Mental distress directly correlates to physical sensations
Here you may be part of one of two differing parties on this title:
This is woo-woo. (insert eye roll here)
Hell YES. The body is connected in all areas!
I would like to take the time to identify that this is not woo-woo. This is actually science. What makes it woo-woo to a lot of us is that our healthcare society has divided up every aspect of the human body (or rather tried to) and made it so that crossing “lines” is a bad thing and should be avoided. In actuality, we should take time to look and listen to what the human in front of us is saying and progress from there.
In physical therapy school, we learned certain phrases to lead us to believe that someone is catastrophizing (AKA their emotions are wrapped up into their pain/reason for coming to PT). Yet the education basically stopped there. No real time was spent on HOW emotions, trauma, mindset could be impacting the physical body. That I had to learn on my own through personal experience, extensive reading, mental health counseling, etc.
“Life is about rhythm. We vibrate, our hearts are pumping blood. We are a rhythm machine, that’s what we are.” - Mickey Hart
Have you ever thought about how our emotions can literally be seen on our faces? Beyond the point of “showing our emotions” to the point that we have a physical reaction to what we are thinking and/or feeling?
If it is so easy for emotion and/or thoughts to be displayed on our faces physically without direction awareness of the movement of these muscles why do we so strongly believe that chronic emotions, thought patterns, trauma are not related to different pains within our bodies?
I know I’ve already explained this portion in relation to the healthcare system conditioning us in this way, but now I really want you to think for yourself and embody this information… If this isn’t quite hitting home here is another way to look at it:
Our physical bodies are an ecosystem. Now, if you don’t remember from elementary science class what an ecosystem is: a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. Meaning the gut bacteria that is currently getting a lot of attention works with our cells (that hold our DNA) as well as bacteria of all areas of the body to keep us alive. Now, without a brain our body will literally stop functioning even if the other organs are healthy (minus the instance of a machine keeping the body alive). If the brain can have that much control over our physical body does it make more sense how our thoughts and emotions and trauma can impact how we physically feel?
I hope that you said “yes” to that last question because to be honest I don’t have another way to explain this scientifically off the top of my head. 😂
In a previous blog post I defined mindfulness -
Mindfulness: noun
the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.
a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.
Although, there can be more explained on this (you know if you’ve attended a Mindful Movement session). Our vagus nerve is our tenth cranial nerve and it is connected to the majority of our internal organs. One being our digestive system — have you felt that fluttering sensation deep in your gut when nervous, fearful, or excited? That is due to the vagus nerve and our mind providing intuition or our reptilian brain activating our sympathetic system (AKA fight, flight, or freeze system). A way to train our vagal nerve to calm down or prepare for competition is through our breath. Deep, short inhales activate our sympathetic nervous system preparing for action by increasing heart rate while slow exhales will activate the parasympathetic nervous system allowing the body and heart to slow down.
Now if you thought that was cool, have you heard about heart rate variability (HRV)?
Heart rate variability (HRV): a measure of the variation in time between each heartbeat.
The interval between our heart beats is never exactly the same (perfection is overrated anyway 🙄) yet with the awareness of HRV it can actually give us insight to how well our nervous system is working. Several studies have been conducted on HRV and PTSD showing that people with PTSD have unusually low HRV, as stated in ch. 16 of The Body Keeps Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. The impact that HRV has on our bodies is incredible. As it is the connection between heart rate and breath the fluctuations are expected to correlate leading to increased control over our actions and decisions. If this correlation becomes off balance then there is mental and physical effects; such as heart disease, cancer, depression, and PTSD.
If we ruminate on a negative thought pattern for long enough or we extend our time in our trauma cave (wallowing or isolating in self-preservation) then it is expected to start noticing different physical sensations. I view this as an analogy of how our organs inform us that something is not functioning well within them; we do not have sensory nerves within our organs, so they refer pain outward to inform us. For example, the heart is known to refer to the L shoulder and arm (mostly for males, but can also occur for females) and the liver/gull bladder refer to the R shoulder.
Throughout PT school, these referral patterns were sprinkled throughout our education so that we can be aware of if something presents as musculoskeletal or if something more serious is occurring like organ malfunction and/or cancer. To be honest, I love having this knowledge and utilizing it in the clinic it makes me feel like I am actually making a difference in someone’s life.
I hope that some of this information was eye-opening for you. Maybe you want to learn more; I would love to walk this journey with you! I will be opening a Mindful Movement Membership April 2024 that will house a lot of information like this and more, but for now feel free to join the free membership facebook page.
