Is Bowen therapy good for anxiety?
I share how I can support you with anxiety, using Bowen therapy and many more solutions
Firstly, I was taught that anxiety is simply a label we have given to an energy in the body, we usually believe its a negative thought or feeling that we shouldn’t have and that we need to get rid of it to be better. In actual fact, everyone at some point has anxiety and its totally ‘normal’, so you can be gentle on yourself and know its okay to feel anxiety. Its more what it stops you doing that can make you feel limited, so lets look at solutions.
Of course there are many different practices for the mind, CBT, meditation, prayer, taking supplements etc the list goes on and its about finding something that resonates with you. I choose to practice short moments of strong mind, as it really soothes and supports me and I love the idea that no matter what I think or feel, it leaves no trace, like a line drawn in water, or a firework in the sky. For more info on this practice, you can click here.
So, to start with, you know you can be gentle on yourself and think okay its an energy in the body that will resolve and how can I best relax and take care here?
Reflection
It might be a good starting point to ask yourself what is going on at the moment that might contributing to anxiety, is it work? When you are around certain people? Something you feel uncomfortable or low confidence about? All of these are totally ‘normal’ to have anxiety over and if there is no cause, don’t worry about reflection isnt leading to any useful insights.
On some level, we are simply cute beings that want to be our best at all times.
Foods to nourish
Avoiding strong stimulants such as caffeine, alcohol and sugar could support, as these can exacerbate anxiety. Of course a little is fine if you don’t want to stop this, but I once had a client say ‘I don’t drink much tea’ and when I asked him what that meant for him, he said 7 cups! So its relative to you.
Exercise you enjoy
Exercise will get those endorphins flowing and usually brings relief from sitting with the feeling of anxiety. Perhaps try and join a class with a friend for extra support.
Remembering the bigger picture
Focusing on what things you do enjoy and what is it you love to do can soothe. Focusing on all the positives in your life can simply be enough to shift the focus from the anxiety misery. Of course these suggestions are all things to chip away at to support you, you can write these down or you might find it easier to catch yourself on the downward spiral.
Belly breathing can soothe
Often we are breathing more shallow from the chest, when it comes to feeling anxious, especially with panic attacks. If our breathing isnt supportive, then this may lead to digestive problems, poor posture and stress, this may also lead to poor sleep and lack of concentration. So test out breathing in and letting your belly expand, as you breathe out let your belly fall in. You could try a cycle of breathing in for 3 and out for 3, or even increase this to 6 seconds. You could do this winding down before bed, or when you feel a strong overwhelm of anxiety.
Figure of 8 visualisation
Visualisations can soothe, imagining the figure of 8, which is one of my favs to share, in that you imagine yourself and the ‘thing that is bothering you’, you draw a figure of 8 around yourself and the other person, place or thing, relaxing the whole time as much as possible, then you imagine a direct slice happening between yourself and the other person/place of thing and them flowing away in water. The idea here is that you remove yourself away from the stressor. You an be really gentle here and just test it out.
Bowen technique for anxiety
When you come to see me for a treatment, I will listen and understand and we look at solutions together on what could support you in your lifestyle, looking at all aspects of you. We have a beautiful move in Bowen called the respiratory move, which is very opening and soothing to the abdomen and rib cage, supporting the fascial front line. This picture below shows the front line, taken from Anatomy Trains book by Tom Myers 2007. This is showing our connectedness in the body and if one area is impacted, then most like the other areas running through this line might be. In terms of anxiety, you can see the chest, ribcage, abdomen and pelvis are all linked here, so releasing here will allow more relaxation, more opening of the ribcage and more ability to breath easier.
Benefits of relaxing with bowen
Common tension areas I see in practice, are the jaw and temple area of the face, which I work over too. It also feels nice to give yourself an hour to relax on the couch, be listened to, understood and have sore points squidged, aligned and relaxed. The respiratory move also supports asthma suffers too.
The aim is to relax you and in doing so there are multiple benefits, one is that Bowen can re-set the ANS – autonomic nervous system – put simply the nervous system, which controls our fight or flight response, if we are in too much fight, from stressors, an agitated nervous system, too much caffeine stimulation, then more adrenaline is released in the body, you will have higher stress and anxiety. This impacts our digestion and sleep. When you are relaxed and soothed, your body has a chance to kick back for a bit and operates in the PNS parasympathetic nervous system, which is our resting and sleeping state supporting with digestion, elimination, sexual response and immune system functioning.
To conclude
Whilst anxiety is a natural energy to feel, if its preventing you from doing something or getting you down, then its time to reach out, I have listed many options of solutions but coming for a Bowen treatment will be sure to relax, reset you and balance the body
If you would like to be squidged, aligned and soothed from stress and anxiety, then contact me here.
