Stress management is an important part of being healthy, both physically and mentally. At Midnapore Health Centre our practitioners know how stress impacts your well being and have extensive experience in helping relieve and manage the effects stress has on your body.

Stress is a normal part of life. The nervous system and body have instinctive responses that help us to cope and get through stressful episodes, whether they are exciting times or difficult times. These include physical, mental and emotional responses, like increased muscle tension, chemical releases (adrenaline and cortisol), increased heart rate or blood pressure, and increased mental focus for example. The sympathetic nervous system controls this reflex and is meant ultimately to help you survive. So, this is the fight, flight or freeze response that occurs.

These responses require a lot of resources and energy from the body. Which is why, after a stressful episode or ongoing stress, we can feel exhausted, emotionally drained, and our health can suffer. It is also not normal for stress to perpetuate indefinitely.

Our body and mind also need time in the opposite pattern – rest and recovery mode. This is the parasympathetic nervous system’s job – another automatic program within us. This system helps us to heal, recover, digest and eliminate our food, and sleep.

Is it any wonder that people who are under chronic stress often have more musculoskeletal pain, jaw tension (TMJ), more difficulty sleeping, more stomach and digestive problems, heart problems, and mental health problems? Often people experience a health crisis or onset of pain after episodes of stress. This is the body’s way of “forcing” you to slow down, which is not ideal either. It is better to learn ways to regularly switch into rest and recovery mode. Let our practitioners at Midnapore Health Centre help you to do this.

The fast pace of our society, world problems, expectations from work and family life, plus different unexpected things that happen, all contribute to elevated stress levels. It can seem overwhelming and even difficult to know HOW to relax.

Our practitioners at Midnapore Health can help you switch modes to a more relaxed state to help you feel more balanced. Being able to switch modes regularly on your own helps you manage the stressful times better and promotes better health of all of our systems.

-Chiropractic adjustments help the nervous system switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic mode, relieve pain and muscle tension.

-Physiotherapy can coach you on stress management and nervous system regulation. They can guide you in healthy exercise programs to “burn off” stress. Our physiotherapist also does craniosacral therapy, which relieves tension and helps you experience the “rest and recovery mode” for easier switching gears on your own.

-Massage Therapy to help you relax your muscles, and experience being present in your body.

-Nutritional counselling from our chiropractor which helps give you the reserves you need to heal.

Let one of our skilled practitioners discuss your needs, whether it is for pain, better nutrition, an exercise program, stress management, or just improved health moving forward.

In the meantime, try this mild variation of breathing to help your nervous system switch gears out of “stress mode”. We all know that slow, deep, diaphragmatic breathing can calm things and help us relax. But is it effective when we at the height of a stressful moment? Not likely – we are still in survive mode. And the reflex almost needs to play out before you can settle.

But try doing 3-4 of these breaths when we are supposed to be in rest and recovery mode – before we eat, when going to the bathroom, before we sleep. So roughly 6-7 times a day we should be switching for short periods. You will digest better, eliminate better and sleep better – all functions of the “rest and recovery mode” of the parasympathetic nervous system. It then gets used to switching back and forth.

There is nothing wrong with stress or “go mode”, but there is something wrong if we don’t switch out of it regularly. It is also not normal to always be in “rest” mode. It’s about a balance of both. Let us at Midnapore Health help you find that balance.