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Online Help - July 2009
How Can Osteopathy Help With Stress?
Stress affects different people in different ways. Some have trouble sleeping; some, trouble eating; some get a stiff neck; and some develop breathing difficulties like hyperventilation, panic attacks or worsening of asthma symptoms.
The most obvious way in which osteopathy helps with stress is to relieve the superficial physical symptoms, for example a stiff neck, low back pain, RSI or carpal tunnel-type symptoms, with simple massage, stretching, and joint mobilisation.
Osteopaths can also help with headaches, which can be due to tight neck or shoulder muscles; migraines; jaw and facial pain from clenching or grinding teeth; sinus, eye and ear pain. These can all be due to purely mechanical stress, predisposed and maintained by a pre-existing dysfunction in the affected area.
But osteopathy is truly a holistic therapy, and so can also help with other stress-related disorders, from chronic anxiety to bowel dysfunction.
In the case of chronic anxiety and sleep disorders there is usually dysfunction of the adrenal glands, which produce adrenaline, the main “fight or flight” hormone. These sit on top of the kidneys, protected by the lower ribs in the back. Releasing tension in this area and restoring normal function can not only reduce activity of the adrenal glands, and therefore adrenaline production, by affecting the local nervous system, but also relieve any low back pain that accompanies the stress!
The diaphragm, the main muscle used for breathing, also attaches to the spine in this area, and is always involved in stress-related conditions, since our rate and rhythm of breathing changes as soon as we encounter any stressful situation (good or bad). Via extensive connective tissue and muscular chains, problems in the diaphragm can lead to other problems from headaches to loss of appetite or nausea to pelvic floor problems. Diaphragm problems can also present as dizziness, pins and needles, tightness or discomfort in the chest, low- or mid-back pain, or shoulder problems.
Bowel dysfunction can be helped by gentle abdominal treatment, where the osteopath may simply apply finger-tip pressure to specific points or a treatment which is more like a very gentle massage; similar techniques can also be effective in treating menstrual problems.
Apart from the physiological benefits of osteopathy, there are huge psychological benefits to having some “me” time, a quiet half hour lying down in a relaxing environment away from all your usual sources of distraction. Touch, in itself, has been shown by hundreds of scientific studies to have therapeutic effects of its own. The absolute beauty of osteopathy is the range of techniques we can use – treatment can be gentle, quiet and aimed at calming you physiologically and psychologically; or more stimulating, encouraging blood flow and giving vitality.
Why not give us a call today and see if we can help?
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