Noemi Brambilla
Massage physiotherapist and Ayurveda operator receives in Burago di Molgora (Monza) tel 348 363 3548
How can I feel good in this time of chaos and uncertainty ?
The answer is very simple, as is the tool that provides it to you: lie down on the Soulspension, practice Postural Suspension. I met Patrizia through Holys week and there was an immediate click, a deep connection to the infinite potential of this wonderful instrument.
Connection in the true sense of the word, also given by the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and having to reinvent new ways of communicating, living experiences and training. Sometimes opportunities arise from difficulties and not limitations because, as far as I'm concerned, Soulspension was a fantastic gift of growth, not only personal but professional, which allowed me to live with enthusiasm a period dominated by completely different feelings.
And so the project “Make this moment the best” was born to make as many people as possible feel good and help them stay in the moment in a simple and natural way present, in the here and now with lightness and serenity. My professional training as a massophysiotherapist and ayuverda operator leads me daily to treat people who arrive with a certain level of psychophysical discomfort and rely on me to relieve muscle tension or to relax the mind after an intense day.
But in this period the increase in non-positive states is far greater, not only physically, given by incorrect postures of workstations adapted for smartworking, but from 'increase in moods such as anxiety, chronic fatigue, anger, irritability, loss of stimulation, withdrawn attitudes.
These moods inevitably reflect on our body and often translate from muscle contractures to gastrointestinal problems, arrhythmias, insomnia, compulsive and compensatory hunger. Treating a body with a lot of emotional baggage thinking you can simply treat the physical aspect is like thinking about raking a lawn of dry leaves under a large tree shaken by the wind: your work is useless if the wind doesn't calm down.
It is now scientifically proven how closely our systems are related, how an emotion stimulates a reaction, which in turn positively or negatively alters a tissue, organ or system.
How to act simply and effectively on the "mind and emotions" system to then be able to treat the body more deeply?
The Soulspension gives us this answer. To better contextualize my work I would like to do a brief analysis of the period and historical context we are experiencing. The general syndrome of adaptation or stress is the response implemented by an organism to any request coming from the environment around it. Faced with these stressors, each individual reacts differently depending on their resilience. In fact, it is not so much the potential stressor itself, but rather the way in which we perceive and deal with it that determines whether it causes stress or not. Human beings are extraordinarily resistant to stress: we can find support in religious beliefs, activities, leisure, which give us joy and a sense of belonging by sharing it with family and friends. However, in this situation, the deprivation of these relief valves themselves transformed into stressors, adding to the three main ones:
the pandemic itself, therefore a virus unknown worldwide
lymphodemia, or the excess, media bombardment of information
lockdown, or the set of measures taken by the government for social distancing and blocking of production activities.
What is pandemic stress?
The World Health Organization has classified pandemic stress as "Pandemic Fatigue", a real behavioral syndrome caused by the emergency.
The consequences of Covid 19 and the risk of infections force us to adapt our lifestyle to new rhythms and new constraints, to face situations of constant economic and work uncertainty , limitations of our freedoms and human relationships.
Many people find themselves experiencing limbo suspension reactions, that is, the lack of awareness of the future and a feeling of constant waiting, of putting their life on hold standby while time passes.
We have passive, renouncing, aggressive attitudes of rebellion against the rules. While other symptoms of "Pandemic Fatigue" are anxiety, agitation and sadness.
How do these emotions reflect on the musculoskeletal system?
The back can be considered a sort of bridge that connects the head to the lower limbs. A meeting area between what is high (mental, emotional, spiritual) and what is low (material, earthly). Our spine is a huge map of all the emotions we experience every day, especially those that we are unable to listen to and welcome. Furthermore, it is the other side of the chest, the seat of the heart and lungs and all the other organs which are also the seat of important feelings. When we feel anguish, fear, despondency, a chemical imbalance occurs. An irregularity between seretonin and norepinephrine generates an increase in pain which is nothing more than a neurological experience transmitted by the nervous system. Anxiety is one of the most widespread feelings among the Italian population and we hold the sad record of being the largest consumers of anxiolytics at a European level. In fact, in the last year there has been an increase of 35% and 28% between anxiolytics and antidepressants.
One of its main characteristics is that it anticipates possible undefined and unpredictable future dangers. Its location is located in the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, thalamus and hypocampus. The activation of these areas and the secretion of the previously mentioned neurotransmitters causes the stimulation of the sympathetic system and the presence of those bodily reactions such as tremors, facial redness, acceleration of the heartbeat, sweating, hyperventilation, typical of an attack of anxiety or panic.
In the current period it has evolved from anxiety about contagion to that of becoming a spreader towards one's loved ones, to lockdown anxiety up to the more recent anxiety of waiting.< /span>
In the long run, on the back of a subject with frequent emotional states of this type we have the following situation: closed posture, the shoulders bend forward bringing tension, contractures muscles on the trapezius and cervical area with possible irradiation on the arm and a retraction of the pectoral muscles. In many cases there is a blockage in the diaphragm and tension in the abdominal muscles.
This picture of contraction and inflammation can lead to major problems, at the heart level, fatigued by poor oxygenation and forced to pump more and the lungs subject to greater accumulation of mucus due to stagnation and hypoventilation.
Anger is another feeling that is growing and infecting the population with the same ease as the virus itself spreads. The area of the back where it is most somatized is the back.
The muscles are contracted under the shoulder blades, especially the right one, the reflex point of the liver. The intercostal and paravertebral muscles are also tense and a source of pain always due to a postural closure pushing the shoulders forward and contraction of the ribcage. Also in this case the diaphragm is affected, limiting respiratory movements and breathing with only the apical area of the lungs.
This rejection of one's feelings and the "not digesting" situations not only continues to affect the musculoskeletal system, but we have a physiological increase in bile which damages the liver and gallbladder, episodes of stomach pain, gastric reflux and which in turn continue to cause feelings of irritability due to the state of physical discomfort that one is experiencing.
Soulspension Solution
Soulspension and Postural Suspension are the synthesis of the multiple experiences of its creator Patrizia Gavoni, not only in the physical field. In fact it is a multifunctional tool that allows us to stop, center ourselves, put our spine and our body in Neutral, suspension, floating. It is the answer to acting on our back, independently discharging the tensions accumulated during the day and with the same tool there is the possibility of doing work guided and followed by certified teachers, both on a personal and group level.
Why are we able to bring improvement and well-being with this tool in the current situation we are experiencing?
because due to its structure and conformation it performs a mechanical action on the muscles, unloading the spinal column and stimulating the nerve endings that branch out from each individual vertebra.
because it acts on breathing
because we work with the activation of the parasympathetic system through the stimulation of the vagus nerve.
because with transformative mindfullness we educate the mind to stay in the here and now by deactivating the main mechanism of anxiety about being projective of the future.
because we go back to listening to ourselves by bringing attention inside and not outside of us, listening to the signals of our body and not the avalanche of information that surrounds us.
Lying down on the Soulspension you immediately realize that the instrument works. In the first moments, what can be defined in simple words as "your weak points", or the areas of greatest suffering, emerge on a postural level.
You may have sensations of low-level pain in areas you have never felt before. And it is precisely at that precise moment that the first magic happens: we become aware, we are starting to listen to each other. And when this happens it is the first act to start a journey to feel good, to improve.
Then the second extremely important thing happens: we begin to breathe, open the ribcage, expand the chest, open the shoulders and let go not only of tensions but of our emotions, learning to bring the right amount of attention to one's breathing, the mechanisms of the mind begin to unravel and the thoughts lose their power and the mind finally calms down.
We have activated a circle of well-being: Relaxed body, calm and serene mind
Experiences with Soulspension
I decided to try to offer two types of route to those people I thought were most in difficulty. One starting the treatment with thirty minutes of soulspension on the floor guiding the session and concluding with 30/60 minutes of massage on the table. The other was to collaborate with the psychologist Viola Bertini who intervened before the Soulspension session with a work of emotional awareness. I report one of the cases that I have followed in this journey: the lady to whom I recommended it is a very cheerful, sociable person, who loves to travel, always engaged in various artistic and cultural activities. The pandemic affected her greatly emotionally and dampened her enthusiasm. He was very down in spirits, with a lump in his throat and many days, as the restrictions continued, were characterized by bursts of tears. She felt like she was wasting time, time that would never come back and this prevented her from hoping to go back to doing what she loved before. His back was very contracted, especially the trapezius part, and he had a closed and resigned posture.
1st session: enters the studio very sad and with tears in my eyes. After 30 minutes of soulspension she gets up with a broad smile and confesses to me that she managed not to think about anything, something that hadn't happened to her for a long time. With the massage the back has more relaxed muscles and for the first time it remains silent during the treatment to remain in its newly gained state of well-being.
2nd session: he tells me that the effect lasted a few days and then she started feeling very melancholy again. The second session was also positive and he even managed to relieve the discomfort he had in his shoulder during guided breathing. Her face becomes calm and relaxed again and she leaves the studio full of enthusiasm. The speed with which there was a change in mood and the emotion that emerged, opposite to the initial one, was surprising and amazed both of us.
From the 3rd session: the benefits are increasingly long-lasting. He writes to me that he has started doing some things he hasn't done for a long time, such as reading. And he also notices some coincidences that appear when he is more aware. Due to the increase in the new restrictions, however, he returns to having a slight worsening of his mood. So we decided to add the support of a psychologist to the soulspension and massage sessions to seek a greater response.
The meetings are presented in this way: the dialogue with the psychologist, the active work with soulspension and the passive massage part. So an emotional outburst followed by finding the center between body and mind by climbing and learning to stay on the soulspension, where the work of opening and letting go ends in the massage, in making contact between this new state of well-being, body and mind. I found that by working with this synergy we greatly accelerated the lady's responses and reactions and the state of improvement was more than evident. A working method that thrilled me above all for the results obtained. A complete multi-storey and multi-level job, a 360° care of all the person's needs.
Conclusions
All the feedback I have had with soulspension, also alternating with postural suspension on the table, has had more than positive feedback. When people get up from the instrument they feel happier, they feel relieved of their burdens, they feel rediscovered and some, seeing their shoulders straighter and their chest open, felt more beautiful, with greater self-esteem and newfound energy. An open chest often makes you face events from a different perspective, with greater confidence and determination. By using the tool daily at home and following a path accompanied by a professional, you can obtain excellent benefits, not only physical but also mental.
The word I have heard used most by everyone who has tried it is Lightness. I consider it a wonderful word, a great writer said:
Take life lightly, which lightness is not superficiality, but gliding over things from above, not having millstones on your heart". I. Calvino
So I recommend the use of this tool as a powerful weapon in the situation we are all experiencing, because it is versatile, because it works, because it makes you feel good without the use of drugs , simply activating the natural pharmacy that is within us.
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