02/25/2026
This month I have decided to offer a Constructive Rest session to help with chronic pain, which for many of us is intricately connected with stress.
Over the last several months I've been using ideas from Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) for myself. I explored this mindful process to see if it would help me with chronic migraines, which I'd had for decades. To my amazement it turned out to be very helpful to me indeed. In fact it seems to be the missing piece of the puzzle for me in managing and potentially eliminating these migraines. It's been eight months since I started working with the process, and I've only had one migraine during that time. Before that I was struggling with them several times a week, only managing because of potent migraine medicine, and I was getting concerned I was becoming reliant on it more and more often.
I learned how to work with PRT process from a book we read in my book group last year - The Way Out by Alan Gordon - and, to be honest, the results feel nothing short of miraculous to me. The book was recommended to me by a wonderful doctor of osteopathy here in Wilmington - Dr. Seth Torregiani - who is trained in this process himself. The ideas complement those of the Alexander Technique, and I feel like I'd already laid a good basis for the pain reprocessing therapy to be effective. The process is for any chronic pain - the author solved his own back pain - and there have been studies that show its efficacy for many people.
This information, from their website, gives you an idea of what it's about:
"About 1.5 billion people worldwide suffer from chronic pain, but many do not have to. Recent neuroscience breakthroughs show that most chronic pain results from the brain misinterpreting safe messages from the body as if they were dangerous. Research has found that the brain has the power to generate pain even in the absence of physical damage.
"Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) is a system of psychological techniques that retrains the brain to accurately interpret and respond to signals from the body, breaking the cycle of chronic pain. Although various treatments aim to manage pain, PRT stands apart as an evidence-based treatment to eliminate pain."
If you're interested in a Constructive Rest session including ideas to help you specifically work with chronic pain, this session is for you. Please note, the advice is to only work with pain sensations when they're mild to moderate at most, NOT when you're in severe pain.
The session is taking place on Friday, February 27 from 2:30-3:00 p.m. US Eastern Time and everyone who signs up gets the recording, so even if the time doesn't work out for you, you can do it in your own time and use the audio as much as you want afterwards.
While the process is not a one-time deal, I hope this session will give you a taste of some of the key ideas from PRT, and specifically the way I use them in combination with my own Alexander Technique practice and BodyIntelligence approach.
When you work with the PRT over time, however, it gives your brain and nervous system time to adjust to the new messages around the painful sensations.
If you're interested in the session, here are the details:
Guided Constructive Rest for Stress Relief
Friday, February 27, 2026
2:30-3:00 PM US Eastern Time / 1:30 PM Central / 11:30 AM Pacific
7:30 PM UK / 8:30 PM Germany
Zoom / Recording Provided
More information and register at: https://imogenragone.com/constructive-rest-for-stress-relief/
To be clear, I'm not a trained pain reprocessing therapist. I'm sharing the way I work with the process within the context of my own AT thinking. I hope it may be helpful to others, and if it piques your interest and curiosity, I'd highly recommend the book as a starting point to work with it more on your own. Of course, my Constructive Rest talk may become part of the process for you!
I hope you will check it out and join me.
