In today’s fast paced world, children are facing increasing pressures and stressors that can impact their mental and emotional well-being. At Cotlew St. Osteopathy, we understand the importance of nurturing children’s mental health and providing wholistic support to help them thrive. In this blog post, we’ll explore how osteopathy can be part of a gentle strategy to promote increased balance and resilience for these children.
Understanding Childhood Stress and Anxiety:
Childhood stress and anxiety are prevalent concerns that can manifest in various ways, including physical symptoms such as headaches, stomach aches, muscle tension, as well as emotional symptoms like mood swings, irritability and difficulty concentrating. Common triggers for stress and anxiety in children may include academic or school pressure, social challenges, family dynamics and environmental or dietary factors.
The Osteopathic Approach:
Osteopathy takes a wholistic approach to health. It recognises the interconnectedness of the body, mind, and spirit. Osteopathic treatment aims to address the physical symptoms of stress and anxiety and delve deeper to understand the cause or contributing factors. By restoring balance within the body, osteopathy can help alleviate tension, promote relaxation, and support the bodies’ natural ability to heal and self-regulate.
Osteopathy can help by:
- Addressing structural imbalance and muscular tightness.
By assessing posture, biomechanics and alignment, osteopaths can identify and address any physical factors that may contribute to stress and anxiety, such as tension in the neck and shoulders or compression in the spine.
Osteopathic techniques such as articulation and soft tissue techniques can help to release this tension and tightness from muscles and tissues, promoting relaxation and reducing the physical symptoms of stress.
- Supporting nervous system regulation.
Osteopathic treatment aims to balance the autonomic nervous system, which plays a key role in regulating stress responses. By addressing restrictions in the Vagus nerve, spine and skull using Cranial osteopathic techniques, osteopathy can help restore optimal nervous system function and promote a sense of calm.
- Promoting mind-body awareness.
Osteopaths work collaboratively with children to increase their awareness of their bodies and develop mindfulness techniques to help manage stress and anxiety. By learning to practice relaxation techniques, children can build resilience and coping skills to navigate stressful situations more effectively.
Every child deserves to feel safe and supported to navigate their challenges with resilience. Cotlew St. Osteopathy aims to provide children with the tools and strategies to help manage their stress while providing hands on care to promote a sense of inner calm and balance.
Dr Victoria McLelland – Registered Osteopath
