Body Stress Release (BSR in short) is all about changing your body for the better. BSR is a complementary health technique relatively new to Australia, developed since 1981 in South Africa by Ewald and Gail Meggersee. This gentle technique assists the body in its own healing process and brings effective relief against all forms of tension, pain and discomfort caused by the build-up of 'stress' in the body.
"I fully recommend Body Stress Release because I have been having BSR sessions for several years. My experience has been one of continuous unfolding benefit as deep, old emotional issues are released from the body tissues. Happily the treatment is kind, rather than harsh, which in itself assists the body in letting go.” Michael Roads internationally acclaimed, self-realised author and speaker, seminar leader
BSR is known to have been beneficial for people suffering from migraines, RSI, whiplash, chronic fatigue syndrome, lower back pain, but is also used by sports people to improve their body coordination dramatically. As such, BSR has a greater purpose than merely the alleviation of symptoms - it is concerned with assisting the body in maintaining optimal health.
HISTORY
Fear of becoming totally paralysed while still in his 30's led Ewald Meggersee, together with his wife Gail, to pioneer the complementary health technique known as BODY STRESS RELEASE (BSR).
Ewald had the distorted posture of a 120 year-old and would frequently wake up paralysed from the waist down. All his life - from the age of five when he fell out of a tree and lay unconscious for a week - no one had been able to find the souce of the continuous shooting pains and cramping he suffered in his lower back and legs.
The nightmare became a regular occurrence for Ewald. Imagine his fear of going to sleep at night not knowing he if was going to wake up permanently paralysed! Eventually it got so bad that he faced losing his job and spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Ewald and Gail felt they had nothing to lose and decided to pack up everything and both train as chiropractors in America.
During their studies in America they met Dr Richard van Rumpt, a retired chiropractor who had researched an approach completely different to chiropractic manipulation. He talked about “listening” to the body and using it as a biofeedback mechanism that would be self-healing.
When they returned to South Africa, Ewald and Gail built on his method of reading the body's feedback response to areas of muscle stress and contraction. The technique is now known as Body Stress Release, and differs radically from its chiropractic roots, as it uses information provided by the body itself to determine where abnormal muscle tension is undermining the efficiency of the nervous system and disturbing its ability to co-ordinate its functioning.
What the Meggersees discovered is that the body protects itself from “stress” in a highly organised way. Although it can normally adapt to the various stresses and strains of everyday life - falls, jerks, heavy lifting, bad posture - if the stress gets too severe, the body suffers overload and locks the stress into itself in lines of tension and contraction. This tension - or body stress - leads to pain, numbness or stiffness and interferes with the body's self-healing defence mechanism. The body is less and less able to cope with or adapt to added stress and begins to deteriorate further. This is why a person with long-term body stress may also feel tense, tired, and lacking in energy and enthusiasm for life. Headaches, backache and indigestion may follow. In some cases, a person suffering stress overload no longer feels stiff or sore - but just comes to accept as normal a sense of having less than 100% well-being.
Since 1981, tens of thousands of people all over the world have already found their way to this gentle and almost miraculous way of enhancing the body's own healing powers by releasing long-held stress locked in the muscle system.
Late 2000, BSR was introduced to Australia, when the first Australian practitioner arrived back from the BSR Academy in South Africa.
BODY STRESS
We are constantly subjected to various forms of stress in our daily lives. A certain amount is necessary to provide us
with challenges and to stimulate us to strive for survival and progress. For example, a mind that is not challenged by problems to be solved becomes bored and stagnates; to maintain and strengthen muscles, they must be provided with the mechanical stress of exercise.
The body is designed to be self-healing. It has mechanisms that constantly monitor every function that is taking place and is continuously adapting to both external influences and stresses, and to internal changes and stresses.
Health may be defined as: the body's ability to constructively deal with all the stresses to which it is subjected. In this way it is constantly repairing itself and maintaining its optimum level of efficient functioning.
“Stress” becomes a negative, destructive factor in life when it goes beyond the individual’s ability to adapt to it. When the point of stress overload is reached, instead of the stress being released from the body, it becomes stored within the body, as ‘body stress’. As we differ in our emotional and physical makeup, we have varying degrees of susceptibility to stress overload.
THE CAUSES OF BODY STRESS
Emotional / mental stress factors These include fear of the future, financial worries, competition in the work-place, disintegrating family relationships, sudden violent emotions, such as anger or shock, or milder but ongoing forms of mental strain, eg. anxiety, depression, resentment. The physical effects may show up in the diaphragm area, neck and shoulders, or might show in high blood pressure, adrenaline rushes, and related heart problems.
Mechanical stress factors The causes of mechanical body stress may be sudden and violent, such as a car accident, a severe fall, or lifting a heavy object incorrectly. Or, there may be a gradual accumulation of milder mechanical stress, eg. habitually sitting incorrectly, or doing inappropriate exercises.
Chemical stress factors The sources of chemical stress include pollutants in the air, insecticides and certain food additives and preservatives. Harmful chemicals may be consumed, inhaled, or even absorbed when contacting the skin.
THE EFFECTS OF BODY STRESS
When the point of stress overload is reached, the stress becomes ‘locked’ into the body and manifests as lines of tension.
The body adopts a protective mode of action by means of automatic reflexes, causing adjacent and overlying muscles to splint the area. It appears that this action has a dampening effect on the nervous system, thereby causing the brain’s filtering mechanism to ignore the areas of body stress. In time as the body is required to take greater defensive action, stiffness may become noticeable, ultimately leading to postural distortions. It may also lead to loss of flexibility, pain, or numbness.
A person with body stress may also feel tense, tired and lacking in energy and enthusiasm for life. Headaches, backache and indigestion may follow.
It is also possible for body stress to be present without the individual feeling any pain or stiffness - he or she will simply come to accept as normal their sense of having less than 100 per cent well-being.
While the stress or tension remains stored in the body, the normal tone of the body is disturbed, causing a reduction in its general efficiency, as its defence mechanisms become weakened, the body becomes less and less able to deal with further stresses to which it is subjected daily. In this way the individual moves increasingly further away from the optimum state of health.
The BSR Technique
This technique is designed to help the body release its stored tensions.
With the person fully clothed and lying down, the practitioner carries out a series of tests to locate the exact sites of the body stress and determine the precise directions in which the lines of tension exist. This is done by applying light pressure to various points on the body and observing the response. In this way, the body acts as a biofeedback mechanism supplying the information required.
The practitioner then applies stimuli, by means of light but definite pressure, in the exact directions necessary to encourage the body to release the stored tension.
If the body stress has occurred recently the process of releasing it is usually very rapid. However, if the stress has been stored for a long time, the stress releases may have to be carried out a number of times, over a period of time. This is because the tight, protective layers of the muscles tend to relax by degrees back to their normal tone.
Because Body Stress Release works with the body’s natural striving to be stress free, it is a gentle procedure that does not require force.
NOTE: Body Stress Release is not concerned with diagnostics or treatment of any condition or disease. It is concerned only with locating and releasing stored tension, so that the body is assisted in its in-built ability to maintain and heal itself.
