How to Relieve Stress That Can be Crippling

[rosemary wahlberg]

Stress can literally be crippling which is why it's important to know
how to relieve stress. Here are just three actual case experiences
demonstrating how emotional stress can affect one's musculature in a
crippling manner.
? On Joe's way driving back from California to NJ he learned that the
IRS would be auditing him. By the time he reached NJ his hands were
clenched on the steering wheel and his leg muscles were so tight that
he required crutches to walk.
? Jim was married to a very jealous woman who demanded a lot of
attention and felt that he was a mama's boy. Jim felt torn between his
mother and his new wife and began experiencing eye twitches.
? Larry's father was a demeaning controlling man. He came home one day
to find that Larry hadn't gotten around to straightening the garage as
promised. He called Larry a "stupid shit," and Larry's stuttering
which we had worked for two months to eliminate returned immediately.
? Tom's wife left him after six years of marriage. There were many
things he wanted to say to her in hopes of changing her mind, but she
wouldn't listen to him and he developed a lazy tongue resulting in
speaking difficulties.
These examples demonstrate the power of stress over the body. In each
case, an emotional stress led to excessive uncontrolled crippling
muscle tension.
Stressors such as Joe's that can stand in the way of getting things
done such as the IRS create tension in the legs. Stressors that affect
one's self worth such as with Larry and Tom, create lazy tongue and or
contribute to stuttering.
Stressors such as Jim's where he felt torn between his mother and wife
create muscle twitching.
It's normal that with some of these reactions, such as with Joe's
crippling reaction, doctors run tests for MS as the symptoms are very
painful and serious. Barring any disease, the solution is to take back
control of one's musculature.
This is done with a stress reliever exercise:1. First by often dealing
with self worth issues--learning how to build self worth in the midst
of crisis.2. Secondly to use specific stress management techniques for
managing muscle tension.
a. Practice abdominal breath management techniques.
b. Selectively tense sequential groups of muscles daily keeping the
rest of the body relaxed--takes approximately 20 minutes to do entire
body as specified later in the stress coping exercise. Depending on
severity of symptoms, this is done many times per day for the specific
muscles affected.
c. Reminder each time that you tense/relax that you'd like to forget
about it (it referring to the muscular reaction to stress)
The amazing thing was that Joe could walk absolutely normally for
twenty minutes after he did the 20 minute tense/relax stress reliever
exercise.
The coping with stress exercise goes like this. a. Slowly tense a
particular group of muscles keeping the rest of your body relaxed.b.
Cause it to become tense and hold that tension for a few seconds.c.
Slowly let the tension go as you breathe deeply.d. Remind yourself
that you prefer the relaxed feeling over the tense feeling.
A muscle sequence would go like this:? Make a fist with your right
hand.? Then a fist with your left hand.? Push you right hand into the
arm of the chair to tense you forearm and upper arm.? Repeat for the
left arm.? Lift your shoulders high to tense them leaving your arms
just hanging loose.? Push you head into the back of a chair to tense
the neck.? Scrunch your facial muscles.? Tense your forehead.? Arch
your back.? Take a Deep Breadth and hold it to tense your chest.? Push
out with your abdomen.? Tense your buttocks.? Tense your right and
then left leg. ? Tense your right and then left foot.
This is a general relaxation that should take approximately twenty
minutes. For specific muscle groups the muscles groups are refined to
include only the affected muscles. For instance cds are available for
handling general muscle tension, neck and shoulder tension, and for
stuttering which focuses on muscles of the mouth and tongue on my
website.
Usually a combination approach of dealing with the life crisis plus
muscle relaxation exercises over the course of two to three months is
all that's required to gain a significant foot hold on the problem.
And this is pretty good considering these problems often exits for
years before starting this stress management technique.