Identifying stress in your life is really important if you have chronic pelvic pain.
In the short-term, acute stress can stop your brain paying attention to pain... BUT our stress system is designed to last a short time and then calm down.
If it carries on then the stress itself can be interpreted by the pain system as a threat and turn up the dial on pain.
When our body is experiencing stress, it gets ready for fight/flight by releasing hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Your muscles get ready to run, and blood is drawn away from your intestines and stomach so more is available for your muscles.
In a healthy nervous system, when the threat is gone, we can move out of our sympathetic state.
When we’re chronically stressed sometimes we can get stuck in a survival state.
Some of the signs of this are:
Restlessness
Irritability
Frustration
Anger
Heightened anxiety
Inability to relax
We can start to sense danger everywhere, including within our own body. 😔
When we’re in this state a few things can happen in our body...
Our brain can start to interpret non painful things (wearing tight pants, going out in the cold) as being painful. 🧠
Our muscles in the affected area, particularly our pelvic floor muscles, can become tight and tense to try protect us. When these muscles have been tight for a long time they can go into spasm, which feels like stabbing severe pelvic pains.
This is a common cause for people presenting to the emergency department.
Our gut can be affected and can cause painful bloating, pain, diarrhoea and/or reflux.
In the process of TRYING to keep us safe and help us our brain and nervous system can actually contribute to worsening of our symptoms.
This is very powerful to know about because we CAN do things to address
this by
a) acknowledging this might be happening to us and
b) learning tools to bring us back to safety (where we’re less likely to experience pain)
We teach these tools in the Ella App.
This includes things like:
✨ Gentle stretches
✨ Guided breathwork
✨ Visualisation techniques
✨ Mindfulness and meditation
If you're keen to learn more about this
feel free to join our waitlist for the
Ella App here 💕
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