• Some things in life get done, others don't. Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes we don't get our way.
• Sometimes we accept this, sometimes we don't. We may also believe that we shouldn't complain or express our feelings about whatever it is that is going on
• As a result, we may react unhelpfully to situations rather than responding appropriately
• Others around us react unhelpfully too, adding to difficulties.

Aren't these kinds of conflict largely what stress is about?

The way we tend to react impulsively to situations in our lives is key to how much stress we experience; we so easily judge the any situation to be "wrong," and then everything else follows from that; anger, anxiety, fear, suffering.

Biodynamic massage excels in helping you to both recover from and minimise stress in your life.

Stress has huge impact in terms of well-being and happiness, family life, health and financial costs to business from inefficiency at or absence from work.

Recognising that what may be stressful for one person may not be stressful for another can be useful in some situations. Learning to stop, step back, breathe, reconnect with our bodies and take the time to think things through can be very effective at managing stress.

Learnt stress management strategies can be very useful, but can also very easily run the risk of leaving you "in your head," with a list of yet more things to do in order to manage the stress which the many things already on your overloaded "to do" list has created!

In contrast, touch happens in real time and brings you directly back in tune with reality. From this place, you can more easily make rational and calm decisions about the right way forward ... decisions which are also in tune with your body. By rebalancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and restoring felt awareness, biodynamic massage therapy fosters relaxation, smoothes your emotions and calms your mind.

In short, biodynamic massage brings you back to yourself!

People often consider regular bodywork to be merely a luxury ... until they try it and come to realise its benefits. Clients frequently report that situations which would usually be stressful for them suddenly become much easier, for example, being caught in traffic when driving.

There is also ample scope to talk about stressful events during sessions in order to develop better ways to deal with such situations.

The relationship between trauma and stress

For many people, particularly anyone who has undergone a traumatic physical or psychological/emotional event, life events may trigger more deeply held patterns which dramatically activate our nervous systems and make it particularly hard to usefully carry out self-help actions.

Even relatively minor traumas which we may otherwise forget about or dismiss can have this kind of effect.

Use of mindfulness-based techniques can help to release these patterns from the nervous system, so restoring our ability to respond appropriately - rather than switching automatically to a fight, flight or freeze type response.

The part of the brain which generates these responses works through the language of body sensations and not thoughts, so cognitive approaches are often ineffective.

Work with trauma and mindfulness techniques is a growing interest of mine.