Massage (and exercise) as a trigger.

[ankietyjoe]

I've talked about post exercise anxiety before, and I know a couple of you guys have experienced similar sensations. It's not the immediate 'omg my chest is pounding', rather the stuff that happens a few hours or a day later.

Thursday night I had a migraine and my wonderful misses gave me a shoulder/neck massage for about an hour. It was fairly deep and left me feeling relaxed and with less pain.

The next morning I experienced immediate dizziness which is ok, because I've experienced that before after massage, it's fairly common. What I wasn't expecting were several bouts of intense anxiety during the daytime culminating in a good old 140bpm PA at bedtime last night.

After much googling (not fear based, research based) I came across several articles relating to other people experiencing anxiety after massage, and I already know of several people here who have some unpleasant reactions after exercise. Again this is happening several hours after the trigger activity.

I'm thinking it's something to do with toxin release in the muscles, although I haven't got a finger on exactly what it is yet. I do know that it's advised that you drink a lot of water after a deep tissue massage in order to flush out the toxins, and that you'll be peeing more for the same reason. I've had a similar experience with the post exercise occurrences as well in that I tend to be incredibly thirsty and pee a lot the next day - along with the dreaded anxiety.

Do any of you guys have similar experiences to this?

[Ange1]

Exercise and massage releases a lot of endorphins which make you feel better. I think once this wears off the anxiety can kick in...like coming down from a high. It's one reason why some people who are that way inclined can become addicted to exercise x

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hey, AJ, how about convincing the missus that you need to 'habituate' to it for some more rub downs? :shades:

I don't know about massage but with anxiety, could it just be that something different is being felt, that is natural, but it's interpreted as a possible issue?

[Ange1]

Agree with Terry as with anxiety you are tense the whole time even when you don't think you are so anything that relaxes that tension is felt as weird, basically the body has forgotten how to relax! And definitely needs more to remind it what that feels like. :) x

[ankietyjoe]

I'm not so sure if it's a come down from feeling good as it usually appears several hours (or usually the next day) later.

I generally don't suffer from anxiety anymore, at least as something triggered psychologically. I do however seem to have some rather unpleasant 'overstimulated' physical sensations when I exercise too much, and latterly when I've had the massage.

I have read that a lot of toxins are released in both cases, and I'm suspecting this is possibly the cause of the anxiety.

[Catherine S]

I agree that its probably the high and low of a deep massage...as has been said it releases endorphines so it would take a day or two for the effect of this to eventually wear off...then you're back to the old anxiety again but stronger because of the come down.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Can you isolate what the physical symptoms are then?

If you did hard exercise e.g. weights, you would expect to feel the aftermath the next day far more than after the session. Thats alll part of the process and micro tears and repair.

If your sensations are deep soreness, tightness of muscles, lack of strength, lack of flexibility, etc it would be like the day after weight work.

I've never had a deep tissue massage but I would imagine it would cause stimulation of the tissues hence causing them to warm up for a while.

If you ever seen the real hardcore bodybuilders, they use methods of causing trauma to muscles by tearing them without weights to stimulate growth, so is deep tissue massage a lower intensite version maybe?

I have issues myself with exercise, the sensations during and the aftermath of soreness. It's something I kick myself over because I know it's all natural, it's just that once you know what real anxiety is like, you see similiar symptoms and join them up with your anxiety. It's all part of behavioural conditioning, although I don't bark & salivate when a bell rings Mr Pavlov! :woof

[ankietyjoe]

See this is the weird thing.

I'm very familiar with post exercise muscle stiffness and soreness as I used to weight train a LOT when I was younger. Although it's painful I actually enjoyed the feeling as I knew it was worthwhile.

When I get a reaction to exercise now there is really no soreness present in that sense. I can't even get close to the level of exercise required to cause muscular damage. 10 minutes with light weights/low reps is enough to flatten me.

The sensation I feel later on or the next day is severe trembling in the muscles, weakness, tightness, twitching and what feels like an adrenaline build up within the muscle itself. I sometimes have to stretch to 'release' whatever it is that feels like is built up within the muscle. It's quite unpleasant.

I had the same experiences the day after the massage, and as it was a deep and relatively painful massage I can only assume the same process is at work here (deep massage can cause light muscle damage I've read).

[Joseph12]

Hey every one !
according to my experience doing exercise daily helps you a lot in controlling your panic attacks so those who are experiencing panic attacks continue doing excercise.