Feel Calmer, Move Better

Do you often feel tight or restricted in your body - with or without accompanying pain?

Most of us have felt that on occasion, or even often, sadly - let’s be honest.

Has is been something that keeps returning time and time again despite your efforts to resolve it - exercise, massage, chiropractic or physiotherapy perhaps?

Frustrating, isn’t it. Like we are stuck in a cycle that just to keep us going at the current level, we need to constantly keep it “topped up” with a doze of something.

Don’t get me wrong: exercise and massage are all really, really great things. But if we are stuck in the same old cycle of “feel pain - use XYZ to aleviate it - enjoy life a bit more - wait for same pain to return”, then isn’t XYZ not getting to the root cause of the problem?

If you went to your GP to get some meds for your headache, and the same pain returned again and again, would you not look for a deeper reason and a different solution for the underlying problem?

I have spoken at length here about pain and why it arises. Simply put, treat this as a message from the brain that it cannot cope any further. But what about movement restrictions?

With that, here is another question. Do we think that a muscle is normally “just tight” and the right amount of stretching would put that right?

To answer this, we backtrack and put forth this notion that many of us are not really aware of.

That the tightness of muscles is not set by the local area all by itself - but by our brain.

It is a nervous system decision to tighten up a muscle. A safety decision.

(Same as with pain, actually - whether or not to give us pain).

Here is what our brain does:

1. Receive input from the outside world through our senses (vision, smell, touch, our position in space, etc)

2. Assesses that input and decides what needs to be done: it is safe or dangerous, and what to do about it

3. Creates a response: movement, a hormone response, or an emotion.

The quality of sensory input that our brain gathers is of key importance here. If it is uncertain, the brain is not happy with that, as its decision making can be compromised.

What are the example of lower quality input? Things like vision problems (blurred vision), or dizziness affecting our ability to judge where we are in space and are we about to fall over… or scarring in the body, as it changes how our brain senses the quality of our movement patterns around the surgically disrupted area.

Habitual stress changes things - it impacts the way the brain processes the information, as everything feels dangerous - because we are already conditioned to feel the danger in life all the time. A "danger" lens is put on the brain's assessing glasses, so to speak.

If the sensory input is not of great quality, there is more uncertainty, which the brain interprets that as more risky. It would want to protect us against the outside world in case something happens to us.

And one of the best ways to help us stay safe is to restrict our movement capabilty. To weaken our muscle strength output so we don’t end up running a marathon if we are not ready, or tighten up that shoulder in case we over-use it.

This is one way in which tightness can arise.

It is a protective response to unclear information - or information perceived as dangerous.

Another way, of course, is through habitual movement - or lack thereof.

Let’s say, we sit a lot during the day. The brain also assesses, looking at our daily schedule, does our daily demands include lots of hip and shoulder mobility? It finds that no, given how we move week after week, month after month, this does not seem necessary.

So, to keep things efficient, the brain restricts the amount of movement capacity in under-used muscles. We stiffen up.

And here is another, very important way. Emotionally-driven restrictions are a real thing.

Imagine there had been a past injury and a history of associated pain. Tissues take about 6 weeks to fully heal, so after that, there should be no pain in the injured area. However, protective tightness can persist, as our nervous systems remembers that things in that area were not doing so well. We guard that site. We recall the injury - that did not feel good or safe - and unconsciously avoid moving into a risky range.

Let’s say, we badly sprain an ankle. Our ligaments still retain a sense of having been over-stretched, our brain recalls that coming off that curb resulted in a lot of pain. It will be careful in future how we position our ankle, and retains encoding in our nervous system about avoidance.

Sometimes, even talking about a bad injury brings about powerful strong emotions that we are aware of. Oftentimes, the emotion is more fleeting, but there is still a measurable bodily response.

Something I work with every single day, clearing the nervous system imprint of injuries, affecting our movement.

And whilst clearing those specific instances, simple and powerful that it is, is a process I work with on a 1-1 basis, there is something extremely useful for all of us that we can benefit from right away.

Better handling of stresses in our daily life, more peace and calm results in our brain assessing our environment in a more accurate way, and less resulting tension for protective reasons.

Which is why I also do cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy and emotional release work to help bring your system into greater balance.

Today, I will share a relaxation track that you can use time and time again to help release tension and detach from stressful thoughts.

I hope you find it useful.

If you send me a Contact me form via my website here:

https://www.move-beyond.co.uk/contact

and let me know you would like a link to the relaxation recording, I will send this to you by return!

To book a session to review your bodily tension patterns, or to help with anxiety and confidence issues, please contact me on

kaye@move-beyond.co.uk or 07768 135481.

To your health

Kaye