Introduction to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

I can't begin to imagine how worried, anxious & may be inadequate I would feel if I had a premature baby.  I would imagine there is a really strong instinct & desire to the hold the baby which is more difficult if it needs to be in an incubator. A recent study has looked at the impact on the mother’s health of massaging premature babies.  Fifty-two mothers with babies born at 30 - 38 weeks were randomly assigned ot an intervention or control group.  Mothers in the experimental group were asked to massage their babies daily alongside standard medical care, while those in the control group only had standard medical care. Mothers in the experimental group were given an information pamphlet, training video and researches conducted a massage training session.  They were then asked to perform a massage on their babies for 15 minutes each day for 5 days. Mothers were asked to complete a questionnaire rating changes in 65 "mood factors" including anxiety, depression and fatigue, on a five-point scale.  Mood scores were consistent across both groups at the beginning of the study but there were significant differences by the end. Mothers who massaged their babies had a better mood than those who didn't.  They also experienced less anxiety, depression & fatigue. Reading this did make me wonder the impact of massaging babies would have on the mood of mums whose babies weren't premature. Reference https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1556370717300937    

Previously I explained the scientific theory for  "How does massage reduce muscle pain?" in the short term .  But what about the long term? I would like to introduce to you the "descending pain suppression mechanism." The brain is not a passive receiver of sensory messages, but rather a centre that interprets them and makes constant adjustments accordingly. For example, everyone knows that the way you perceive pain will be influenced by whether you focus on it or think of something else instead. And it seems reasonable to suppose that evolutionary selection may have favoured those individuals who could ignore pain signals for long enough to take actions that let them escape and survive danger.

Unpleasant cutaneous sensations stimulate nuclei within the mid brain.  These nuclei in turn initiate activity in the descending spinal tracts that release endogenous opiates (inhibitory neurotransmitters) within the spinal segment receiving the painful input.  This diminishes the intensity of the pain transmitted to the higher centres. Sports and Deep Tissue massage techniques can reinforce a naturally occurring discomfort, causing much greater release of opiates and achieve a more profound pain suppression.

In part 1, I looked at the impact of sitting on your muscles,  and in part 2 I started to explore the impact on the rest of your body.  In this post I continue to explore the impact of sitting on your circulatory system including your heart. Heart Disease When sitting for prolonged periods of time, muscles burn less fat and blood flows more sluggishly, allowing fatty acids to more easily clog the heart.  In 2012 Ford & Caspersen in their research paper, Sedentary behaviour and cardiovascular disease: a review of prospective studies (International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 41, No 5 pages 1338 - 1353) showed that the people with the most sedentary time are more than twice as likely to have cardiovascular disease than those with the least. In 2012 Zedric and Hamilton found that just a few hours sitting suppresses a gene that helps keep your cardiovascular system healthy by controlling inflammation and blood clotting. T W Zedric & M T Hamilton, 2012 Identification of hemostatic genes expressed in human and rat leg muscles and a novel gene (LPP1/PAP2a) suppressed during prolonged physical inactivity (sitting), Lipids in Health and Disease, Vol 11 see http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1476-511X-11-137.pdf Cholesterol Sitting also means that your large postural support muscles are inactive.  When active these muscles produce a quite of beneficial molecules.  One molecule skeletal muscles produce is an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase - which you can think of as a vacuum cleaner for fats in the blood stream.  A study in rats showed that after 24 hours forced inactivity, their lipoprotein lipase acitivity was reduced by 90 - 95%, which led to a 75% drip in the ability of their muscles to remove fats from their bloodstream as will as a significant decrease in "good" (HDL) cholesterol. L Bay & Mark Hamilton, 2003, Suppression of skeletal muscle lipoprotein lipase activity during physical inactivity: a molecular reason to maintain daily low-intensity activity, Journal of Physiology, Vol 551, No 2 pages 673 - 682.See http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/jphysiol.2003.045591/full