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 Lynne Midwinter, Chartered Physiotherapist
How do you manage to do all the shopping, cook the turkey and survive the in-laws without injuring yourself in the process?
The run up to Christmas is fraught with difficulties – presents to buy, decorations to hang, cards to write and a million and one things to organise. Then over the holiday period most of us eat too much and then slouch in front of the television to watch the James Bond film for the 10th time! All of this can cause strains and sprains in even the fittest of us and often at Physio & Therapies we treat a number of people between Christmas and New Year with injuries caused by Christmas activities, or more often, inactivity!
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Whiplash has been in the media recently and is a term used to describe a neck injury caused by a sudden movement of the head forwards, backwards or sideways. It is common in road traffic accidents but may also be caused by sports injuries, falls or assaults. Most cases of whiplash injury occur as the result of rear-end vehicle collisions at speeds of less than 14 miles per hour.
Common symptoms of whiplash include:
- neck pain and stiffness
- tenderness over the neck muscles
- reduced and painful neck movements
- headaches
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By Steve Axell, Counsellor and Life Coach
‘Stuff’ happens in life, like difficulties with work or finances, the breakdown of a relationship, overwhelming family responsibilities, the death of a family member or friend, illness, accidents and unexpected setbacks. These challenges can become a rich source of learning and growth and shape us as people, or they can take a serious toll on our mental health and cause us to become stuck, anxious, isolated and even ill. Many of us, men particularly, have been conditioned to tough it out and struggle alone, to ‘Man-Up’, rather than admit weakness or vulnerability and seek help, until it becomes overwhelming and reaches crisis point. Of the 6,233 suicides recorded in the UK in 2013, (which is 3 times the number of people killed in traffic accidents) 78% were male and 22% were female.
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Women’s Sports Week is an opportunity to celebrate, raise awareness and increase the profile of women’s sport across the UK. During this week why not come to our ‘Have a go Pilates’ event to find out more and even try a few exercises on Wednesday 5th October 6pm – 8pm. Our Physios teach Modified Pilates which is a safe way to…
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The UK is home to 7 million unpaid carers. These are people who provide care and support to an ailing or disabled family member, friend or neighbour on an ongoing basis. They represent an unpaid and often invisible workforce that saves the Government a staggering £119 billion every year – more than the Government’s entire annual NHS expenditure.
Carers are often exposed to higher than usual levels of physical and emotional stress which puts their own health at risk. Many carers help the person they care for with physical tasks, such as getting in and out of the bed, bath or chairs. In addition to this, the role of carer, especially when caring for a spouse or close family member, can create unique emotional stresses.
Over 70% the UK’s unpaid carers now suffer from back pain, and are at greater risk of developing chronic pain, which is highly disabling in a third of cases and life-long for the majority.
The national back pain charity, BackCare has chosen ‘Caring for Carers’ as this year’s BackCare Awareness Week theme (3rd – 8th of October 2016) so it seems an ideal opportunity to share some back care advice with you all.
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Migraines are now listed in the top 20 disabilities by the World Health Organisation and a survey of over 120,000 households found that four out of ten females and two out of ten males respectively will experience Migraine at some stage in their lifetime – most likely before the age of 35 and that the greatest frequency of attacks are likely to occur between the ages of 20 and 24 years in females and 15 to 19 in males. The authors reported that these findings were in accordance with previous studies. (Stewart WF, Wood C, Reed ML, Roy J, Lipton RB. Cumulative lifetime migraine incidence in women and men. Cephalalgia 2008;28:1170-1178)
Clearly this is a significant problem for many people!
Historically Headache has been divided into two main types: Migraine (Migraine with and without aura and numerous variants) and Tension-type Headache.
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As the mother of a teenager, the prevalence of musculo-skeletal problems in teens is interesting to me and recently I’ve seen many more high school children presenting at my practice complaining of back pain, neck ache and headaches. With the new term starting soon I decided to analyse the research and prevalence of problems and try to offer some solutions.
Looking back one of the first articles I wrote for Todmorden News in 2008 was about the weight of school bags and how this affected children’s backs. Research carried out by Helen Behrens, a nurse and lecturer, had shown that 30% of children carried schoolbags weighing over 10% of their bodyweight. She reported that this placed unnecessary stress on the growing adolescent spine that, later in life, could be the cause of back pain. I believe that this is still a significant problem – neither of our local high schools have lockers for the students to use meaning that children carry heavy loads not only to and from school but throughout the school day including all their books for each day plus any PE kit, instruments for music lessons and ingredients for food technology.
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We all lead hectic and busy lifestyles; working long hours, family commitments, chores (or what I like to refer to as ‘adulting’), as well as the need to maintain a social life. Sound familiar? You’re not alone… these are all common barriers to exercise that lead us to convince ourselves that we are “too busy” for exercise, something which I have also been guilty of. The reality is, however, that we are not too busy, we just don’t prioritise it as highly as other events in our diary. We all make time for things that we really want to do, right? So here are some tips to help overcome these barriers:
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There is no denying the power of massage. Whether you view it as pampering, therapeutic, rejuvenating or just a lovely relaxing moment of ‘me’ time, massage therapy can be a powerful ally in your life.
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As I shouted at my TV yesterday willing Andy Murray on at Wimbledon, it reminded me about the conundrum of Tennis Elbow.
Tennis Elbow is officially caused by inflammation of the tendons on the outside of your elbow and is also called lateral epicondylitis. It is classed as an overuse injury and occurs when you do repeated movements and it gets worse if you keep doing the activity that causes the pain. It usually happens on your dominant side. So it is easy to see why it happens in tennis players- as they grip the racquet and then use their arm the tendon that extends the wrist and elbow (called the common extensor tendon) gets inflamed causing pain, swelling and can even make a crunching noise called crepitus.
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