4 Ways Visiting An Osteopath Can Help You Feel Yourself Again

While many of us associate osteopathy treatments with back problems, there are actually a whole host of other problems that such treatment can help with, and which could get us back to feeling like our old selves again, fast!

So, if you’ve been struggling with pain or stress (or a bad back), don’t feel as if medication or self-help books are your only solution; take a trip to your friendly, local osteopath and let him or her work their healing magic!

Here are 4 ways a trip to the osteopath could get you back to feeling like your old self again:

1. Pain relief

There’s nothing worse then being in pain or discomfort, and if you suffer from frequent (or particularly bad) headaches, have stiff and painful joints, or have injured yourself during a sporting activity, osteopathy treatments could help alleviate your suffering.

Once they’ve established the source of your pain or discomfort, the osteopath will observe how you move along with your posture, before using physical therapies to stretch and massage the appropriate muscles, encouraging the flow of blood and relaxing them.

When coupled with guidance for longer term self-care, you could be pain-free and enjoying life again.

2. Stress and anxiety

Many of us are stressed and anxious nowadays, and this can have a direct effect on different parts of our body. While stress and anxiety may not be the obvious cause of physical pain, when it occurs repeatedly, it can be a significant contributing factor of body pain. Constant stress puts pressure on many of our muscles, causing them to become tense, and remain that way for extended periods of time.

Your osteopath may recommend that you seek further treatment or guidance in relation to your stress and anxiety levels, if this is deemed to be a contributing factor to your pain, before gently massaging, manipulating and stretching those muscles that have become painful due to restricted mobility and a reduction in blood flow.

3. General health and overall wellbeing

When assessing you and your needs, your osteopath will take time to carefully consider all other aspects of your health and medical history, including your emotional state and social environment. Being in constant pain can absolutely impact on our mental health, but it can affect many other areas of our wellbeing too, such as digestion and sleep.

Osteopathy can help you move more freely, which in turn, will aid your digestion, enable you to feel more relaxed, and ideally, improve your sleep patterns and overall wellbeing, too.

4. Management of chronic pain

Whether it’s back pain, or pain in any other part of your body, when it won’t go away and haunts you day and night, it can be incredibly detrimental to your mental and physical wellbeing.

Chronic pain is described as pain that persists for longer than four months, and which is most likely to have been caused by nervous system changes relating to a trauma previously experienced, or factors surrounding emotions. Fortunately, osteopaths are wonderfully well placed to help you reduce chronic pain and manage it long term. While there probably won’t be a one-size-fits-all approach to ending or reducing long term pain, with a combination of osteopathy treatments, and ongoing advice and guidance, your customized patient plan could soon have you feeling like the old you again.

Experienced osteopaths know that it’s very often a combination of mental and physical factors that determine an individual’s pain and discomfort levels, but with their expert techniques and treatments that encompass mind, body and soul, they’ll soon have you feeling as right as rain again.