How stressed are you? That’s a good question to ask yourself regularly, particularly during challenging times. Recognising stress is definitely something you want to learn how to see in yourself, so that you can regulate, and manage, your responses to it.
I am sure you will no doubt be familiar with the fact that stress causes our muscles to tense. Or rather that our brain instructs our muscles to tense in response to stressful event or situations. These muscular contractions are involuntary, they happen automatically, often we are not even aware of them occurring. Like for example, the slow accumulation of stress and tension as a work deadline looms.
Other times it is more blatantly obvious, for example if you have a near miss when driving or get some kind of a fright.
Interestingly, even just thinking about stressful events or situations can trigger this response too. Such as say, ruminating over an argument, a perceived wrong or a nerve-racking interview.
If we know muscle tension is an automatic response to stress, we can use muscle tension as a good indicator of how stressed we are. And conversely, we can use an absence of muscle tension as a good indicator of how relaxed we are.
So How Can We Assess Muscle Tension?
It is really very easy to assess yourself for muscle tension. All you need is your own hands. Tense, tight, contracted muscles feel stiff and hard, they will often be tender and sore to touch too. They make your movements feel stiff and restricted. Knots in your muscles are also merely contracted muscle fibres, small sections of the muscle that are habitually contracted.
Relaxed muscles on the other hand are soft, pliable and pain free. They will not be sore to the touch and they allow for free and easy movement. Fully relaxed muscles also will not have knots of tension in them.
So armed with this simple information we can easily start to identify which parts of our body are the most tense, and where we tend to express our stress, by simple pressing on our muscles.
Let’s Find our Tight, Tense, Stressed Out Spots!
Whilst sitting (or standing) it’s very easy to take your right hand and press the muscles on the top of and to the rear of your left shoulder. Just like in the image below. In fact I’m sure many of you do this kind of thing instinctively already. When you do this, let your left arm hang loosely by your side.
Press gently on the top of the left shoulder moving your hand more inwards towards the neck and then more out towards the outermost part of your shoulder. You’ll likely find that parts of the shoulder are very hard, tight and uncomfortable to press on. That’s muscle tension! Make a note of these areas or spots.
Then, switch sides. Let your right arm hang loosely, then use your left hand to press on the muscles of your right shoulder in the same way described above. Again notice which areas are stiff, tight, hard and tender to touch. There may be some difference side to side. Just make a note.
All those areas that are hard, tight, and tender to touch on your shoulder are areas where the muscles are habitually contracted. Your brain is holding those muscles more tightly than is necessary. In Somatics this is called Sensory Motor Amnesia. Basically you/your brain have forgotten how to let these muscles relax.
Now allowing your right arm to hang loosely by your side, take your left hand again and press on your right chest muscle, from your sternum (the hard area in centre of your chest) all the way out to your armpit, and also all the way along under your collarbone from the centre out. Again your looking for areas that are hard, tight, tender and sore. If you find tender spots, make a note of them.
Then repeat this process on the other side, using your right hand to press on your left chest as you let your left arm hang loosely by your side.
You can do this all over your body, pressing gently and noticing where is hard and tight, and where is soft and relaxed.
You might be surprised at just how much of your body is stiff, hard, and tight. No wonder you feel stressed, and sore right?
By learning some simple Somatics movements called pandiculations ,you can learn to let go of these chronic patterns of tension and maintain a softer, looser and more relaxed body.
By Kerensa McKie, Chartered Physiotherapist at Physio & Therapies Ltd, Todmorden.
Yes, it is that time of year again… the sun is out, Wimbledon is on the TV and fine weather players are blowing the dust off their tennis rackets! So, it comes as no surprise that the tennis related injuries have started to appear at Physio & Therapies.
Like any physical activity you need to plan ahead and get fit for the season, this means starting with general fitness and then adding some specific tennis activities and exercises. Many issues with racket sports can be negated by making sure you get your body ready for the increased level of activity 6 weeks or more before the season starts. However, there are still things you can do if you are better at enthusiasm than planning!
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Did you know that 70% of the population won’t be taking over the counter or prescription medicines correctly?
Every day I see clients who have been to see their GP with various pain issues. Usually they have been prescribed anti-inflammatories; such as Ibuprofen, paracetamol or codeine phosphate. Despite being informed on a set dosage and course they are, in the majority, not following this advice. The usual comment I hear is that they “don’t like taking pills” or they “don’t want to mask the pain in case they make things worse” or they “do not want to become reliant on pills”. If people have collected the prescribed drugs they often only take some or one of the drugs issued. It is at this point I ask if the medicines are helping? Most say “No” and they only take a tablet when they feel their pain is bad enough.
And therein lies the problem. If you only take the medicines now and then or just one and not the other, you are usually wasting your time.
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Hi, I am Kerensa McKie at Physio and Therapies ltd. Today I am going to talk about a problem that has been coming up a lot recently …… what to do when or if you sprain your ankle.
Amazingly 25,000 people in the UK sprain their ankle every day!
So, I will be giving you 3 top tips for what to do to aid your recovery from this common injury.
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By Lynne Midwinter, Chartered Physiotherapist
With gardening listed as a hobby for over half the adult population of the UK there are a lot of people at risk of injury now that the weather is improving and the start of gardening season is here.
At Physio & Therapies the first warm weekends in the spring and early summer usually brings us a rash of injuries from back strain to stiff shoulders presenting at our clinic, so here is our advice on how to avoid unnecessary discomfort.
The most important piece of advice is to pace yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day and your garden won’t be either! Break jobs down into manageable chunks and give yourself the reward of a break with a cup of tea when you’ve done each part. It’s best to stop every hour for at least 10 minutes.
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Come and join me for a one day immersion into the wonderful world of Homeopathy. Not sure what it is? How do you use it? How often do you take the remedies? Are they safe? All these themes will be explored during the day ensuring that you will go home a more confident prescriber, able to treat minor acute health problems.
Using it myself in a first-aid situation was how I discovered Homeopathy and experienced first hand its efficient and gentle capacity to restore health.
Lets go back to April 2012….I had landed a job cheffing on a yoga retreat in Greece for 3 weeks over Easter. Sounds great doesn’t it? And it was, but it was REALLY hard work. Cooking for 40 people everyday and evening is a difficult task, coupled with the Mediterranean heat it meant I wasn’t getting enough sleep and not enough sleep plus hard work takes its toll on the body.
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In today’s post I am going to give you a few tips on how to help yourself when you have achy, tender knots in your muscles.
Muscle knots appear in various muscles in the body and are known as trigger points. You can tell if you have one because if you press or squeeze them they can hurt! Often a lot! They can also radiate pain into another part of your body, so you might squeeze your leg muscle but feel a pain in your foot, for example. Here at Physio and Therapies they are one of the most common things we find when we assess clients who come for help with a wide range of problems.
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About this time in January of each year, Physiotherapists start to see the ‘new year resolution’ injuries. So today I am going to have a little rant about over doing it. I will give you some top tips on how to stay safe while you are getting fitter. So what is a New Year resolution injury? Well you know how…
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When arriving to do my ‘Women’s Health’ elective placement in 2000, I thought I’d observe Pregnancy classes, talk to ladies about bladder care, teach exercises to do after a Hysterectomy, and teach Pelvic Floor exercises. To my horror, I met my clinical educator for the next 6 weeks… coming out of fracture clinic with a BROKEN right arm! So I became her right hand, LITERALLY! That afternoon, she guided me through a vaginal examination of a new mum with weak pelvic floor muscles and leakage after having her baby; rectal Biofeedback on a 25 year old gentlemen who had been in a diving accident which left his anal sphincter weak and we examined a lady with a vaginal prolapse and taught her how to manage it. From then on I was hooked and most of my training since has centred around Pelvic Floor/Continence.
‘Women’s Health’ is now more often called ‘Pelvic Health’, in many hospitals/clinics not only because it is a more accurate description, but in sympathy with the poor men having to hide at the back of the waiting room of the ‘Women’s Health’ clinic!
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Somatics – movement education
There is a damaging belief prevalent among fitness fanatics that there is “no gain without pain”. We have been led to believe that you cannot have a good workout until you “feel the burn”, but doctors, physical therapists and bodyworkers tell us a very different story. That pain is, in fact, our body’s natural way of indicating something has gone awry. That pain is a flashing warning light on your body’s dashboard.
Another common misconception which is accepted in most people’s lives is the belief that as you age you will suffer more aches and pains. But what if a lot of those aches and pains are a result of chronically tight muscles?
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Many people lump Physiotherapy into the same category as less proven “alternative treatments” and it’s also confused with massage or chiropractic therapy. But Physiotherapy is different and this is the story of a Physio patient, Susan, in her own words.
“It was the prospect of being forced to give up cooking that made me try Physiotherapy. My hands and wrists had ached ever since I’d binged on note taking by hand and on my computer at college. My doctor gave me a blood test to rule out arthritis, but she had no idea what to do next. My husband, Andrew, had been urging me for years to try Physiotherapy, but I assumed I had the kind of permanent damage that nothing short of surgery could address. However, I knew that if my hands got much worse, I wouldn’t be able to cook—or make a living as a writer—so I finally made an appointment with a Physiotherapist.
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