Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is an adjective. It describes a certain array of symptoms. We are going to get more into the cause of fibromyalgia, because therein lies the solution.

Many people look for a thing, like a bug or gene, to explain fibromyalgia. Instead, e see fibromyalgia as a predictable, physiological condition similar to large bicep muscles being a predictable, physiological reaction to lifting weights. We see similar physiology in about half the population, but not to the same degree of a person who has reached the threshold to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

How Fibromyalgia Develops

During the decades leading up to fibromyalgia, the eventual victim is unsuspecting. Basically, this person is running on adrenaline which fuels their need for high intensity mental focus.

On the right is a scheme we created to show how the brain normally focuses. Notice that those black lines within the thalamus, which are filters. When a person is reading a book, those filters are closed in all areas, except for those areas of the brain that correspond to the book. In other words, when one is reading a book, they are ignoring the TV, traffic, their hair, and everything else except the book. The way the brain does this is by closing the corresponding filters.

But during a crisis all these filters are open. That is why when you almost get into a car accident, you remember in vivid detail the event, even years or decades later. The person in the fibromyalgia line has all the filters open for decades.

You can see this illustrated on the left. In other words, this hyper-alert state illustrated on the left becomes the default mode.of operation

As an aside, in almost every case this person has a long history of right brain dominance, often with a background in music. The violin would be the most right brained instrument we know of. The point here is that the brain becomes skewed in the direction of allowing information in, and much weaker at sending information out of the brain, causing further potential for the aforementioned hyper-alert state. To further illustrate our point, every fibromyalgia sufferer we have ever seen feels overwhelmed for the simple reason that their brain is inundated with information.

The cardiovascular system then adapts in the same way the brain adapts. This is very complex so we will just say that the blood vessels must adapt to allow blood pressure to the brain. Mental stress requires such. In the end, they end up with paradoxically with constricted blood vessels to the brain, and low blood volume. We have an entire section dedicated to this on our exercise physiology section.

But we only understand a small percentage of what goes on. What we do know is that every aspect of our physiology, including digestion, immune function and other behind the scenes events simply operate in the corresponding gear to accommodate whatever you are doing. We shouldn't be surprised to end up with a physiology adapted to mental focus if that is what you do all the time.

The Crash

Every bubble bursts. The key problem with sprinting a marathon is that it is not sustainable. It is great to sprint for a few seconds, but not for a marathon. The body must crash for it's survival.

Adrenal fatigue is maybe the easiest to understand component of the crash. Basically, adrenaline is partly involved with fueling the high intensity physiology. But as the adrenaline levels in the blood stay high, the adrenal glands shrink.

Hence, the crash. Now, the one trick the unsuspecting future fibromyalgia victim had become accustom to turning to, being stress, is no longer available to them. All the pain and the low energy that was covered up by the turbo boost button that no longer functions is now exposed. Essentially, that is the cause of fibromyalgia.

The reason it is so important to understand fibromyalgia this way is because you will immediately understand that you need to train your physiology. More specifically, you need to train your normal, as opposed to your high intensity physiology. In even more simply terms, you need to train every aspect of your physiology to work like an endurance athlete. That is what we show you how to do.

But most sufferers see themselves as a victim of bad luck, bad genes, or some bug. They then proceed to look for someone to fix them with some technique. But that will never work long-term any more than getting a massage will prepare Lance Armstrong for the Tour de France. Only riding can do that. So please learn more, and consider implementing our training advice and don’t waste precious time spending a lot of money on things that do very little.