At Bristol University Freshers’ Fair – also called the ‘Welcome Fair’ – last year I gave dozens of students a free taster of the Alexander Technique, and spoke to many more about its benefits.

Many students suffer from back or neck pain, caused by habits such as sitting at desks for long hours. Physical tension and mental anxiety also arise from a lack of strategies to deal with exam stress.

The Alexander Technique can help with many of the diverse challenges that university life brings. That’s because the Alexander Technique demonstrates, on a very practical level, that you don’t need to be at the mercy of the stimuli around you. You can the learn the very real skills of:

– saying ‘no’ to your habitual reactions to the things in your life causing you stress;
– allowing a different response, one that is far more congruent with your overall wellbeing.

I am currently offering free taster sessions to university students at my studio in central Bristol. And to read more about this unique, powerful and evidence-based method, you can read my own ‘About AT’ summary.

Good luck to all students as they enter the exam season!

The Alexander Technique is well-known as a treatment for back pain. In fact, the best research on the subject to date (published in the British Medical Journal) concluded that ‘a series of six lessons in Alexander technique combined with an exercise prescription seems the most effective and cost effective option for the treatment of back pain in primary care’.

But does Alexander Technique actually treat back pain? I’ve been doing some DIY recently, and I’d like to use a simple analogy to suggest that the Alexander Technique does not actually treat back pain! What do I mean by that?

If you’ve ever used a jigsaw like the one in the image above, you’ll know that it has the potential to cause you a lot of pain. However, it also has various safety features such as a blade guard.

Would you say that the blade guard on a jigsaw treats pain? Likewise, would you say that the various steps you take before and during its use – such as wearing gloves and safety goggles, using a workbench or clamps and checking the location of the blade and electric cord – also treat pain?

Plainly, these would be silly statements to make. However, the relationship between the Alexander Technique and pain is pretty similar. The Alexander Technique is a preventive method which stops you doing the things to yourself which cause pain and injury. It is about the skilful ‘Use of the Self’ which is, incidentally, the title of one of FM Alexander’s most famous books.

If you’ve never considered yourself as an ‘instrument’ that needs some TLC in the way you use it, this can be quite a revelation. Simply put, if you ‘use’ yourself well, then the potential for pain and injury diminishes substantially.

This is the field of enquiry which Alexander opened up over a hundred years ago, and from which you can benefit today.