Anxiety Relief: How Osteopathy Can Help
Unravelling anxiety's impact on the body and the Osteopathic approach to alleviating anxiety symptoms and promoting overall wellness.
Ritu Kaushik, DOMP
Manual Osteopath at Continuum Wellness located in the heart of Yonge & Lawrence North Toronto.
Offered by Ritu Kaushik, DOMP
“Hi, I'm Ritu, your dedicated Manual Osteopath here in Toronto. With a background in physiotherapy, I've always been passionate about helping my patients achieve their best health. However, my journey into Osteopathy has truly revolutionized my approach to treatment.
What I love most about Osteopathy is its ability to treat the whole person, not just the symptoms. I see the profound difference this holistic approach makes in my clients' lives every day. Through gentle manipulation and a deep understanding of the body's interconnected systems, I help my clients find relief from anxiety, pain, and discomfort. The results are transformative—my clients not only feel better physically but also experience a newfound sense of balance and well-being.
Come and discover how my integrative approach, combining my physiotherapy knowledge with the holistic benefits of osteopathy, can elevate your health to the next level.”
So what exactly is Anxiety?
Anxiety is your body’s way of responding to stress, and varies in intensity from person to person and from situation to situation. It’s natural to experience anxiety at certain times in your life: when you have an interview, start a new job, start school, or go on a date, for example. Most people will experience low to moderate anxiety in their lives, whereas others may have stronger feelings of anxiousness that are hard, or impossible, to control without intervention.
Anxiety Manifestation:
Anxiety can manifest itself in many ways. You may experience physical complaints, or have extreme or different emotions. In more severe cases, anxiety may cause mental health issues. The most common symptoms of general anxiety are:
Headaches
Difficulty breathing or
Rapid breathing
Exhaustion
Difficulty sleeping
Digestive issues
Muscle tightness, particularly in the chest area
Poor posture
Increased heart rate
The Effects of Anxiety on Your Body
You will have heard of the “fight or flight” response to stressful situations. It’s caused by stress hormones that your sympathetic nervous system releases and is how your body prepares itself to cope with the situation. It’s also the cause of the anxiety that you feel in these situations.
Let’s take a look at how this response causes some of the above-mentioned symptoms of anxiety.
Headaches:
Although headaches are accepted as a fairly common symptom of anxiety, it’s yet to be determined how exactly they’re caused. The cause could be something as simple as tension in your neck due to feelings of stress or, or more complicated like the release of a hormone that results in anxiety. Both are possible, and even likely, but what’s clear is that if either is left untreated, you’ll be caught in a never-ending cycle of anxiety headaches.
Breathing Issues:
When you experience stress or anxiety, your muscles tense up as they prepare to react to a perceived threat. Those deep, cleansing breathes require relaxed muscles for greater movement and are therefore harder to take. The result is that your breathing becomes shallow and more difficult. With less oxygen drawn in on shallow breaths, you need to increase the number of breaths you take, leading to rapid breathing.
Difficulty Sleeping and Exhaustion:
Anxiety makes it difficult to achieve the relaxed state needed for sleep. Our body is in a constant state of fight or flight, and it’s difficult to switch off the feelings that lead to this prepared response. Prolonged sleeping difficulties eventually lead to exhaustion, a condition that can persist throughout the day and lead to further feelings of anxiousness as you contemplate another sleepless night.
Digestive Problems:
The fight or flight response also affects our digestion. As your muscles prepare for this response, blood diverts from other parts of the body including your digestive system. With less blood and oxygen the digestive process is less effective, causing cramping, nausea and a loss of appetite.
Poor Posture:
Anxiety leads to feelings of insecurity and can make you lack self-confidence. This manifests itself in your posture, causing you to hunch over, or keep your head lowered. These are not natural postures and your body is not designed to maintain them for extended periods of time. You will eventually experience muscle soreness, headaches, neck pain and back pain.
Increased Heart Rate:
You may have noticed that in stressful situations your heart rate increases. As mentioned before, anxiety triggers your body’s fight or flight response which prepares your body for action. One of the signs that this response has been activated is an increase in your heart rate. Blood moves through your body at a faster rate, dispersing oxygen and ensuring that muscles are ready for necessary action.
How Does Osteopathy Help?
As an osteopath, I am trained to evaluate your body as a whole unit. I assess the physical elements while also considering your lifestyle and any external stressors that contribute to your well-being. During your consultation, I will take a full case history, gathering as much information as possible. I will also conduct an osteopathic examination, observing any physical imbalances or asymmetries that may be contributing to your problem area.
For anxiety-related conditions, I pay particular attention to the muscles around the thoracic spine, where the sympathetic nervous system is located. This system is responsible for the fight or flight response to stressful situations. By palpating muscles in this region, I can identify areas of tension or knots in the tissue that cause pain and limit your muscle mobility.
The Osteopathic Approach
Osteopaths employ a number of techniques to treat conditions linked to anxiety.
These include the following:
Stretching
Stretching is important to keep your muscles flexible and strong, thereby maintaining a full range of motion in the connected joints. For anxiety-related stiffness, stretches for the neck, upper back and thoracic area help to relieve tension in the muscles, encourage feelings of calm and can lead to better sleep.
Articulation
Osteopaths use articulation to promote better movement in a restricted joint. When a joint is unable to move through its natural range of motion, it can cause the linked muscle to tighten resulting in discomfort. Feelings of anxiety and stress can lead to constrained movement in your shoulders and exacerbate tightness in the upper back.
Soft Tissue Technique
This form of massage concentrates on the muscles around the spine. The osteopath applies both deep pressure and rhythmic stretching to the soft tissue, to release fluid build-up and relax the muscle layers. It’s an effective treatment for relieving anxiety-related headaches and stiffness.
Breathing
One of the best ways to encourage calm and reduce anxiety is to practice deep breathing. I have some tricks up my sleeve to help you with this and will encourage you to practice breathing exercises regularly at home. Breathing exercises are effective in lowering your heart rate and blood pressure and help reduce feelings of anxiety. The best part is, you can do them anywhere, at any time.
While anxiety is a common condition, it encompasses much more than just sweaty palms; leaving it unmanaged can have debilitating effects on your overall well-being. Anxiety can manifest physically, mentally, and emotionally, disrupting your daily life and preventing you from living to the fullest.
If anxiety is negatively affecting your life, it's important to seek help.
Consulting an osteopath can provide you with effective ways to treat and manage your anxiety. With a holistic approach, osteopathy addresses the affects anxiety has on the body, offering relief and promoting balance in your mind and body.
Don’t let anxiety control your life—take the first step towards a calmer, healthier you by scheduling a consultation with me today. Together, we can develop a personalized treatment plan that empowers you to overcome anxiety and enhances your well-being.
“I have been struggling with stress and anxiety for years, and it was starting to take a toll on my body. I decided to visit Ritu after hearing great things about her osteopathic approach. From the very first session, I felt a significant difference. Ritu took the time to understand my lifestyle and the external stressors affecting my well-being. Her holistic approach, combined with her expertise in physiotherapy, helped alleviate the physical symptoms of my anxiety. After just a few sessions, I noticed a remarkable reduction in my muscle tension and overall stress levels. Ritu’s personalized treatment plan has truly transformed my life. I highly recommend her to anyone dealing with stress and anxiety.”
“Ritu is an exceptional osteopath. I came to her with anxiety manifesting as chronic back pain and tension headaches. Her thorough and knowledgeable approach put me at ease immediately. With her targeted treatments and advice on deep breathing exercises, I’ve experienced significant improvement in both my physical and mental health. Ritu’s integrative approach has helped me manage my anxiety more effectively than any other treatment I’ve tried. Highly recommended!”