Dr Sarno’s 12 Daily Reminders - the ‘commandments’ for people with TMS!

This resource is meant to get back to the basics, by giving you the 12 daily reminders Dr John E Sarno came up with when he was educating patients about Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS).

These reminders practically summarise the Sarno method and are meant for people who have either received the TMS diagnosis from a medical practitioner, or for those who have come to the conclusion that their pain is vey likely to be TMS (after identifying with a TMS personality and taking the necessary tests to exclude any serious illnesses like cancer or infection in the affected areas ).

Dr Sarno 12 Daily Reminders

1. The pain is due to TMS, not to a structural abnormality

2. The direct reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation

3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by my repressed emotions

4. The principal emotion is my repressed ANGER

5. TMS exists only to distract my attentions from the emotions

6. Since my back (replace with whatever pain you’ve got) is basically normal there is nothing to fear

7. Therefore, physical activity is not dangerous

8. And I MUST resume all normal physical activity

9. I will not be concerned or intimidated by the pain

10. I will shift my attention from pain to the emotional issues

11. I intend to be in control-NOT my subconscious mind

12. I must think Psychological at all times, NOT physical.

These 12 daily reminders were published in Sarno’s most popular book, Healing Back Pain, which you can buy on practically any online bookshop today. They are still incorporated in most TMS healing programs today, including my own Pain Free Breakthrough Program as well as my TMS Coaching approach.

The only difference today is that there are new discoveries in neuroscience that are backing up the Sarno method, as well as additional tools and exercises that can speed up TMS recovery. These include meditations to calm down the nervous system, as well as pain reprocessing exercises aimed at teaching the individual to respond differently to the pain.

Pain Free Breakthrough: Sarno’s method and more, in an intensive DIY Program!

To make it easier for people who would like to give TMS recovery their 100%, I have created a comprehensive online program that applies Sarno’s method, combining it with additional insights, set weekly tasks and techniques to work with the brain’s neuroplasticity and reduce stress and anxiety in your life.

Pain Free Breakthrough was born from this one ambition: to make Sarno’s work more easily to understand and apply by providing a structured approach that is easy for you to follow.

With weekly tasks and exercises that will get you to do the work on yourself, this option works well if you’d like to pursue TMS recovery on your own and you’re determined to stay on track!

A closer look at a couple of Sarno’s reminders

Since these 12 Tension Myositis Syndrome daily reminders were published in Sarno’s Healing Back Pain TMS practitioners have come up with additional techniques to help overcome the condition, thus expanding on the Sarno method. Let’s expand on a couple ourselves.

Numbers 1 & 2 - The first step is recognising that the pain is ONLY due to TMS. There is no point accepting that there is ‘TMS’ but still allowing for the possibility that your body is still injured or damaged. This is one of the most common mistake people with TMS make - they really want to accept the TMS diagnosis, but something deep inside still rejects it, because it’s still difficult to believe that intense physical symptoms can have a totally psychological origin.

Reminder number 2 explains why we feel pain - according to Sarno, a mild oxygen deprivation in the area (or not enough blood flow) may cause extreme pain, without actually causing any damage. Today, there are other explanations with regard to the true causes of chronic pain, as it’s been discovered that physical alternations in the brain (often due to distressing experiences) correlate to the presence of pain. That said, changes in the brain can naturally affect our sensations on a tissue level.

Number 3 - (TMS is harmless). What Sarno means by ‘harmless’ is that people with TMS have healthy muscles and nerves, and that the pain does not mean that their bodies are permanently damaged.

Reminding yourself about this will help you with reminders 7 and 8 - since TMS is harmless, then you need not fear physical activity, because there’s no injury or degenerative condition that you can make worse.

Number 4 - ‘Anger’ may not be the only emotion behind chronic pain. It is true that anger is powerful and can cause a lot of harm when repressed, which may manifest in TMS symptoms, however one must also remember that TMS pain is fuelled and kept alive by other emotions and phenomenon, such as fear, self-pity, helplessness, resentment and the Nocebo effect.

Numbers 7 and 8 - these often pose the biggest challenge when dealing with TMS. A lot of people may accept the TMS diagnosis, but still fear physical activity. They would be expecting the pain to decrease while being overly careful of their movements, avoiding certain activities that they think may cause pain.

In this way, they are sending two contradictory messages to the brain - one that their pain is only TMS and is harmless, and the other that their body is damaged and prone to get worse with physical activity. As every neuroscientist and psychoanalyst knows, you cannot succeed with anything if you are sending two conflicting messages to the brain.

Of course, there are some precautions to be taken to ensure that you reintroduce your body to physical activity a bit more gradually and naturally, to avoid giving your brain and body a shock. One idea is to resume all basic activities first (such as carrying one shopping bag or mopping the floor for a short time), before moving on to workouts or sports.

But ultimately, if you do have TMS and would like to improve 100%, then you’ve got to be ready to pursue a more vigorous exercise without fear (I will never forget how my pain went away totally once I broke into a run one night - I had been making progress over the course of 5 weeks as I followed a structured TMS program, but until I broke into that run, I still had some aches here and there).

It was running without fear that sent the best signal to my brain, that my body was fully capable of being very active because it was not damaged!

Number 9 - this is another tough one. How can you not be concerned when you’re in pain every single day? Admittedly, not being worried about your pain and its consequences is hard work, since we all want to get better or at least see some progress. This is where techniques like mindfulness, acceptance and pain reprocessing come in.

Although you cannot ignore the pain, you could perceive and react to it differently. I focus a lot on this aspect in my one-to-one TMS coaching sessions, since I believe that changing your emotions and reactions with regard to your pain is crucial to healing.

The rest of John Sarno’s 12 daily reminders are rather self-explanatory. With regard to the theory of oxygen deprivation, there have some debates lately as to whether that is the only factor involved in TMS pain. Studies in neuroscience have been showing physical changes in the brain that are linked to chronic pain, which goes to show that there likely is more than one factor at play.

Are you missing out on any of Sarno’s reminders?

And now that we’ve recapped these powerful ‘commandments’, will you stop for a second and reflect on the extent to which you’ve been applying them. Take a minute to read them through again, let them sink in, and remember, TMS recovery is very possible!

And if you already know Sarno’s daily reminders by heart but still struggle with the pain, check out my Pain Free Breakthrough Program, which is the most intensive, self-paced recovery program I’ve created.