CST Awareness Week – 19th to 25th October

How do you experience stress and anxiety?

Tightening – insomnia – pain – strain – nervousness – alarm – fatigue – desperation – discomfort – jumpiness – fearfulness – anguish – distress – dread – torment – panic attacks – palpitations – digestive problems – collapse – heaviness – powerlessness – stagnation – depression – doctors – medication

We are all constantly experience stress, from small day-to-day events (a queue at the supermarket, late for work, wearing a face mask) right up to major traumas (serious accident, surgery, loss of a loved one) with the effects accumulating over time.  Stress can be physical (accidents, falls, cuts, burns) emotional/ psychological/ spiritual (loneliness, bullying, abandonment) or chemical (pollution, gluten, lactose, alcohol, drugs – prescription or recreational, toiletries and cleaning products).  So it’s pretty much everything that happens to us, everything we think and feel and everything we put in, on or around our bodies that can be described as a ‘stressor’ and stimulates a bodily response. These responses may be unconscious, made by our central nervous system based on our previous experiences and beliefs.  But not all stress is damaging, and not everyone experiences stressors at the same level. Indeed, what may be extremely stressful for one person could be invigorating for another.  And, although some stress may be enjoyable and an essential part of our survival, if it occurs in large doses, or at a constant low dose, that we cannot easily process, it can lead to health issues.

Stress stimulates changes in the body, such as the release of chemicals or the activation of the inflammatory response. Our bodies are usually very efficient at maintaining a balance in the face of many challenges, but when the burden of either external or internal stress becomes too great, this automatic self-regulation fails, and symptoms arise.

Signs of excess stress can be complex and confusing and do not necessarily make sense to the person experiencing them.  Symptoms such as headaches or stomach problems arise and give the feeling of anxiousness and/or restlessness. Sometimes their feelings are overwhelming, and we may feel unable to cope, which is what is possibly going on at a microcosmic level, as a constant bombardment of challenges results in stress hormones flooding the bloodstream. There may be changes to the immune system, blood pressure and nervous responses. When we experience internal events like this, we may feel subtly ‘different’ without knowing why. Another classic sign is tiredness and an inability to concentrate, which may contribute to confusion about our condition.  Thoughts such as ‘I just don’t know what is happening to me’ or ‘I just feel awful’ come to us.  Over time, tensions can become chronic. As defence mechanisms are weakened, the body becomes less able to deal with further stress, creating a vicious circle which can manifest in symptoms such as insomnia, digestive problems, panic attacks, depression and anxiety.

Stress in itself is not necessarily the problem; what matters is how we deal with it. Importantly, how resourced we are, how we look after ourselves, or conversely whether we learn to be helpless in the face of stress and allow it to become a habitual state. Stress becomes a negative, destructive factor in life when it exceeds our ability to adapt to it. As we all differ in our emotional and physical makeup, we have varying degrees of susceptibility to stress overload, and in our ability to rebalance ourselves. Once stored in the body, stress can lie dormant, only to be triggered again at a later time by a sound, a word, or even the tone of someone’s voice. Our body unconsciously remembers and reacts to the new stimulus in the same way it did to the first event, even though this reaction may be out of proportion to what has just happened. Reacting automatically to the past, rather than responding appropriately to the present can keep us trapped in a pattern that forces us to re-live the original stressor again and again in a variety of forms. It is one of the reasons that we feel so powerless to change a situation and can lead to feelings of helplessness and impotence.

How might CST affect the diverse symptoms of chronic stress?

Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (CST) is a very gentle type of bodywork that creates a safe environment for your body to slow down and shift out of the reactive stance of chronic stress and into space where we find freedom, not only physically, but also allowing choice and change to become real possibilities as the grip of our habitual stress responses are lessened.  When the body slows down during a session, it can begin to untangle its confused responses and reactions. CST can provide a space where further stimulation is limited and homeostatic rebalancing is enabled. Responses can be re-educated to become more coordinated, more flexible and more appropriately responsive. A body/mind system that is integrated like this is more able to resist depression or disease, and more able to attend to and repair itself in times of need.

Put, recurring or continuous stress that the body is unable to deal with affects us physiologically, structurally and emotionally. Eventually, we reach a point of constant alertness, which depletes the body, and downgrades its ability to balance itself. By stimulating the rest and recovery systems of the body, the subtle work of CST allows the body to re-source its powers of rehabilitation and revival. This allows us to avoid familiar mental barriers and to let go of accumulated physical tensions. Our CST practitioner, Down Goodes, offer stillness in which to listen to the body. The simple act of just listening to the bodily felt sense can allow these repetitive patterns to be less insistent and overbearing, and they can be released.