Your nervous system is the ruler of everything in your body. It determines sleep, hunger, hormones, heart beats, and movement. The ruler operates optimally when it feels safe, however, we live in a world of decreased safety everywhere we turn… especially right now. If at any point the ruler feels unsafe, your body’s ability to function can be greatly compromised.
When the compromised ruler gets overwhelmed, we experience signals telling us something is wrong. That can be pain, lack of sleep, weight gain, fatigue, and stress. Often times, we treat these symptoms with aggression and a ‘no pain no gain’ mentality. But if your ruler already feels unsafe, adding more input that reduces safety will not help reduce symptoms.
In this situation, less is more. It is not our job as health practitioners to do deep tissue massage, heavy mobilizations, or pain producing techniques to a system that is already over loaded. Our job is to let the ruler feel safe to allow for your own body to make a change. Then progress function with graded exposure.