IS IT REALLY JUST STRESS?

Can anxiety, tension, headaches, neck and back pain, arm and leg pain, cold hands and feet, restless legs, tingling sensations, cramps, upset stomach, urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction, palpitations, dizziness, sleep problems, and fatigue really just be caused by stress? Or could it be that my doctor has missed something serious after all? These are two important and recurring questions that my patients often ask. If you have one or more of these symptoms and are seeking an explanation, you can continue reading for a better understanding...

It's easy to feel internal stress when you don't get real answers to your healthcare questions. It's important to have a model of explanation that makes things more understandable and puts the symptoms into context. When you understand how things are connected in the body and realize that it may not involve any serious underlying, undetected disease, the internal stress usually decreases, and then you have taken a step toward breaking a vicious circle.

One of several explanations that can provide answers to many of your stress symptoms is the Diaphragm Model. It describes, from a physiotherapeutic perspective, all the symptoms that can occur when you start to limit your breathing mechanisms due to stress, anxiety, pain, or tension.

You probably know how it is. Something stresses you out, and you grit your teeth and try to pull yourself together, and suddenly you realize that you can hardly breathe. This usually happens unconsciously, and it's probably no coincidence that we use phrases like "now I can finally exhale" when we have completed a particularly difficult task.

It's of course good to be able to grit your teeth and gather yourself when needed. It's a protective mechanism in us humans that is good to use when we face various challenges. But it becomes destructive if we make it a habit. Holding back our own needs and feelings requires us to restrain our breathing. We do this by generating muscle tension. Muscle tension and a withheld breath are some of the biggest energy thieves there are. They give rise to a creeping feeling of fatigue that increases as we continue to push ourselves beyond healthy limits, and then one or more of the other symptoms usually follow.

THE DIAPHRAGM MODEL

The diaphragm muscle accounts for about 75% of our breathing mechanisms. It is a dome-shaped muscle that rises and falls as we breathe in and out in a pump-like motion. This muscle is often referred to when we talk about the diaphragm and it is part of the bottom of the chest cavity and located at the lower part of the stomach. The diaphragm is said to be the first muscle affected by tension due to stress and anxiety. When spontaneous breathing is inhibited, part of the diaphragm's movement is also inhibited.

This means that the pump-like movement that previously provided a massage-like effect for the abdominal organs is also inhibited. Problems with upset stomach, IBS, and other similar symptoms may start to arise. At the same time, the reduced movement of the diaphragm results in hindrance of the venous blood flow back from the legs to the heart and lungs to be reoxygenated, which can lead to problems with tingling sensations, varicose veins, restless legs, and cramps in the legs and feet. You may also notice that your feet often feel cold.

When tension occurs in the diaphragm, it flattens slightly. It then pulls the spine, where it is anchored on the inside, forward. This results in the muscles in the back under and above the diaphragm's muscle attachment, around the 10-12 thoracic vertebrae, mobilizing tension to counterbalance the force exerted by the diaphragm. The back muscles then have to resist. The consequence of this can be pain in the lower back as well as in the area near the lower part of the shoulder blades.

The body is intelligent and tries to compensate

When breathing starts to be inhibited due to tension in the diaphragm, the body enlists other muscles for help, including the muscles on the front of the neck. These muscles, which are intended to bend the head forward, instead begin to lift the chest upward to allow you to obtain more air. When this happens, the size of the passage between the muscle bellies where the large nerve branches go out to the arms and hands decreases.

As a result, there may be irritation of the nerve branches, causing diffuse pain and fatigue in the arms and hands, as well as numbness and a certain clumsiness. You may also notice that your hands often feel cold. When the neck muscles are forced to lift the chest upward, tension also occurs in the jaw joint and temple muscles. The muscles in the neck area must also work harder to compensate for the increased muscle force mobilized on the front. It's easy to understand that the result can be tension headaches and other pain in the affected areas.

Finally, it can be mentioned that the diaphragm's upper side's cartilage plate serves as the attachment base for the heart sac. When the diaphragm becomes tense and flattens slightly, the heart sac also, as a biomechanical consequence, is pulled slightly downward. The heart then responds in some cases with various symptoms such as a rush sensation, extra beats, or a generally diffuse feeling of tension in this area. So we can see that we have everything to gain by improving our breathing by reducing tension in the diaphragm muscle.

Since the body can be considered as a whole, it is also important that there is a redistribution of tension at other places in your body. For example, it becomes important to have good posture, that is, we are well grounded with good contact with the ground from a biomechanical perspective. Then we don't need to generate unnecessary muscle tension in the neck and shoulder area to "keep ourselves up in life," and our breathing can become freer.

You will find useful excercises to practice on your own in my book;

Regaining Balance, the Swedish Healthcare Method to Reduce Stress, Anxiety and Pain" available on amazone.com.

I usually say that breathing is like a shy friend. It is the link between body and soul and connects the conscious and unconscious within us. It is regulated automatically but can, as you know, also be controlled voluntarily. Therefore, it always starts to behave differently than it usually does when you focus your attention on it. This is completely normal. Approach it gently and respectfully as you begin practicing breathing exercises.

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Find it on Amazon.com