Stress tires the body. ‘Acupressure mat? I am against anything that causes pain’.

I have a headache. I suspect it is from stress. How do I know I’m not wrong?

If we have disturbing and recurring symptoms – pain, nausea, pressure in the throat or chest, we must first rule out medical causes. Only then can one wonder if the underlying cause is psychological.

If you’ve been in pain for a long time, you need to take stock of what’s happened to you in the past few months, and then think about how you typically respond to stress. Does it manifest itself with somatic complaints or do we react in a more direct way – we scream or go for a walk to relax.

The more difficult situations we have recently experienced and the more often we have somatised before, i.e. instead of anger we felt a burning in our stomach and instead of sadness we felt tension in our eyebrow arches as in sinusitis, the more likely it is that today’s headache is also somatisation.

Somatisation is characteristic of children. In adolescence, the desomatisation process should end. So why as adults do we sometimes still somatise?

We respond to stress on two levels. The first is a physiological reaction that occurs in everyone regardless of age. When someone embarrasses or annoys us, our body starts the production of adrenaline, norepinephrine, and glucocorticosteroids, among others, which alter the functioning of all the organs. The second level is the response to these changes. It is dependent on age and mental characteristics. Children often get stomach aches and diarrhoea when they get nervous at school, while teens who have tamed difficult school situations admittedly still worry about them but have already developed ways to cope with the tension. However, if they do not admit to themselves what they feel, they will somatise more often.

This, of course, applies to adults as well.

Does this mean that if I realise that my head hurts because I am afraid of what is happening in Ukraine, it will stop hurting?

Becoming aware of your own feelings is the first step. The second is to allow ourselves to experience and to express them – to express sadness by crying, anger by raising our voice, fear by withdrawing or hiding.

So if I curl up under a blanket in reaction to fear, the discomfort is likely to pass?

Yes. The body knows best what is good for us – whether we need rest or activity. It is always on our side. The head supposedly wants to do well too, but it has many other goals besides, so it tries to get us to conform to societal expectations. The head says: ‘Go help the refugees, go help at the station’, and the body: ‘Hide under the blanket for now’.

I believe that if we do what the body says, both we and the environment will gain. If we ignore the needs of the body, such as allowing the boss to add to our responsibilities, overloading ourselves and not regenerating, somatic reactions to stress are perpetuated. Eventually there is also some disruption or damage to the organ.

What can you do when you have a stomach ache from stress?

It’s worth asking yourself what that aching stomach would say if it could. We may not always be able to say it honestly in front of the person who stressed us out, but we can release our emotions in front of a friend. Tell them that we feel disrespected or snubbed.

And how can we use the body to relieve mental tension? Stretching exercises for my neck muscles and lying down with my occiput laid out on a duoball help me. Surely there are other ways too, right?

Many. ‘Tension’ is the key word here, because our body, in order to deal with a threat, tenses its muscles and mobilises all systems. This happens automatically, whereas reversing the process requires conscious action. Techniques that help relax the body and lower stress levels are plentiful, but not all are good for everyone. One of the more popular and versatile ones is breathing exercises, but even these should not be performed in the same way by everyone.

What do you mean?

Many people will calm themselves by deepening and lengthening their breathing, but some people under stress start breathing so rapidly that they hyperventilate. Deepening their breath is not recommended in their case.

Which breathing exercises are simple enough to use without preparation?

The simplest breathing technique is to simply breathe. We should start by remembering to breathe at all. I say this because it seems to us that we are breathing always and everywhere, and it is very simple. Not at all, because when stressed, some people feel tightness in the chest or throat, and that means shortness of breath. So you need to start breathing consciously.

The idea is to concentrate on the inhale first, then on the exhale after a while, then on the inhale again?

Yes. I calm down and even out my breathing. After that, it is advisable to go through the next steps of initiation and learn more complicated techniques based on diaphragmatic breathing. By pulling air in and out, we force tight neck, chest and abdominal muscles to let go a little so that air can flow into the lower parts of the lungs, which will at least give us a chance to stop the tension from building up. Through breathing, we can use our voice to cope with a stressful situation, that is, to protest or call for help. If we can relax our throat a bit, the sound will be able to squeeze through. Another benefit of breathing exercises is oxygenation of the brain.

And massages and self-massages?

Massage is better, because the touch of another person is more soothing for us, but self-massage or taping also bring results. It is worth knowing that baths, especially in bathtubs or whirlpools, are also a type of self-massage.

What is taping?

It’s patting. For the body it is an impulse to move, it pulls it out of numbness, but it also helps calm down and increases the sense of security. If we want to soothe an infant, we often pat them on the back and shoulders. This is also how we express acceptance and affection towards people.

When you lie down on an acupressure mat, you have to relax or you won’t be able to stand the way it stings. Is it worth using self-massage devices?

I am against any activity that causes pain, even if it allows us to relax afterwards.

Do you not recommend rolling the thighs, back or arms with special rollers, which can be very painful but helps relax the muscles?

For me as a therapist, but also for Agnieszka Mościcka-Teske personally, these techniques are a kind of self abuse. I’m all for going with the body on a friendly basis rather than fighting it. However, there is no one method for everyone. There are some people who enjoy rolling because it actually relaxes the muscles. They may not like the techniques of reducing tension in the body that I like and appreciate, such as Schultz’s autogenic training, Jacobson’s progressive training or exercises that integrate the work of the brain hemispheres. Lying down and body scanning will be a punishment for them.

Please tell us about this training.

Both have been known for several decades and have been studied many times. We begin autogenic training by taking a comfortable position. It is best to lie down and close our eyes. Then we imagine that our subsequent body parts – from top to bottom – are becoming heavy: ‘The left hand is heavy, the right hand is heavy...’. Then we think of those parts of the body, including the solar plexus, becoming warm. We try to slow down the heart rate and feel the cold on our forehead at the end. Jacobson training is also done lying down. It involves tensing and relaxing individual muscles. The order does not matter.

With exercises that integrate the work of hemispheres, we activate asymmetrically different parts of the body or muscles, for example, draw circles in the air with one hand and squares with the other. In order for the brain to comprehend this situation, it must activate the corpus callosum, which connects and integrates the two hemispheres. This gives us access to more resources – different kinds of memories that can work to heal in a stressful situation, or long untapped but once proven ways of coping. When we are stressed, our memory often fails us and we find it difficult to use these resources. Integration training then comes to the rescue.

And how can we deal with stress if strong tension has been with us for a long time?

A regular lifestyle is important. You need to get enough sleep, eat properly and get regular rest. It’s good to learn in advance how to deal with sudden tension – learn the methods I mentioned so you can reach for them when needed.

Above all, however, you should try to change your thinking about your body. We often treat it as an object that needs to be tightened, pressed, or forced into activity. We consider it less important than the mind or even not worthy of attention. Meanwhile, it is impossible to function well cognitively and emotionally by forgetting about the body.

 

Dr Agnieszka Mościcka-Teske – PhD, a psychologist, psychotherapist and trainer of psychological skills. She deals with issues of stress and how to cope with it.  She lectures at the SWPS University

Author: Ewa Pągowska

Photo: pexels.com

The text was published on wysokie obcasy.pl on 16 April 2022