself, it doesn't matter. like no Nobody gives a shit about your thing.
00:43:34
Christian Yordanov
like That's what I have to keep reminding myself. So whether it comes out six months later, like very few people it's going to matter to very few people. So there's no point in adding all of this psychological stress to on top of it's it's almost sometimes i feel like life would be so easy and i'd be so successful if i didn't constantly get in my own way and sabotage myself over the the past you know 25 or so yeah five years or so yeah
00:44:03
Leigh Brandon
We know you just brought up an interesting word there, sabotage. Because that's actually one way in which people stay in pain. And and that comes on for me, that comes on under my neurological aspects, right?
00:44:23
Leigh Brandon
Because
00:44:26
Leigh Brandon
when when we're growing up, so but say in the first seven years of life,
00:44:32
Leigh Brandon
we only have access to two different brainwave states, the delta and the theta. Delta is like a deep sleep state. Theta is like a meditative state. So in the first seven years of life, you don't really have the ability to decipher the environment around you. It just gets downloaded and that becomes who you are.
00:44:50
Leigh Brandon
And very rarely does that change throughout the rest of your life. Now, there are ways in which you can change it, but most people aren't aware of how to change that.
00:45:03
Leigh Brandon
But what happens often when you're when you're young, especially if you live in the Western world, especially if you've got a big family, the only time you get one of your parents, and it's normally your mother, the only time you get one-to-one time with them is when you're sick.
00:45:24
Christian Yordanov
hmm hmm
00:45:24
Leigh Brandon
Right? So in your subconscious mind, as you get older, you think well the only the only way i get love and attention is when there's something wrong with me right this is going on at the subconscious level so you know if anyone's listening to this and they're thinking i don't consciously make myself feel pain i don't want to be in pain i agree with you and that's because it's happening at the subconscious level so what some people will do is they will oftentimes
00:46:02
Leigh Brandon
choose behaviors in their life, carry out behaviors in their life that will make sure they're in pain because at the subconscious level, if they're not in pain, they're no longer worthy of love from others.
00:46:20
Christian Yordanov
that is so profound bro yeah oh yeah
00:46:20
Leigh Brandon
So I did say the neurological side of it is ah is a big subject and we could go in so many different directions, but that's, that's a big one that I've seen in my practice as well.
00:46:29
Christian Yordanov
oh yeah hmm
00:46:30
Leigh Brandon
is is what we call the saboteur archetype, is that people become so frightened of being well because they feel they won't be loved.
00:46:41
Leigh Brandon
Because, yeah you know, growing up and from zero to seven, you know, that's one of the most important things that you feel safe and you felt you feel loved.
00:46:49
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Loved, yeah.
00:46:51
Leigh Brandon
And if you don't have either of those things, the chances are, you know, you might create pain, illness when you get older, because that's that's your way of feeling safe.
00:47:05
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've seen this pattern with myself and my wife as well. I remember it was like maybe last year in the springtime, she was um she went off to do this.
00:47:17
Christian Yordanov
like So she started with Pilates mat, and then she wanted to do the the progress to reforma, all the good stuff. So she was at the certification course, and she basically...
00:47:30
Christian Yordanov
I think on the second, like about midway through it, she basically put her back out and she came she came back. Like she couldn't move. She couldn't pick up anything. So, but that was, what that wasn't the first time. Anytime like her business, her, like her ballet, ah she's a ballet teacher as well. That was her career.
00:47:50
Christian Yordanov
So anytime like her business would take off, like she would get an injury. And at one point i was like, listen, like we we have to like,
00:47:54
Leigh Brandon
oh
00:47:58
Christian Yordanov
It's clear, the pattern. like it's It's so clear even I can see it. So we have to really get this out in the open. And now, since since then, since we kind of realized, okay, this is definitely a self-sabotaging pattern. and she We even like ah i ever even have a... He's actually technically self-sabotage sort of specialist, but he does like cognitive behavioral therapy.
00:48:23
Christian Yordanov
So we're working with a therapist on just... Kinds of stuff. Just it's always everybody needs ah coach or or or some sort of someone to help them with something that they're dealing with. Nobody's got it all together, you know.
00:48:34
Christian Yordanov
But, so you know, since then, ah like touch wood, man, you know, but ah she's she's doing tons of exercise, tons of different classes and different things as well and and and so even more certifications.
00:48:47
Christian Yordanov
And she's fitter and stronger than ever. And anytime she feels a twinge, I'm like... don't ruin it now. Don't go self-sabotage.
00:48:55
Leigh Brandon
I think so.
00:48:57
Christian Yordanov
So it's definitely, and I feel like um the the whole pain thing, like me and growing up, I definitely used that as a way to maybe, that where there's a lot of conflict in the family if you kind of, not necessarily get sick, but you know, you're injured or something is wrong with you, then attention comes on you and you're just sort of diffusing a lot of tension because parents are like, but parents' attention is on you.
00:49:24
Christian Yordanov
And the unfortunate thing is then we will... because those patterns got what we wanted we would then progress through life with very unhealthy patterns and i think that's how i got into you know all the the trouble i did in my 20s basically
00:49:42
Leigh Brandon
Yeah, one one thing that I see reasonably a lot is when a child doesn't feel seen, that they're not getting the attention they crave.
00:49:58
Leigh Brandon
and it might Again, it might be they're in a, you know, they might have a big family, let's say, or they might be the middle child. That often tends to be the case.
00:50:09
Leigh Brandon
When a child isn't getting enough attention, or perceived attention in their eyes, they're often the attention seeker or they're often the naughty one because that's their way of getting attention.
00:50:21
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:50:22
Leigh Brandon
Right? If you won't listen to me, I'm going to make sure you notice me. Right? But those people, again, often tend up tend to be, it might and again, not in every case, but more often than not, they tend to be the ones that are in that chronic pain cycle because they're still trying to crave the love that they felt they never got when they were really young.
00:50:45
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:50:46
Leigh Brandon
So getting into that unconscious mind and re rewiring that program is really important. And there's lots of different ways you can do it. Things like... um ah hypnotherapy can be really good way.
00:50:59
Leigh Brandon
There's lots of energy medicine.
00:51:01
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:51:01
Leigh Brandon
So I do the emotion code. Um, people do, uh, apply kinesiology, cranial sacral therapy.
00:51:04
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:51:08
Leigh Brandon
There's lots of different ways in which, which you can address that. Um, but yeah, it's quite an interesting, uh, pattern that I've seen over the years.
00:51:18
Christian Yordanov
yeah For sure, for sure. Great. Well, yeah, there's such a ah one question I want to ask you just because I know you're so much more deeper in the stuff. And I have done various courses over the years that I and I never was interested enough to really go deep on it But I was doing when I was living in Ireland, you probably know the National College um was it the national training center sorry so i've i did some courses there in personal training and neuromuscular therapy and stuff so the the dude that runs it uh john sharkey you know he's quite a thought leader in in sort of you know pain and neuromuscular therapy and
00:51:58
Christian Yordanov
um So they they talk a lot about trigger points. What's your take? Do you deal with that? And the other thing also maybe you can weave into, do you do this type of work online, like the analysis and the assessments maybe run in case people want to reach out, you know?
00:52:16
Leigh Brandon
Yeah, I mean, a lot of it can be done online. um Some people I would say, like listen, with your situation, I would need to see you in person with some instances. um But I've worked with people literally all over the world.
00:52:31
Christian Yordanov
Coco.
00:52:31
Leigh Brandon
and And the more technology gets sophisticated, the more it's enabling me to work online. I mean, obviously, hands on therapies you know, ah would have to physically see someone to do that.
00:52:43
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, you can't beat
00:52:46
Leigh Brandon
um The assessments I still do in person. There are limited ways you can do some physical assessments with um apps that are out today.
00:52:56
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:52:57
Leigh Brandon
um what What's tended to happen is if if I feel I need to see someone, what people tend to do is they'll fly in to see me every two months for a couple of days. So that's tended to happen.
00:53:10
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:53:11
Leigh Brandon
um In terms of trigger points, yep. So again, um I work with, again, with my hands. um sometimes Sometimes I find dry needling is needed.
00:53:23
Leigh Brandon
Not always, or rarely, I should say. um But dry needling can be really useful for dealing with things like trigger points. But if the trigger point is being caused by a muscle imbalance, you've still got to address the muscle imbalance.
00:53:38
Leigh Brandon
Otherwise, it's just going to come back anyway.
00:53:38
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:53:40
Christian Yordanov
Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, yeah. that's That's one thing because I i remember when I, i after ah training for my Thai boxing fight when I was ah about 30, some 10 years ago, after, even months after that, I had this horrible pain in my left hip joint, you know, where the ah femur kind of,
00:54:04
Christian Yordanov
in in that uh uh i forget the name of the of the of the joint but um i was going to this this dude who is conor mcgregor's uh basically his main at least at the time dr paine they call him his main physiotherapist And he was doing this thing, dude, where he would, he was a big, massive guy from Moldova or whatever.
00:54:27
Christian Yordanov
And like, he would like take his elbow and he would be on his table. And he had ah go like Jesus music and like sort of a greek Orthodox chanting and like these icons of, you know, saints and stuff.
00:54:39
Christian Yordanov
And you're like almost like, dude, am I going to be sacrificing you or what the fuck's going on?
00:54:42
Leigh Brandon
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
00:54:43
Christian Yordanov
But this guy would like he take his elbow and he would basically press it into your stomach, various kind of various parts, like the you know where the psoas is, this kind of stuff. And I figured that maybe, i mean, he could barely speak English, but he he never explained what he did. but what I found later is probably he was...
00:55:05
Christian Yordanov
working on trigger points that had formed in my psoas because I think my psoas was so tight that it was pulling the the bone and that was grinding the joint and that was causing me a lot of pain at night but uh it was it was pretty intense I and so actually my wife had started going to him and ah one day I took I was with her for her session and that's when I kind of signed up to start working with him but she was there like crying She was crying.
00:55:31
Christian Yordanov
And I'm like, do you cry every time? Oh, yeah, I'm crying every time. this It's extremely painful. That's why i call him Dr.
00:55:36
Leigh Brandon
Thank you.
00:55:36
Christian Yordanov
Pain. So he did this to me. was the most painful, horrible thing. But in maybe 10 sessions, 12, 14 sessions, he actually did fix me. But the craziest thing at the end was this is I don't know if he does this to everybody, but my wife was like, oh, yeah, he puts you out. And he he basically sticks his thumbs into your neck.
00:55:54
Christian Yordanov
I don't know how where exactly, but you just lose consciousness for like a minute or so. And I'm like, dude, what the hell is that? Like, why you do that? And apparently it's because of you know what you were talking about, the kind of the neurological thing, it resets the basically the nervous system and the brain.
00:56:09
Leigh Brandon
Mm-hmm.
00:56:12
Christian Yordanov
So you can actually, like you saying, structurally you can maybe start working on the trigger point and all that good stuff. But if the if you have this sort of neuroplastic habit or the neurological habit of being in pain that's almost like a morphogenetic field that you need to sort of dissolve by and one way he does it is with freaking just putting out so your your whole nervous system is reset what's your thoughts on that as we wrap up today
00:56:40
Leigh Brandon
Interesting. um
00:56:41
Christian Yordanov
interesting yeah
00:56:44
Leigh Brandon
I mean, listen, there are so many techniques out there and you know I'm not familiar with with all of them. um I'm not going to really comment on something I don't know the ins and outs of.
00:56:52
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:56:53
Leigh Brandon
But what I would say from you know the hands-on work I do, it's very rarely is it painful. um There are certain areas of the body that just tend to be tender, like, you know, the pectoralis minor muscle tends to be a little bit tight.
00:57:07
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:57:08
Leigh Brandon
The pterygoids in the mouth tend to be quite tight. I would say the psoas, when I work on the psoas, I would call that very slight discomfort.
00:57:20
Leigh Brandon
But most of the time when I'm working on people, it's actually quite a pleasant experience and it's very effective. It's not pleasant because it's not working. It's
00:57:29
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:57:29
Leigh Brandon
And I think what we're taught is when you're good with your hands, it shouldn't be it shouldn't be painful.
00:57:35
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:57:36
Leigh Brandon
But i'm not saying I'm not saying other techniques that are painful aren't good as well. I'm sure that what they are.
00:57:39
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:57:40
Leigh Brandon
I mean, I know rolfing, for instance, is very painful, but but has been shown to be very effective.
00:57:40
Christian Yordanov
Yeah,
00:57:45
Leigh Brandon
so
00:57:46
Christian Yordanov
yeah. I prefer the the, we had one lady, she's Dutch, she kind of comes to your house here and she does like she she does a few different things like Thai massage and stuff like that, but it's very gentle, but then you're almost floating.
00:58:03
Christian Yordanov
like you she She basically sets this blanket on your floor And she just kind of like does all this weird stuff. You know what the hell's going on? But I'm like, dude, i used to, when you used when she used to come to the house, I'd be like falling asleep while she, I'd be like, you know how you yawn and release tension?
00:58:18
Leigh Brandon
Mm-hmm.
00:58:18
Christian Yordanov
I'd be like yawning, they're ready to like literally go for a nap only for, you know, I have to like let her out the house and stuff. but And then you feel like really good the days after. So I totally, totally agree. doesn't have to be painful. And I think the the no pain, no gain. I do have like the the dude i um interviewed about this similar topic a few months ago that I met in Mexico, the Narcopuco.
00:58:40
Christian Yordanov
he His thing is a no pain, no gain thing. But I got to say, if if the person that does it right, knows what they're doing like because he did the thing only on my right arm and for months dude like i i was just like my neck pain went pain went away so i think it's all about having a skilled practitioner and then the method they use really doesn't matter as long as you get the end result think yeah okay lee thank you so much for joining us today before we wrap up just let the listener know where they can connect with you and if they want to know further information all that good stuff
00:59:03
Leigh Brandon
Yeah, yeah, I agree completely.
00:59:18
Leigh Brandon
Sure. Yeah. So if anyone's listening to this and you know, they're totally fed up of being in pain and they want to know, you know, what might be keeping them stuck, what they can do is like I've got a ah free chronic pain breakthrough blueprint that they can have access to.
00:59:34
Leigh Brandon
And they can find that at forward slash free pain guide.
00:59:46
Christian Yordanov
cool any social media or anything like that you wanna
00:59:51
Leigh Brandon
Yeah. i mean, if I go to my website, which is bodycheck.co.uk, I'm on Instagram, Facebook, book Twitter, LinkedIn, and soon, soon to be on, uh, TikTok.
00:59:57
Christian Yordanov
sweet nice yeah dude like if you're not on tick tock do you even exist right
01:00:04
Leigh Brandon
So I've just got a new social media coach and she's told me I've got to go on TikTok. Um,
01:00:14
Leigh Brandon
something and And also, I don't know when this will go out, but I've got a new podcast starting on the 25th of August. And that will be called Beyond the Pain.
01:00:26
Christian Yordanov
Cool. Awesome stuff. Right. We're going to have all those links ah in the show description, folks. So check that out. And Lee, thank you again so much for joining us today and sharing your deep wisdom and insights, man.
01:00:41
Leigh Brandon
Christian, thanks for having me again. It's been a pleasure.