13/06/2018
STRESS
It assists humanity since ages, so why should it be a problem to us? Yet, it is…
Currently, stress has a different character; long ago, it used to be more intensive, but short lasting. Nowadays people have problems with permanent stress, caused by the speed of life, work, constant need of personal fulfilment and attainment of often irrational goals, private, professional or the financial ones. Not only is there now the chemical stress connected with the quality of nutrition, water, or air we breathe, but also, observed more often by scientists, the electromagnetic stress, caused by permanent presence of electronic devices around us. All that stress, accumulating within us, influences terribly to our mental and physical health. Why does it happen? In our bodies there is the autonomic nervous system. It consists of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. The first one is responsible for fight or flight, it means all the reactions of our bodies related to defence against life threats. the parasympathetic nervous system, on another hand, is responsible for relaxation and regeneration.
BALANCE
If we lack balance between the two nervous systems, that is where the problem begins. Stress is responsible for excessive chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which generates a cascade of physico-chemical changes in our tissues. Among them there is the tension of blood vessels, which may cause many diseases, particularly when the occurred state extends until it comes to a permanent disorder of tissues’ nutrition, anoxia and insufficient transfer of tissue metabolism products. Nevertheless, external factors cannot be omitted; viruses, bacteria, cold, or load factor in case of back pain or pain in the knee, however osteopathy always questions ‘why a certain tissue did not adapt to a certain excessive strain caused by an external factor’?
OSTEOPATHY
It may be often observed that the same factor, the same pathogen, is harmful to a certain person, but not to the other. It happens because the primordial problem lies within us. For example in long lasting, excessive activation of the sympathetic nervous system. An osteopath will always seek the cause in the shortcomings of balance within an organism, instead of immoderate overload of tissues by external factors. Many people can work hard to achieve the success of their dreams; however, we do not realise how rarely an effective mental repose accompanies that work. We return home, nonetheless we are still at work; we go on holiday, but all this time we pursue yet another attraction. A similar situation takes place in terms of physical activity which we do for our health, but in fact, it often is just another stress factor to our organism. We relax only seemingly, lifting all those weights at the gym, or running tens of kilometres, just for the sake of ‘un-stressing’ ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, I am not an opponent of the physical activity, but an advocate for good proportions in our lives, which, in my opinion, are so hard to find. Sometimes, it is worth to just ‘do-nothing-at-all,’ and go for a stroll with the family, without counting steps with yet another modern device which publishes our track record on social media. Very interesting solutions are given to us by the eastern (often Asian) gymnastics, like yoga or qigong. There are also relaxation and respiratory exercises, as well as meditation. It is hard to say which one is the best, each of us should choose the one that fits them best, but above all, slow down, at least from time to time. Let’s give our parasympathetic nervous system a chance. Osteopathy works widely with the autonomous nervous system, normalizing the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. It brings relief to unstable organism, and leads to a healthy life in balance.
