Stress these days is present in abundance. The daily rush to work or appointments, dropping off and picking up kids from school, running errands and to not forget the chores that are waiting at home. Cleaning, cooking, shopping.
We perceive stress often to be a mental issue only. We are trying to manage our time more efficiently but yet, we can never plan for the unforeseen interruption. What we forget is that stress is an inherited response, a response that can save our life’s in dangerous situations. Think about someone stepping out on to the road in front of your car. Your immediate reaction is a stress response. You hit the brakes, you clench on to the steering wheel. You are more alert, your heart is racing, your breathing is faster. There might also be some anger and rage coming up. What is also happening is that your muscle tense up, you are in more control of your steering wheel, your body is stabilised. And this reaction, controlled by your autonomic nervous system, more precise the sympathetic nervous system, is normal, desired but should be short lived.
If this stress response persists, due to reoccurring and constant stress, the physical stress response will also persist. Increased tension in your muscles will put pressure on joints, nerves blood vessels which in turn then can cause discomfort, reduce blood or information flow to organs and muscles. Especially muscle tension in the back can pull on vertebrae and hip and thus create what appears to be a misalignment. We notice that we are more tense on side than the other. Over time this can lead to back pain, tension headaches, tension in neck and shoulders.
Targeted relaxation can help to reduce or even remove the muscle tension. But what is targeted muscle relaxation? Relaxation in general is regulated again by the autonomic nervous system, however, the opposing part to the one regulating the stress response. A big part of the relaxation regulator is the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve needs to be active in order to counter play the stress responses of sympathetic nervous system. Neuromuscluar relaxations form such targeted relaxation methods as they are, as the name indicates, relax muscles as well as nerves. Vitametik® is such a neuromuscular relaxation and it targets the vagus nerve as well as muscles in your shoulder, neck and back. An independent study was conducted by researchers at the Sport University Cologne showing the effect of Vitametik® alone (Kleinert et al. 2022). Vitametik® can be used as a standalone relaxation method but can also benefit if combined with other therapies aiding relaxation such massages, yoga, meditations, progressive muscle relaxation or autogenic training.
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