Stress & Chronic Illness

Stress can contribute to the maintenance of muscle tightness (somatic dysfunctions) by keeping the nervous system hyper-sensitized.  There are many types of stress including:

MENTAL, EMOTIONAL, PHYSICAL, POSTURAL, NUTRITIONAL, HORMONAL, CHEMICAL, etc.

Any one of these, or combinations of them, will eventually cause the sympathetic nervous system (our fight or flight response) to become highly sensitized thus aggravating and perpetuating the pain problem.

STRESS MANAGEMENT EDUCATION can help identify the major “stressors” and come up with ways to rectify, cope and  release the stress. Just dealing with chronic pain, day after day, is itself a physical, mental and emotional, stress combination.

ACTIVITY AND EXERCISE EDUCATION helps deal with physical and postural stressors. Gentle, non-painful stretching exercises help restore mobility to tight, painful areas. Repeated stretching also sends an ongoing message to the nervous system to relax, let go, ease up! Ergonomic corrections for home and/or work can often dramatically reduce postural stressors. Gradually increasing activities, and non-painful exercise without flaring the pain, allows the nervous system and muscles, to remember what “normal” feels like.

NUTRITIONAL EDUCATION can often help identify dietary stressors to the neuromuscular system. For example, calcium is a key mineral for proper muscle contraction; deficiencies can maintain muscle tightness. Another example would be refined sugars which are irritants to the nervous system. Dietary changes and appropriate supplements may be very helpful in cleansing the body and restoring normal neurological, hormonal and immune system function.

ENERGY EDUCATION may also help with the healing process. When the body is tired, run down or depleted, it doesn’t have enough energy to heal itself; it may only have enough to “get you through the day”. Increasing the body’s energy may consist of “hands on treatment”, Bioenergetics and Nutritional Assessment, dietary changes, and/or counseling at the body, mind or spirit level.