What's so great about the Psoas muscle?
The more I practice and read about yoga, the more I look into the anatomy of the human body. As an RN I took anatomy in college, but lately I've been brushing up on my anatomy stumbling upon the fascinating intricacy of the psoas muscle. The psoas is a mysterious muscle. Some consider it one of the most important muscles in the human body. It affects us physically, emotionally, energetically, and mentally!
As illustrated in the picture above, we have two psoas muscles. One on each side of the body. It is a long muscle that attaches to our spine at the bottom of the rib cage, running all the way down the sides of our body, attaching to the inner thigh bone (near your groin).
Physically, the psoas muscle enables us to stand upright as a species. The lumbar (lower back) curve was created by the psoas muscle so that we could stand upright. Secondly, the psoas muscle is the main muscle of walking, of propelling us forward. Without the psoas we would not be able to stand up, nor would we be able to walk!
Now here is the interesting part, the psoas muscle is the muscle of emotional trauma! The psoas holds deep seated emotional trauma, mostly connected to our childhood. So if you are trying to release your psoas, memories of trauma, especially those from your childhood, may resurface.
This intricate muscle is connected to diaphragmatic (your main breathing muscle below your lungs) connective tissue. The psoas is also connected physically to your reptilian brain, the part of the brain that is your basic survival instinct signaling stress, the fright or flight reflex
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So a fast paced lifestyle (which cannot be avoided for most of us) runs our body on adrenaline through our fight or flight reflex resulting in a chronically tight psoas. The psoas becomes tight when we are stressed so that we can physically run from danger (the reptilian brain cannot distinguish stress, it does not know if the stress our body feels is due to immediate danger of being eaten alive from a dinosaur, or from the stress of everyday modern life).
So what does a chronically tight psoas muscle cause? All sorts of trouble. Naming only a few, it can lead to lower back pain, sciatica, knee pain, spinal disc problems, infertility, menstrual cramping, digestive problems, and breathing problems. It can also lead to fear and root chakra issues (see my blog titled Chakras and Yoga for an explanation of Root Chakra issues).
A chronically tight psoas signals danger in the body (remember the reptilian brain and stress), thus exhausting your adrenals (the glands that sit on top of your kidneys). Exhausted adrenals can cause depression, loss of interest in life, feeling groggy, insomnia, feelings of being anxious, and feeling overwhelmed.
So how can we release the psoas? I work on it through yoga of course! I will be putting a link at the end of this paragraph that will lead you to a youtube video on different postures you can utilize to try to relax and loosen your psoas muscle. I will also put in a few links about adrenal exhaustion.
