By Irene Roth/Blog Editor
When you live with fibromyalgia, it can sometimes feel as though your body has forgotten how to turn down the volume. Sounds may seem louder, touch may hurt more than it should, stress can feel overwhelming, and even a busy day can leave your entire system feeling overloaded. Pain, fatigue, brain fog, headaches, poor sleep, and sensory sensitivity can seem to feed into one another until your body is begging for quiet.
There is a reason for this. Fibromyalgia involves changes in the way the nervous system processes pain and other sensory information. Researchers often describe this in terms of central sensitization, which means that the central nervous system can become unusually responsive to signals coming from the body. The result is that sensations that might barely register for someone else can sometimes feel much more intense for people living with fibro.
This does not mean that fibromyalgia is simply caused by stress or that our symptoms are imaginary. Fibromyalgia is a complex condition involving multiple biological systems. However, understanding the nervous system connection can give us another way of thinking about symptom management. We may not be able to control everything our bodies do, but we can sometimes create conditions that help an overstimulated system settle.
When the Body Is on High Alert
Our nervous system is constantly receiving information and deciding what deserves our attention. When the system becomes highly sensitized, it may respond strongly to physical exertion, emotional stress, lack of sleep, bright lights, noise, temperature changes, or even an especially busy environment.
Many of us recognize this feeling immediately. You might have a day when the television suddenly seems too loud, your clothes feel uncomfortable against your skin, and a simple conversation requires more energy than you have available. Your body may feel restless and exhausted at the same time.
Instead of becoming frustrated with yourself, try recognizing these moments as signals. Your body may be telling you, “There is too much coming at me right now.”
Turning Down the Stimulation
Calming an overstimulated body doesn’t necessarily require an elaborate wellness routine. Sometimes the most effective approach is simply reducing what your nervous system has to process.
You might dim the lights, turn off background noise, put your phone aside, lie somewhere comfortable, or spend several minutes breathing slowly. A warm shower, gentle stretching, soothing music, time outdoors, or sitting quietly with a pet may also help your body shift toward a calmer state.
One particularly helpful practice is extending the exhale slightly. Instead of forcing yourself to take enormous breaths, breathe naturally and allow your exhale to become slow and comfortable. This can encourage the body’s relaxation response without turning calming into another task you have to perform perfectly.
Calm Is Something We Can Practice
Perhaps the most encouraging part of understanding the nervous system is realizing that calm does not have to happen by accident. We can intentionally create small moments of safety, predictability, comfort, and quiet throughout our days.
For people living with fibro, this may mean thinking differently about self-care. Rest isn’t something we earn after completing everything on our lists. Quiet isn’t laziness. Taking a break isn’t giving up. These are ways of reducing the amount of stimulation an already sensitive system must manage.
We may not be able to eliminate fibromyalgia pain simply by calming ourselves. But we can stop adding unnecessary noise to an overwhelmed system.
This September, experiment with creating small pockets of calm. Five quiet minutes here and ten peaceful minutes there may not seem significant, but they can become gentle messages to your body: You don’t have to be on high alert every moment. Right now, you are allowed to rest.