| | (Wasn't sure whether to put this in the Physical Practices category, but it's more a way to treat something insight-meditation seems to do.)
For a long time now, I've had a 'head-hardening' issue. I've heard it referred to as an 'iron skullcap', though that might be not exactly what I experienced. I figured it was something psychosomatic, as it would arise with stress (both in the mundane, non-buddhist sense and the buddhist sense), and wouldn't be there if I wasn't giving it inappropriate attention (which I usually was at it was so prominent), and wouldn't be there when close to a PCE.
Today I've been playing around with just moving around all the muscles in my face. It started when I noticed a smile forming, and as I held the smile, a tendency to yawn started arising. (I figure the yawning-when-smiling reflex occurs because smiling causes the body to make happy-chemicals, and when serotonin levels change it seems to make you want to yawn.) Either way, I held the smile, didn't 'give in' to the reflex to yawn (but didn't actively stop it, either), and... my facial muscles started twitching! In and around the smile.
Playing around with it more, I moved on to smiling, holding it in certain positions which caused twitching non-volitionally, volitionally moving the smile around, volitionally twitching various parts of my face... and I noticed there seemed to be a 'gap' in the movement. Like, if I tried to flex the muscles from the left side of my face to the right, it would be a mental movement left + left-twitch, mental movement across the middle with no twitch, and then a mental movement right + right-twitch. And, where the face didn't move... that's where the head-hardening started to happen! But playing around with it, if I intend something else so that my face does actually move at that middle point, then interesting things start happening (like stress being released) instead of just annoying painful head-hardening.
This seems promising. It's like learning how my face works. I think the face and head in general (this works with muscles around the skull too) is where there is a lot of 'me'-making, and this is kind of a way to break that off, to interrupt it... it seems head-hardening is an inappropriate attention to the face/head area (mental-only stress with no physical movement) and that trying to 'hold still' or 'watch it' can easily make it far worse.. but moving the muscles around in this way seems quite delightful and to break things up.
In summary: find a way to move your facial muscles around the spots where there is 'hardening', and attend to the (actual) muscles moving and not to the hardening. What seems to be good is a 'sweet spot' where you flex a certain way, and that part starts twitching on its own.. just follow the twitching. It seems that when it stops it causes a relaxation in that part of the face which seems like it will reduce further problems there.
Just thought I'd share as I've heard lots of yogis talking about this phenomenon. Would be interested to see if anyone benefits from doing this.
P.S. Probably shouldn't do this in public as you will look like you have some severe twitching disorder. |