El vínculo que cambia la vida entre la ansiedad y la tensión muscular

La ansiedad se considera un trastorno psicológico, pero en realidad involucra muchos sistemas del cuerpo. La ansiedad es una verdadera condición "somática": típicamente es provocada y empeorada no por una fuente externa como un virus, sino por nuestro funcionamiento psicológico y fisiológico interno.

For many people, chronic muscle tension plays a large role in anxiety. It may not surprise you that psychological stress causes muscle tension, but it goes the other way as well: muscle tension causes psychological stress.

This is good news—it means that by reducing your muscle tension, you can relieve your anxiety. For many people, reducing chronic muscle tension is a critical part in recovery from anxiety and related conditions.

En esta publicación, explicaré:

• ¿Qué sucede cuando experimentamos estrés?

• Cómo el estrés se convierte en ansiedad

• Cómo la ansiedad y la tensión muscular se provocan y agravan mutuamente

• Cómo recuperarse de la ansiedad reduciendo la tensión muscular, abordando otros factores fisiológicos, participando en la terapia de conversación, tomando el control y explorando sus reacciones habituales al estrés

Qué sucede durante nuestra respuesta natural al estrés

El Homo sapiens moderno ha evolucionado durante al menos 300,000 años. Durante la mayor parte de este tiempo vivimos un estilo de vida nómada, cazador-recolector, moviéndonos con las estaciones y siguiendo nuestras fuentes de alimento. La vida diaria se centró en la supervivencia física: encontrar comida, prevenir y curar heridas y defenderse de los ataques. Evolucionamos para lidiar de manera experta con estos factores estresantes agudos, acelerando automáticamente ciertos sistemas del cuerpo para ayudar a combatir el factor estresante y volviendo automáticamente al funcionamiento normal cuando la fuente del estrés desapareció.

Cuando percibimos una amenaza a nuestra supervivencia, nuestro sistema nervioso simpático responde con la respuesta de "lucha o huida", creando temporalmente un humano superpoderoso capaz de levantar objetos pesados y correr más rápido que nunca antes para dejar atrás a un atacante.

The stress response speeds up our blood flow, breathing, and production of energy for muscles. Our blood thickens, beginning the clotting process so that we don’t bleed to death if injured. Our muscles tense as they ready for action, and postural reflexes prepare us to either stand up and defend ourselves or curl up into a ball. Our body releases endorphins so that pain or injury won’t slow us down. Functions of our body that are not essential for fighting or fleeing, like digestion, immune response, and sexual arousal are inhibited to allow our body to devote itself fully to surviving the stressful event.

Luego, con la misma rapidez, tan pronto como creemos que la fuente de estrés se ha ido, nuestro sistema nervioso parasimpático automáticamente indica que las funciones de nuestro cuerpo regresen a la normalidad. La frecuencia cardíaca y la respiración se ralentizan, los músculos se relajan y los sistemas digestivo, inmunológico y reproductivo reanudan su trabajo.

Evolution prepared us extremely well for chasing down our dinner and defending against attack. But over the past 10,000 years or so, since our development of agriculture provided us with a reliable source of food and allowed us to settle down in one place, our sources of stress have changed. Once our basic needs are met, our sources of stress shift from the physical—those that directly affect our survival—to the psychological.

Unfortunately, emotional, social, and financial problems trigger our stress response in the same way that physical stressors do. It all comes down to perception; if we perceive something to be a threat, our stress response is activated. But unlike acute physical stress, from which we are quite adept at recovering, psychological stress stays in our minds and constantly activates our stress response.

Our blood pressure remains elevated and our blood stays thick, increasing our chances of clots, strokes, and heart attacks. We habitually take shallow breaths, inflating our chest instead of our lower belly, and we find ourselves short of breath. Our muscles stay tight all the time, ready for action. These chronically contracted muscles use a great deal of energy, causing us to feel fatigued. Stress hormones keep the immune system suppressed and blood sugar levels high, leading to brain-cell death. In the end, our response to psychological stress usually causes more damage than any of the sources of stress could have caused in the first place.

¿Qué es la ansiedad?

Repeated activation of our stress response can lead to generalized anxiety disorder, a mood disorder characterized by excessive worry, nervous behavior, irritability, restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, muscle tension, and insomnia.

Las personas que sufren de ansiedad crónica se encuentran en un estado de estrés elevado que nunca desaparece. Siempre están nerviosos, preocupándose por cosas que probablemente nunca sucedan.

Both anxiety and chronic muscle tension are conditions of the nervous system in which our reactions have become habituated to the level that they are not under our conscious, voluntary control—that’s why they feel so uncontrollable and unchangeable. Unbalanced levels of hormones and neurotransmitters make anxiety all the more challenging to overcome. Conscious intervention, retraining of the nervous system, and commitment to healthy lifestyle habits are all necessary to truly eliminate both anxiety and muscle tension.

Cómo la ansiedad causa tensión muscular y viceversa

We’ve already learned that anxiety causes our natural stress response to be constantly activated, and that our muscles contract as part of our stress response. When we experience anxiety, our neuromuscular system never gets a chance to recover or return to normal. Our heart rate remains elevated and our muscles retain a higher than normal level of tension.

Aquí hay una lección rápida sobre lo que sucede en sus músculos cuando están tensos todo el tiempo:

Cuando nuestros músculos se contraen constantemente, nuestras células se ven obligadas a crear energía para nuestros músculos a través del proceso del metabolismo anaeróbico. En este proceso, la glucosa se sintetiza en trifosfato de adenosina (ATP) sin la ayuda de oxígeno, y el ácido láctico se produce como desecho.

A menudo se culpa al ácido láctico por el dolor muscular, pero en realidad, nuestro cuerpo descompone rápidamente el ácido láctico en iones de lactato e hidrógeno. Una acumulación de iones de hidrógeno, que activan nuestros receptores del dolor, es probablemente la causa del dolor sordo y la sensación de ardor que sentimos en nuestros músculos durante el ejercicio intenso.

And a buildup of lactate is linked to anxiety. Not surprisingly, studies show that people with anxiety have higher resting levels of muscle tension, react to stress with stronger muscle contractions, and return to their baseline level of tension more slowly than control subjects. As a result of their increased muscle tension, levels of lactate in the blood are higher in anxiety patients.

But what is quite interesting is that this physiological loop goes both ways. We can actually make ourselves anxious, and even induce panic attacks, by injecting lactate into our bloodstream. So not only does anxiety increase muscle tension, but chronic muscular contraction and increased lactate levels can cause anxiety, creating a vicious cycle.

Perfectly healthy people experience increased muscle tension when they feel stress. One study found that simply having to complete word and math problems in a research lab increased the muscle tension of test subjects. In another experiment, subjects were given a picture and asked to tell a story about it. While they told their stories, their muscle tension increased because they experienced a little bit of anxiety, just as most of us would when performing in front of other people. When they finished, half of the subjects were praised for doing a good job on the task. Their muscle tension dropped back to normal levels. The other half of the subjects were criticized for their poor performance, and their muscle tension remained higher than normal—until they were reassured by a different researcher that they had actually done a good job.

Mental activity alone, not just psychological stress, is enough to increase muscle tension. Edmund Jacobson, a physician and psychologist, conducted a number of studies in the 1920s and 1930s using an electromyograph (EMG) to observe the correlation between thought and muscle tension. He developed a technique called “progressive relaxation” to guide his subjects through a process of contracting and releasing their muscles one by one. As the subjects’ muscular tension decreased, their mental activity decreased as well. Once relaxed, it was quite easy to see the elevations in muscle tension that occurred when the subjects were instructed to think about specific things.

La investigación de Jacobson demostró que la actividad mental siempre ocurre junto con un aumento de la tensión muscular, y que la reducción de la tensión muscular tiene el efecto inmediato de disminuir la actividad mental y la actividad general del sistema nervioso central.

Our level of psychological stress and the way that we process it exists on a spectrum. A moderate amount of worry triggers our stress response to a lesser degree than a diagnosable anxiety condition would. Unfortunately, it’s surprisingly easy to get used to an increased level of muscle tension and heart rate and to be completely unaware that your baseline level of stress is elevated.

Cómo recuperarse de la ansiedad

En condiciones somáticas como la ansiedad, nuestro funcionamiento fisiológico juega un papel tan importante como nuestro funcionamiento psicológico. Un enfoque de tratamiento exitoso debe abordar la tensión muscular crónica, la dieta, el ejercicio, las fuentes de estrés psicológico y nuestros patrones de pensamiento y reacciones habituales al estrés.

1. Libera tu tensión muscular con Somática Clínica.

While many people start practicing Clinical Somatics exercises to relieve muscle and joint pain, the exercises also have the immediate effect of calming the nervous system.

An advantage of treating your anxiety by practicing these exercises is that it gives you an active way to approach your condition—you’re doing something, rather than thinking about things or trying to force yourself to relax. You’ll also get a break from thinking about your worries because the extreme slowness of Clinical Somatics exercises demands complete focus; it’s literally impossible to think about anything else.

2. Regule las hormonas del estrés, los neurotransmisores, el estado de ánimo y los niveles de energía con hábitos de vida saludables:

• Get regular aerobic exercise (Spark by John Ratey is a must-read!)

• Spend time outdoors every day

• Commit to a regular sleep schedule

• Limite la cafeína a una porción al día (en la primera mitad del día) o elimínela por completo.

• Limite el alcohol a una porción al día o elimínelo por completo

• Reduce tu ingesta de azúcar

• Eat a healthy, well-balanced, whole-food diet

• Look into possible nutrient deficiencies and food intolerances

3. Participa en la terapia de conversación.

No hay sustituto para hablar en voz alta sobre lo que te molesta. El miedo a menudo evita que los que sufren de ansiedad busquen ayuda de otros. Si tiene miedo de hablar con alguien, sepa que literalmente cientos de millones de personas están sufriendo al igual que usted, y todos también están asustados. Conquistar el miedo lo ayudará a superar su condición y seguir adelante. Es mucho más fácil resolver sus problemas cuando puede hablar sobre ellos con un experto. Si no se siente cómodo hablando con alguien en persona o asistiendo a un grupo de apoyo, existen otras opciones como servicios de terapia de texto, teléfono y video chat.

4. Tomar el control.

Para los que sufren de ansiedad, recuperar la sensación de control sobre sus vidas es una parte importante de la recuperación. Si tiene ansiedad, tómese unos minutos para anotar todas las fuentes de estrés. Considere cada elemento y descubra cómo controlarlo. Esto puede significar hacer cambios en su horario de trabajo o expectativas laborales, abordar problemas en una relación o lidiar con problemas financieros difíciles.

Si se encuentra inventando excusas de por qué no puede hacer los cambios necesarios, recuerde:

1. Hay una solución para cada problema.

2. Su ansiedad empeorará si no toma medidas.

3. Eres el único que puede realizar estos cambios. Nadie más puede hacerlo por ti.

If you can’t figure out how to take control of your sources of stress, ask someone else to look at the list and give you an objective opinion. It can be difficult to see your problems objectively when you’ve been stuck in them for so long. While you can’t control everything in life, it’s important to regain a sense of control over the things you actually can change—like your behavior, choices, job, relationships, and financial situation.

5. Empiece a notar sus patrones de pensamiento habituales y sus reacciones al estrés.

In addition to taking control over the sources of stress in your life, you’ll also need to think about how you might be creating stress for yourself. For many of us, the underlying cause of our stress is habitual thought patterns. Do you perceive situations to be stressful when in reality they aren’t that big of a deal? Do you spend a great deal of time worrying and creating unnecessary stress in your mind?

Our thoughts are simply electrochemical reactions, consisting of messages sent between neurons. Repeat the same thought over and over, and the neural pathways involved in that thought get stronger. Our thoughts can trigger the release of neuropeptides that travel through our body, creating physiological responses, changing the structure of cells, and even altering our DNA, leading to accelerated aging and increased rates of cancer and heart disease.

We are the only beings on the planet who have the ability to change our thought patterns and to choose how we interpret situations. If we perceive a situation to be stressful, our stress response is triggered. We also influence how we’ll react in the future by worrying about potentially stressful situations ahead of time. If you find yourself worrying and stressing before anything bad happens, you must learn to break that pattern or you’ll continue to suffer the ill effects of unnecessary stress.

You may not feel like you can choose how you react because your responses and thought patterns have become habitual. But remember that your nervous system is plastic—you can retrain your thought patterns, and you can change how you react to potentially stressful situations.

A medida que avanza en su vida diaria, observe lo que sucede cuando experimenta estrés:

¿Se te acelera el pulso?
¿Respira superficialmente?
¿Tus pensamientos se fijan en la situación estresante?
¿Cambia tu postura?
¿Tus músculos se tensan?
¿El estrés afecta la forma en que reacciona ante cosas que no son estresantes?
¿Liberas el estrés de tu familia, amigos o compañeros de trabajo?

Once you’ve begun to notice your habitual reactions to stress, you can begin to change them. When you feel stress, take a deep breath into your lower belly, hold it for a few seconds, and exhale as slowly as you can. Breathing slowly and deeply like this (known as diaphragmatic breathing) stops your body’s stress response and triggers your parasympathetic nervous system.

A continuación, analice su situación y mírela objetivamente. ¿Puedes encontrar una manera de permanecer relajado y lidiar con la situación?

It takes time and conscious effort to retrain your habitual thought patterns and reactions, but it’s worth it. Try it today: Notice one potentially stressful situation that you encounter, take a deep breath, and try to relax and turn it into a neutral or even a positive experience. Practice this every day and soon you’ll find that your new pattern of reacting to events has become habitual, and you’ll feel much less stress overall in your life.

If you want to relieve your anxiety with Clinical Somatics exercises, the best place to start is with the Level One Course.

If you want to learn more about how our stress response affects our muscle tension, posture, and movement, read Sarah’s book El Secreto del Alivio del Dolor.