Frequently asked Questions: 
Q – Who can benefit from Body Stress Release?
A – Since we are all subjected to stress simply by living, we tend to accumulate stored tension. Therefore, Body Stress Release can assist everyone, including pregnant women, athletes and the elderly. Each one of us can experience enhanced quality of life by receiving Body Stress Release.
Q – How does BSR differ from other health modalities?
A— Body Stress Release does not diagnosis or treat conditions or diseases. Its primary purpose is to locate and release stored or “locked-in“ tension, stress and trauma in the body, focusing on the body as a “whole” and not on specific symptoms. Feedback from the body itself pinpoints the exact locations stress has been stored so it can be gently released.
The result is reduced pressure on the nerves, enhancing communication between the brain and the nervous system. This activates the body’s healing systems for a wide variety of conditions and ill health effects. The Body Stress Release technique is precise, gentle and very effective. It respects and enhances the body’s innate healing abilities.
Q – How does the practitioner know where body stress is present?
A – Decades of Body Stress Release research has shown that the body deals with stress in a very organized way. Stress locks into patterns in the body. Your BSR practitioner, having been trained on how these stress patterns form in the body, performs specific tests according to these patterns.
Although the tests are very gentle, the body is so sensitive that it still reacts and provides feedback to the practitioner on whether stress is present in the area tested. The practitioner tests specifically where the stress has been stored in each individual’s body and releases are done accordingly. A practitioner does not make an “educated guess” where the stress might be stored, but acts only based on the feedback provided by the body itself.
Q— What can BSR do for those of us who are athletes?
A – Our bodies are amazing and wonderful organisms with miraculous self-healing abilities, yet the body can only perform optimally if we respect it and listen closely to its communication.
During athletic activities and events, we subject our bodies to various forms of stress: overtraining, overuse of key body parts, competitive emotional stress and even dehydration or over-hydration.
Athletes are taught to play through the pain thus ignoring the body and its attempts to self heal. No pain, no gain is a common refrain on many sports fields. This causes additional trauma and stress to the body.
BSR can assist athletes enormously in performing his/her sport optimally. “Locked-in” body stress takes tremendous energy and flexibility from the body. If the muscles are released through Body Stress Release, all of that extra energy and flexibility becomes available for improved performance. BSR also provides enhanced coordination, balance and timing, and an upgrade of the body’s ability to handle stress.
Q – What can BSR do for children?
A – Babies may have body stress present if the pregnancy or birth was not optimal. Symptoms of body stress in infants include constant crying for no apparent reason, colic, poor sleeping and constipation.
Growing and active children constantly challenge their bodies with activities, which can cause body stress. During gym, recess or through playing sports, children often put real stress on their bodies.
These symptoms of body stress include complaints of growing pains or sore legs, refusing to walk or wanting to be carried, headaches, stomach aches, difficulty concentrating in class, restlessness and even bed-wetting. Most young children respond very quickly to Body Stress Release, assisting them to reach their full life potential.
Q -The day after my appointment, I woke up with severe lower back pain. I could hardly get out of bed. Why would that be?
A – After your BSR release, the body immediately starts the healing process, decompressing the nerves occurs allowing feeling to return to areas which had been numbed out before. This is actually a very good sign, as it means your body has responded very well to your Body Stress Release session and healing has begun.
Q – Can you explain the phrase “feeling is healing”?
A – Remember a time when you sat on your leg too long causing it to fall asleep—you lost all feeling in it until you tried to move it? Then you could feel it get all tingly as sensation came back into it. This is a similar process as with Body Stress Release.
Often the muscles along the spine have compressed the spinal nerves causing them to “fall asleep” like your leg in the example above. Once BSR releases the stored stress, tension, and trauma, it reopens communication. Thus, if you suddenly have feeling in an area again, that is a sign that healing has begun and increased sensation (or pain) generally goes away in a day or two.
Q: I have heard you mention the term “unmasking.” What does this mean?
A – Unmasking refers to unlocking the deeper layers of stress, trauma, emotions so they can be brought to the surface and released. If you compare your body to an onion, these deeper layers are deeper layers in our body’s onion.
Here is my personal “unmasking” experience. It is probably more severe than most BSR clients will ever experience, but is an example of a “worst case.”
While attending the Body Stress Release Academy in 2012, I experienced a number of BSR sessions during the 5.5 months I was there. For me, this unlocked old trauma, which allowed my restored communication to activate my self-healing.
My “unmasking” started with a giant headache, head and neck pain, my right shoulder ached, eyes burned, my left hip ached, both hip joints had giant knots of old “locked-in” trauma, even my teeth hurt.
At first I wondered what happened to bring me so much discomfort. That first night I dreamed that my next-door neighbor had just purchased a 1967 white Chevrolet Camaro … just like the one I wrecked in 1970. I knew when I woke up that these sensations were an “unmasking” of my old car wreck injuries. (I punctured a lung, which later collapsed, broke both collarbones, and right first rib after being ejected from the car as it rolled over three times.)
When the pain began and I went to bed, the next 2 nights I was either shaking from cold or sweating all night long.
I was feeling upset that I was still feeling the discomfort the 2nd night, when I had only noticed a minor improvement in how I was feeling.
Suddenly, I realized that my body had been holding this inside for 42 years … how could I not “feel it so it can finally be healed” for the next few days or more?
My body quickly returned to a state of health it hadn’t known for 42 years. I hadn’t even realized old trauma was still “locked-in” to my physical body. Thank you Body Stress Release!
Q – You said the lower back was my main problem, but yet I felt nothing while you worked on that area?
A – This is a good indication of how severe the pressure was on the nerves in your lower back, meaning the protective splinting action was very strong in that area, thus numbing your nerves. As your body lets go of stored stress and tension allowing decompression to take place, sensation returns to this area because of restored nerve communication. It also activates the body’s self-healing for the effected area as well.
Q – I only had lower back pain before my BSR session – why do I now have pain in my knee?
A – This is an example of a good reaction in the body! There wasn’t effective nerve communication down your leg before, you just weren’t aware of it. Now that the tension has been released, nerve communication has improved, and sensation has returned down your leg as the nerve pathways now have an increased energy flow. Now your body can continue with self-healing in your knee as well.
Q – I get severe calf cramps. Can BSR help with those?
A – This is usually due to “locked-in” tension in the lower back, affecting the nerve supply down the legs. Compression on the nerves in the lower back leads to less effective nerve communication in the legs and feet, which can cause calf cramps or tingling or numbness in the legs, feet or toes.
Q – I felt fantastic after my release, but then my pain returned – why?
A – The body heals in stages and after a few days the muscles re-align according to the changes in your body’s systems. The nerve receptors also start firing and the amount of sensation fluctuates between the level where we can sense pain and just below that level. This is part of the natural process of healing. It is like the peeling away layers, just like when you peel an onion. As our layers heal, so does the pain we are experiencing.
Q – Since you worked on my lower back, I have had diarrhea? Why would that be?
A – Imagine you are standing on a hosepipe. There will only be a trickle of water coming out. When you lift your foot, at first there will be a sudden gushing of water before the flow normalizes. It is the same with the nerves in the body. Previously there may have been irregular bowel movements due to ineffectiveness in the whole system, due to “locked-in” body tension. Once it starts releasing, the body regains its innate capability to process. It will also want to get rid of any toxins that have been stored in the body.
Q – Would you call BSR “new age” healing?
A – No, your Body Stress Release practitioner is not a healer, since it is the body itself that does the healing. The practitioner merely applies impulses to stimulate the body’s natural self-healing ability based on the indications given by the body itself on where body stress is present. The BSR technique focuses purely on the stress “locked –in” the physical body. BSR does improve your body’s well being as a whole, which enables it to better handle the physical, emotional/mental and chemical stresses of life.
While the primary function of BSR is the physical unlocking of stress, some clients do report improved presence and feelings of peacefulness in their bodies. This can be interpreted many ways.
