education for the general public - blog

Celebrating One Year of Growth, Transformation, and Community Impact It’s been a year since our community rallied to keep DMR Move’s doors open, and today, we’re thrilled to share that your support has had an even bigger impact than we expected. Not only did your help stabilize and grow DMR…

Introduction Our culture is filled with advice on “good” posture, from “sit up straight” to “don’t slouch.” But what if posture isn’t simply a matter of right or wrong, good or bad? The reality is that the best posture aligns with each person’s unique anatomical and physiological needs—and it’s a…

Exploring Chronic Pain Through Evolution: Change Across Four Dimensions (3 of 3 Pain Series) As we wrap up our series on understanding pain, we shift our focus to how changes within a lifetime and across generations contribute to the development of chronic pain. Building on concepts from our previous posts…

The Path to Chronic Pain: Unraveling the Complex Causes How does pain, usually a helpful sensation, turn into the unworkable problem we call chronic pain, affecting over a quarter of the world’s population? Chronic pain is a lingering and persistent sensory experience, but it’s far more complex than that. It…

The Two Things You Need to Know About Pain: It’s Not What You Think Have you ever left a doctor’s office more confused than when you walked in? Maybe you were told you have ‘muscle pain,’ ‘nerve pain,’ or ‘spine pain,’ as if naming your discomfort would make it easier…

Adapting to Change: Empowering Your Health Journey with Process-Based Skills On the road to better health, it’s easy to feel like you have to keep searching for the next treatment or quick fix, always trying to do something to make things better. However, at the Institute of Contextual Health (IOCH),…

Complexity science is a relatively new field gaining momentum since the early 1980s, driven by pioneering work from the Santa Fe Institute. It was born out of the need to understand systems that are too intricate to be explained by traditional science alone. These systems, whether found in nature, society,…

In Part 1, we explored how the principles of evolutionary science—variation, selection, and retention—can drive personal transformation through small, meaningful changes. Now, let’s expand on that foundation by examining how these principles can be applied to more complex scenarios, where the stakes are higher, and the changes required are more…

Imagine, for months, you have been waking up every day with a persistent, dull ache in your left hip. As a sales representative, you’re on your feet for hours, constantly moving and helping customers. The pain becomes a background hum, a constant companion you’ve learned to ignore. But over time,…

Life is full of surprises. Sometimes things go exactly as planned, but other times, we’re thrown off course. Have you ever wondered why one approach works for some people but not for others? The answer lies in how different systems—like our bodies—behave over time. The Problem with Medical Labels In…

We often use another metaphor that has helped many individuals work with difficult sensations (i.e., pain), demanding thoughts, or challenging emotions in an active/engaged manner. This metaphor is called: Driving in a Storm. Imagine you are driving on a road in the middle of a dark raging storm with thunder,…

March is Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Awareness Month, dedicated to raising awareness and providing support to those affected by TBI. According to the CDC, TBI is a leading cause of disability and death and disability in children and adults, with approximately 2.8 million TBI-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths…

In general, it is normal for us to be completely unaware of all the automatic functions, or behaviors happening in our body at any given moment. The number of biologic behaviors keeping us alive and allowing us to do the things we want to do is impossible for us to…

We often use another metaphor that has helped many individuals work with difficult sensations (i.e., pain), demanding thoughts, or challenging emotions in an active/engaged manner. This metaphor is called: Driving in a Storm. Imagine you are driving on a road in the middle of a dark raging storm with thunder,…

We often use another metaphor that has helped many individuals work with difficult sensations (i.e., pain), demanding thoughts, or challenging emotions in an active/engaged manner. This metaphor is called: Driving in a Storm. Imagine you are driving on a road in the middle of a dark raging storm with thunder,…

We often use another metaphor that has helped many individuals work with difficult sensations (i.e., pain), demanding thoughts, or challenging emotions in an active/engaged manner. This metaphor is called: Driving in a Storm. Imagine you are driving on a road in the middle of a dark raging storm with thunder,…

It is commonly believed that stretching could physically “lengthen” muscles and other soft tissues (such as tendons and fascia) by holding a stretch for an extended period of time or through all sorts of stretching techniques with fancy names. It is easy to believe this is the case because the…

Humans are Robust Poster DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY TODAY   Looking at the body joint by joint, one thing you can notice is how strong and robust our bodies are made. Many people are often led to believe that they are fragile and broken down, but we are here to build you back…

Have you ever heard that a majority of your pain stems from your poor posture?! We hear it all the time from patients. Our culture has created the thought that their is only one correct posture and that if you don’t sit or stand in it then you will likely get…

It’s not about if; it’s about when. If you have ever experienced a big pain flare once in your life, odds are that you will experience one again.Having a plan to guide you when that time comes is crucial. It may sound reasonable that you can walk yourself through a…

Back pain is one of the most common health complaints, affecting millions of people worldwide. Yet, there are many misconceptions about what causes it and how it can be effectively managed. At IOCH, we believe in empowering our clients with knowledge to take control of their health. That’s why we’ve…

Have you ever heard that a majority of your pain stems from your poor posture?!   We hear it all the time from patients. Our culture has created the thought that there is only one correct posture and that if you don’t sit or stand in it then you will…

Attention vs Distraction to Pain As humans, it is natural for us to want to avoid uncomfortable things and try and control things we do not enjoy. When it comes to pain, the most natural thing to do, and often the most common advice people are given, is to distract…

We often use another metaphor that has helped many individuals work with difficult sensations (i.e., pain), demanding thoughts, or challenging emotions in an active/engaged manner. This metaphor is called: Driving in a Storm. Imagine you are driving on a road in the middle of a dark raging storm with thunder,…

Attention vs Distraction to Pain As humans, it is natural for us to want to avoid uncomfortable things and try and control things we do not enjoy. When it comes to pain, the most natural thing to do, and often the most common advice people are given, is to distract…

As humans, it is natural for us to want to avoid uncomfortable things and try and control things we do not enjoy. When it comes to pain, the most natural thing to do, and often the most common advice people are given, is to distract themselves from the pain with…

The Top Myths About Osteoarthritis OA Myths and FactsMYTH: I should be worried about seeing osteoarthritis on my X-Ray or MRI reports. ————— FACT: Joints change over time just like the rest of your body. These joint changes are called osteoarthritis. They are poorly related to pain. MYTH: Osteoarthritis is…

SPINAL DEGENERATION SOUNDS SCARY BUT IT’S JUST A TECHNICAL WORD FOR NORMAL AGING! The spine begins to undergo completely normal, age-related changes at around age 13, and by our 40’s, our spine has already gone through a LOT of changes that we may not even be aware of. Normal age-related…

The Top Myths About Osteoarthritis OA Myths and FactsMYTH: I should be worried about seeing osteoarthritis on my X-Ray or MRI reports. ————— FACT: Joints change over time just like the rest of your body. These joint changes are called osteoarthritis. They are poorly related to pain. MYTH: Osteoarthritis is…

When it comes to treating pain in athletes, the world-wide consensus is that we are not treating it appropriately with the current healthcare model. Organizations ranging from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and US Military have put out official statements that athletes in pain,…