In this video I'll show you some exercises I commonly use for neck and shoulder pain. Please take a look at my other posts, and you can also subscribe to my health and fitness blog so you don't miss any posts in the future.
CAN YOU FEEL IT?
SENSATION AND PERCEPTION
11th February 2021
In this post, I'm going to explain sensations and perceptions, i.e. what we can and can't feel and why
Hi guys, Carl Green Fitness 4 Life Physio here, and I’ve been empowering adults to improve their health and their fitness since 2002. You’ll find loads more information on my website www.fitness4lifephysio.com.
But for now let’s get stuck into today’s topic, and if you like what you see please share on social media, or you can subscribe, including my mailing list so you don’t miss future posts.
Contents
Okay so let’s get stuck in…so we’re going to talk about three main things:
What is the difference between sensations and perceptions?
Why we need to be able to feel and make sense of changes going on inside and outside of the body?
What things can cause changes to bodily sensations and perceptions and how those things work?
Then we’ll bring it all together in a little summary at the end and talk about what’s next.
What is the difference between human sensation and perception?
Okay guys, it’s a really big topic so I’m just going to try and go through some of the key points.
So, what is the difference between sensation and perception? To simplify, sensation is the stimulus our body can sense, and perception is how we make sense of that stimulus.
So let’s do an example to put the two together:
If you take your finger close your eyes and I want you to touch your nose and then take your finger away from your nose. So, close your eyes and move your finger to and from your nose. Now, just by doing that, we took away some of our senses, such as sight, and we’re having to use other senses.
Now, if you’re touching your nose effectively and you’re not missing and poking yourself somewhere else, then your systems are working really well. That means that your receptors in your arm are telling it where it is by sensing changes to muscles and tissue lengths, so shortening and lengthening of tissues and joint position changes. It’s sensing all of that information and it’s telling you where you are in space. Then the other thing its doing, is when you make contact with your nose you can feel that you’re touching your nose.
So, that’s telling you that all those stimuli are being sensed by your receptors which send electrical impulse through your nervous system that’s going up to your brain. Then your brain’s making sense of it all and tells you where you are and what’s going on.
Why do we need to feel and make sense of changes inside and outside of the body?
Well, for inside our bodies, if we’re not aware of what’s changing, we’re not aware of what we’re doing with ourselves, in terms of controlling movement like we talked about earlier but also in terms of changes that might be causing us harm, such as if we’ve had injuries or something happened to us, we want to have a sense of where something has changed in order for us to seek the right course of action.
So, it’s a protective mechanism, and it’s also a learning mechanism, and that’s even more true when we think of outside of our bodies. So, we’re learning to be able to interact with the environment around us so hot things, cold things, different textures, and being able to do lots and lots of different things really.
It’s about learning and interacting with the world, and about keeping the body a good balance and being aware of changes with our health and our function.
What can cause changes to our bodily sensations or perceptions?
Now finally, let’s talk about a few examples of ways that these systems for sensing and perceiving can be affected. So, there’s scenarios where we’d have damaged to tissues you might have an injury things like strains and sprains. Or back pain, neck pain with nerve irritations (some nerve root irritations or trapped nerves) causing sciatica (in the leg) or brachialgia (which is the equivalent in the arm) and all of these sorts of things, and lots of others, can cause changes to the way those nerves are stimulated.
With injuries, things like strains and sprains, there have also been some changes to the anatomy in your body, and these receptors have got to readjust to sense and be more accurate on what’s going on within the body. They’ve got to re-learn in a way, and adjust their levels, and the brain’s representation of what’s going on in the body also has to relearn, because that’s changed too.
Other conditions could be things like neurological conditions, like stroke, when there is a bleed in the brain affecting the opposite side of the body, and you can have altered sensations due to that as well. It was actually my stroke rehab class I run online on a Thursday afternoon at half two that suggested this post, so that’s why I’m doing this one as my first one.
The good news is that our brains and our bodies are really good at relearning. Okay, so whether you’ve had a stroke, or whether you’ve had any of those other things that I’ve mentioned (injuries etc.), we should be able to start relearning. This involves a process of using different types of stimulation, different types of textures, temperatures, and different movements, to slowly and progressively (in a structured way) build up the body’s senses and perceptions again.
Now, whether you get back to where you were before your injury or health condition is really hard to know, but certainly by practicing those things in a very strategic way can be really useful and something we use a lot in physiotherapy.
Conclusion and What Next?
Okay, so we’ve talked about sensation and perception and what they are, we’ve talked about why we need them, and we’ve also talked about a few examples of things that can change how those systems work as well. There are lots of other examples, things like circulation can have a role as well, but I’m not going to go into all of those, as I want to keep this quite short. Hopefully that covers some of the key points for you and you’ve learned something and found it useful.
Please do share with others on social media, and if you have any feedback, I’d love to hear from you, genuinely really would. So please go onto my website at www.fitness4lifephysio.com and there’s a contacts page to contact me, maybe with suggestions or any questions that you have. Perhaps I’ll do a post based on your ideas in the future, like I did with my stroke class this time. I’d love to hear from you.
You can also subscribe to my newsletters as well, so that’s an email notification when I send out new posts like this, or you can subscribe if you’re on YouTube.
All the best guys, take care, and hopefully see you again soon.
Carl Green, Fitness 4 Life Physio
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Loving Carl's Zoom stroke exercise class. There are always options available to make the exercises suitable for everyone. Highly recommend his weekly class. Thank you Carl.
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Loving Carl's Zoom stroke exercise class. There are always options available to make the exercises suitable for everyone. Highly recommend his weekly class. Thank you Carl.
Pamela irving
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I am a part of a stroke group and Carl is giving us training and therapy on zoom. He has a real understaning of what it is like to have a stroke and give us the appropriate exerecsie for our needs. He is a patient and very calm person and always ready to help. Thanks Carl
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Carl provided a fantastic sports massage service, saw him twice during a recent visit to Felixstowe, he was flexible around my arrival time, was super organised, punctual and massage was spot on. Would not hesitate to recommend Carl for anyone needing Physio / Sports Massage in the Ipswich / Felixstowe area.
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I am a part of a stroke group and Carl help us every week. He is very professional and never boring. He has a calm manner, and varies our program every time and he always create different ways to make exercise fun.
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I went to see Carl after tearing my hamstring at rugby . He went above and beyond to help get me back to fitness , initially so I could go away snowboarding then when I returned continuing to get back to full fitness . I would recommend his Knowledgable services to anyone
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I saw Carl when I had Sciatica and was in a lot of pain. He was extremely professional, knowledgeable and helped when the pain was at its worst. He gave me some great after care advice as well which I still use now and am pleased to say I am still pain free. Would highly recommend and would use again myself.
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Carl helped me when I had inflammation and sharp pain in my Achilles, he diagnosed me straight away and started treating the pain immediately which was a massive relief. Carl gave me specific exercises to work on inbetween sessions which I still include in my workouts today. Carl was very professional and extremely knowledgeable, his treatment room was comfortable and his booking system was easy to use. His service was very personal which I found lacking when visiting other physios . Would highly recommend
Sean Ryan
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I saw Carl when I was suffering from plantar fasciitis. He sorted out a rehabilitation programme, demonstrated excellent understanding of my needs to get back onto the netball court as quickly as possible and explained clearly what exercises would help. He is knowledgeable about many sports and injuries, as well as being available for advice around training and strength and conditioning. I will certainly seek out his advice in the future.
Annabel Bennett
- I saw Carl when I was suffering from plantar fasciitis. He sorted out a rehabilitation programme, demonstrated excellent understanding of my needs to get back onto the netball court as quickly as possible and explained clearly what exercises would help. He is knowledgeable about many sports and injuries, as well as being available for advice around training and strength and conditioning. I will certainly seek out his advice in the future.
Annabel Bennett
- I am a part of a stroke group and Carl is giving us training and therapy on zoom. He has a real understaning of what it is like to have a stroke and give us the appropriate exerecsie for our needs. He is a patient and very calm person and always ready to help. Thanks Carl
Brian Sheppard
- I saw Carl when I had Sciatica and was in a lot of pain. He was extremely professional, knowledgeable and helped when the pain was at its worst. He gave me some great after care advice as well which I still use now and am pleased to say I am still pain free. Would highly recommend and would use again myself.
Martin Cumberland
- I became a client of Carl's earlier this year after suffering a calf injury playing rugby. After the extremely professional assessment; medical history, previous injuries, level of physical activity, current physical stats etc. I was given a detailed but easy to follow plan of rehabilitation. No pressure was put upon me to have any follow up appointments; literally my choice if I felt the need for further treatment. I took the opportunity to book a further treatment straight away. Through the careful management of my injury by Carl, sports massage, specific area exercise and monitoring by him, I was able to resume playing rugby again within an incredibly short time frame that I didn't think would've been possible. I can thoroughly recommend Carl for anything from a small niggle to major injury as you'll be seen by the best.
Stephen Barrett
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Chris Stennett
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