Listen to your body 2

To counteract the muscular and emotional tensions

The muscles contract and relax and it is this double function that allows the movement: but if the muscle remains tense, the movement is made difficult and painful; We become stiffer and we have a hard time moving.

Where do these muscular tensions come from? From our psyche that, at a given moment, has to face a state of imbalance due to stress, anxiety and fears. Through physical pain, the body warns us that inside of us, there is something wrong.

Your unconscious sends you signals through the body. Do you remember when you were little and tested how good you were in walking on narrow walls? You had to be careful how to put your feet and balance the right way. But what happened when you lost your balance and were afraid to fall? The muscles of your body were contracted: it was an automatic reflex.

The contraction of the muscles, reflected in our moods, goes back to childhood. In the early days of our lives, our only means of communication is in the body: when we feel good, we relax and lie; When we are hungry, cold, afraid or feel uncomfortable, all the muscles of the body contract.

You have already noticed that when the newborn cries, his fists are tight, sometimes until his fingers become white: It is a physiological response to stress and discomfort. This way of communicating will remain active forever and this time the recipient of the message of your discomfort is not your parent but you will be.

Muscular tensions tell you about a loss of inner equilibrium.

In psychosomatics, the problem of muscular tensions is a very current problem. People exposed to a source of continuous stress (emotional stress included) find themselves, to survive, creating a sort of shell that, if on the one hand is a shield and/ or crutch, on the other hand, makes them more rigid and it is this rigidity that creates muscular tensions.

If you can not dissolve these tensions, to shake the stress off, the problem is likely to be chronic and lead to a non-indifferent inflammatory state that will cause further pain. Here, the emotional and external stress adds to the physical discomfort. At this point, you will need to listen to your body and stop to understand what is going on inside you: You can use this moment of tensions to make a small exercise of self-awareness to understand your state of mind, listen to the voice of your Unconscious and take a first step to regain your inner balance.

Learn to read your own tensions:

Your body has a well-coded and precise language so learning to understand it will be useful to you all your life: it helps you to understand what is going on inside you, to be more present in your body, to be more aware of you, to be more present in your body, to be more aware of your state of mind. As mentioned above, the body is the spokesman of your unconscious and therefore the muscular tensions will arise in the limbs that reflect some activities.

The tensions connected to the head and neck speak to you of heavy thoughts and worries;
The tensions connected to the shoulders could tell you about the heavy responsibilities on you;
The tensions tied to the arms tell you about the doing, of everything related to the work in the wide sense and your daily activities.
The tensions related to the abdominal and thoracic zone speak to you of insecurity: it is the seat of all the vital organs so they could tell you about the fear of being exposed or wounded.
The tensions related to the lower limbs concern the walking, the moving forward, the movement in life.

These are just some indicative examples that may not be accurate for your specific case, so it is important that you rely on your feelings by connecting to your sensations and trusting your perceptions.

Listen to the voice of your body

How to relax to counteract stress:

If tensions arise from an accumulation of stress and anxiety, it will be useful to act on its two fronts: on the mind, to work at the root; On the body, to relax the muscles and release tensions.

Acting on the Mind:

Mindfulness or even a simple daily meditation, that will make you listen to your breath, focus on it and not on the mind that tells us a thousand stories to distract us from our essence. Anxiety is a fear of the future, a time that does not yet exist, therefore, increasing your awareness in the here and now, you can curb your fears created by your mind and greatly reduce emotional tensions. When you feel your mind wandering, bring it gently back to the present.

These exercises can help you restore a more functional and more centred mood on the present. To help you live more in the here and now you can focus on your perceptions.

Acting on the body:

To relax your muscles, you have to treat your body with kindness.

You could disconnect for a while ‘ from the world to reconnect a little ‘more with you’, taking a nice hot bath to which you have added a few drops of essential oil lavender, known for its relaxing properties; And if you do not have a bathtub you can always put hot water with essential oil and salts in a bowl to dip your feet, the beneficial effect will be perceived throughout your body.

You could also take a walk in the middle of nature, focusing on your breath or on your feelings that you feel as you walk.

Stretching and yoga, especially if practised daily, will help you maintain muscular tensions under control.

Thanks to their slow movements that promote greater flexibility by focusing on the body, you will maintain a greater physical and psychic equilibrium.

Listen to your body 2