Stress
We all experience stress differently, yet an underlying common feeling is one of scraping by or just about keeping your head above water. By providing a calming, stilling and reassuring presence and conveying this through hands-on massage, your body and internal system will register this support and feel more able to let go. This letting go will enable everything to soften a little, creating more space for fluids to flow. By taking you gently into a state of relaxation, your body has a greater chance to restore and recover- to ‘come down’ from a ‘state of emergency’.
The stronger we are, the more robust we consider ourselves to be and the more determined we are in driving ourselves, when faced with stress, we are more likely to increase our effort in order to stem the tide and avoid being overwhelmed. Yet over time, this is counter-productive as we are virtuous traits begin driving us further into to a state of tiredness, exhaustion and burn-out. We feel this. Yet many of us have been conditioned to over-ride these biological signals and carry on! Biodynamic Massage Therapy is an effective way for you and your body to experience a short-enough pause. Since this type of behaviour is habitual, it is difficult to do this by yourself. My presence is to support your body through soothing and reassuring touch and to give permission for your body to recover and to provide assistance- using various techniques—where needed. Clients often feel safe enough to truly relax. At the end of your massage, you may feel refreshed, ready for proper rest and/ or feel lighter and brighter. A key factor for choosing the venues in London and East Sussex is whether the place is a safe and grounded space for you to let go and let everything drop away. Even if it is for a relatively brief period, your body will benefit.
Stress can also accumulate over time. It could be something subtle, such as the threat of company re-organisation and other events that can cause a relatively low-grade but chronic source of anxiety. As part of your regular self-care, Biodynamic Massage Therapy is suitable as an integral part of an effective health-maintenance regime. With regular treatments, not only would you be better equipped to deal with sleep problems, injuries, loss of appetite, overeating, difficulty in staying focused and impairment in mental concentration, you will also increase your awareness and be more alert to early signs and be able to respond earlier.
When stress becomes chronic, symptoms may manifest as hormonal imbalances and a compromised immune system, recurring injuries and other feelings of imbalance, longer-term biodynamic massage therapy is helpful and complements other interventions.
From my personal experience working within companies, consulting, and supporting organisations through employee assistance schemes, I know that stress from work is what many people experience. This has come about because of a number of factors: the smartphone and mobile 24/7 communication culture, headcount reductions, restructures, merger and acquisitions, workload, ‘everything is urgent’, matrixed organisations and unaligned organisations. All of these lead to gaps in doing and saying, dysfunctional bosses and teams, insufficient training, lack of integration, loss of control, lack of accountability… and the list goes on.
Work stress can also be a result of a critical incident at work. This could be a major reorganisation, restructure, change of leadership, merger and acquisition, or major incident, including incidents that attract adverse publicity. Depending on the scale and severity of the situation, attention is often given to the management of the incident and the containment of media responses and employee responses. The effect on the individual is that they are unable to talk about their own feelings, thoughts and responses in a real or substantial way. As a result, individuals put a lid on their naturally occurring and emotionally charged energy. This energy is stored within the body in fluids and tissues with no clear way of dissipating. Exercise can be helpful. Yet in my experience, exercise alone is often insufficient to bring the body back into a felt sense of safety; and this feeling is essential in helping the body restore balance.
Work stress can also take the form of low-grade but persistent and ongoing events. This might take the form of an unrelenting series of changes, where organisations continually switch from one agenda to the next. Or it could be a lack of knowing why change is needed. Or it could simply be the multiplicity of tasks that require attention, with no sign of letting up. Commuting, traffic, noise and multi-sensory bombardment all add to a state of sustained ‘alertness’ that could send your body into a vicious cycle of overload in stress-related hormones. We may all experience this overload in different ways and with any combination of signs including weight loss, weight gain, difficulty in sleeping, being ‘on’ all the time, difficulty in switching off, unable to relax, going through the motions, digestive problems, constipation or piles. These are signs that your body needs some help to be ‘brought down’ through a process of winding down into relaxation, rest and restoration.