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2 results

  • Session 2 - Applied Stretching and the Toe-to-Head Muscle Relaxation with Visualization

  • Devon E. Hinton, Baland Jalal, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    Transdiagnostic Multiplex CBT for Muslim Cultural Groups
    Published online:
    04 September 2020
    Print publication:
    17 September 2020, pp 32-40

  • Summary

    Session 2 focuses on “applied muscle relaxation”traditionally used to describe the relaxation of muscles by contracting a muscle, holding the contraction, and then releasing tension. This might also be called “contract-release muscle relaxation.” Another method of muscle relaxation, such as that used in yoga, involves stretching a muscle by forced elongation, holding the forced elongation a certain time, and then releasing it. This might also be called elongation-release relaxation or stretch-release relaxation. Multiplex CBT teaches both applied muscle relaxation (i.e., “contract-release” relaxation) and applied muscle stretching (i.e., “elongation-release” relaxation). Patients who experience anxious-depressive distress have multiple symptoms induced by muscle tension. Examples of sensations caused by muscle tension include joint soreness, muscle soreness, and headache. In addition, those muscle-tension-caused somatic sensations often give rise to catastrophic cognitions, trigger distress associations, and activate interceptive conditioning. In addition, muscle relaxation will decrease arousal and hence fear, and this reduced arousal and fear will decrease symptoms such as cold extremities. Furthermore, applied muscle stretching allows for the introduction of phrases and images that promote a positive self-image of flexibility and prime to being flexible.

  • Learned maintenance of pain: Muscle tension reduces central nervous system processing of painful stimulation in chronic and subchronic pain patients

  • BÄRBEL KNOST, HERTA FLOR, NIELS BIRBAUMER, MARKUS M. SCHUGENS
  • Journal:
    Psychophysiology / Volume 36 / Issue 6 / November 1999
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    01 November 1999, pp. 755-764
    Print publication:
    November 1999

  • The effect of level of muscle tension on the perception of painful stimuli was assessed in 13 chronic back pain patients, 14 subjects at high risk for chronic back pain, and 14 matched healthy controls. Subjects received painful intracutaneous electric stimuli to the forearm or the lower back while they produced either high or low muscle tension levels. Visual analog scale (VAS) ratings of acute pain were obtained after each trial. Electroencephalograms, electromyograms, skin conductance levels, and blood pressure were measured during the trials. Although subjective pain ratings were not significantly affected by muscle tension levels, the chronic pain patients displayed elevated N150 and N150/P260 amplitudes of the somatosensory-evoked potentials in the low as compared to the high muscle tension condition. The high risk group showed a trend toward higher N150 amplitudes in the low as compared to the high tension condition. The results of this study partially support the hypothesis that increases in muscle tension might serve as a pain-reducing mechanism in chronic pain patients and those at risk for chronicity, thus leading to a vicious pain-tension cycle.