Career Change ?!?

[vengeanz]

Hi Guys,

I'm thinking about a career change to see if this might help my condition and was wondering if anyone else had had the same thoughts or if anyone has done this and what effect it had on their condition?

I'm currently working in IT and I find the long hours sitting a nightmare. I notice when I'm stressed out at work my pain/tension just goes nuts.
It's basically doing my head in and I'm not sure what to do.

I'm pretty sure it can't be healthy for my muscles sitting down all day in a fixed position. I keep thinking maybe the muscles are being contracted/shortened due to being in the same position all the time. I pretty sure stress expressed a muscle tension is the key here but maybe only in conjunction with the seated position I have all day.

The other thing I was thinking was If I had a more active job maybe my stress levels would decrease due to the release of endorphins/chemicals associated with exercise and movement and this would then reduce my muslce tension. I notice that one of the times my symptoms get better is during walking.

I just don't know what I should do, but what I do know is I'm unhappy and that I don't want to live my life like this anymore and maybe changing what I'm doing would be a positive step forward towards better health.

I appreciate any feedback.

Cheers
Steve

[webslave]

Unfortunately, IT is one of the very worst jobs for stressful sitting. I know, because it was one of the key reasons I got ill. I solved it by changing career to something else, but that's a pretty radical solution.

To stay doing it while keeping your pelvis healthy, you may have to become an expert in Paradoxical Relaxation, a technique derived from the work of Edmund Jacobson, who proved the connection between excessive muscular tension and different disorders of body and psyche. He found out that tension and exertion was always accompanied by a shortening of the muscular fibres, that the reduction of the muscular tonus decreased the activity of the central nervous system, that relaxation was the contrary of states of excitement and well suited for a general remedy and prophylaxis against psychosomatic disorders.

It would also be useful to become familiar with mindfulness.

[MBey]

Hi Steve,

I had the same thougths in my mind as you have got at the moment.

I'm also in the IT business and as I have the same increase of symptoms when I'm sitting extensively, I decided to buy a desk which you can move up or down so you can work in a standing position. It works pretty fine!

To relax the pelvic floor after a stressful day of work I started to run an hour every evening, which in my case is the best medicine to get rid of the tension in the pelvic floor.

Further, bought some books about inner peace/calmness, about to stay relaxed in stressful situations and to abandon the thinking of perfectionism which was certainly one of the main factors I began to tension my pelvis.

Also helpful: autogenic training, paradoxical relaxation, moment to moment relaxation, deep and slow breathing, meditation

[vengeanz]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback.

MBey, so... you are no longer considering this? It is interesting though that the standing/running also help you.

For me I don't see the change as too big a risk (we have a shortage of IT workers in New Zealand at the moment) and I'm sure I could return to the IT field if I wanted. What I see as a bigger risk is the opportunity lost, to have never tried and see if there was something else out there. Something that not only improved my health but I also found more fulfilling. I think I've come to the realisation that I find IT rather soulless.

I was thinking it's also possible at some unconscious level (if you believe in that stuff) that my pain is stemming from some internal reaction to doing work that I don't really believe in. Work that I can't see what difference it makes either way. I don't think I'm consciously tensing my muscles so is it possible it's not something I'm consciously aware of that is causing this physiological reaction? I've been thinking the sitting exacerbates the problem rather than being the root cause of the tension.

I remember a story my Grandfather told me when I was younger. He had been studying a degree at university when has drafted for WWII. When he returned he went straight back to university but within a couple of weeks of returning he went blind, suddenly. There was no physical reason for it and the doctors couldn't explain it. Around a year later just as suddenly his vision returned. To me his blindness was a reaction to the stress of trying to return to his normal life without ever dealing with what he must have gone through during the war. I'm not trying to say that my normal everyday stresses are in ANYWAY comparable to what he went through just that I believe it's possible for these unconscious things to have an effect.

Wow, ok, sorry ... that was a bit of a rant, but I find this kind of thing interesting.

Cheers
Steve

[MBey]

Interesting thoughts:)

No, I think I'm gonna stay in the IT business as I already developed myself from a technique IT nerd to a more project-management related position.

But generally, I mean it's not a wrong way to hear inside and ask yourself if it's really the job that makes you happy.

In my case it was more the attitude to my whole life...so I changed from "success is the most important objective in my life" to just enjoy and be conscious about the moment as life doesn't take place on your bank account but simply on the base of beeing a part of our "wonderful" world. This might be sound quite kitschy, but a lot of wise guys came to a similar result e.g. Buddha (Gautama), stoics like Seneca, Epiktet, Mark Aurel and a lot of other philosopher.

Where's the benefit to stress yourself every day to do the best job, to get the highest salary increase at the end of the year, etc. when you then on the other side don't see the small things of life any more which make you happy without any effort. So I see myself now as a member of this downshifting movement...less is more:).

Regarding this issue I'm thankful for my chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome as without it I probably would have chuck out a lot of life and see myself still as a gearwheel of envy, fear of failure and arrogance.

[Orion]

Hrmm - I find this interesting as well. I too work in IT (fulltime), and am working on an my graduate degree (MIS) in the evenings (online), and have a computer consulting company that I do after work and on the evenings. All of this leads me towards 14-16 hours a day in front of the computer. I feel very burned out and empty, and questioning whether I am in the right career at all. Sometimes I wonder if I could do something more active, and when I am walking at work and see the guys building tall buildings outside in the sun I feel envious to a degree.

Fear holds me back right now though. Fear of the unknown.

[GP2]

I'm pretty sure it can't be healthy for my muscles sitting down all day in a fixed position. I keep thinking maybe the muscles are being contracted/shortened due to being in the same position all the time. I pretty sure stress expressed a muscle tension is the key here but maybe only in conjunction with the seated position I have all day.

The other thing I was thinking was If I had a more active job maybe my stress levels would decrease due to the release of endorphins/chemicals associated with exercise and movement and this would then reduce my muscle tension. I notice that one of the times my symptoms get better is during walking.

I have sat all day at work today with ZERO pain like all last week! Good right? On a traning course before that I had moderate bad / pain a lot of the time and ZERO pain when the course became less anxiety provoking.
It really is that polarized in terms of my pain levels for me. This happened to LIGHTNING TREE also.

In regards to these comments I can see why people look to change careers. I was very worried about not being able to handle my promotion. However, for me anxiety and not stress causes pain. In other words in my new job out and about arresting immigration offenders I've had no pain. Despite the fact that its a responsible job with more to think about that any job I've held in the past. Weird huh?
My pelvis can handle STRESS BUT NOT ANXIETY. In other words if I'm busy working hours in a job that I love (but am not anxious in), even though I'm working hard and I musnt be relaxed I have very little pain. Similarly if I'm on long cycling weekends, getting little sleep, socializing a lot I have little pain. HOWEVER, if in certain situations such as public speaking scenarios, anxiety provoking situations (often subconscious) I get BAD PAIN. And flares can last for weeks!

I know I am getting better which is part of the reason for less pain (the SP and particular M2M relaxation as well as a gluten free diet and a generally slower lifestyle not forgetting dealing with my anxiety levels are the key factors) however for me I can no PINPOINT my pain to certain situations. In fact I am so "body conscious" now that I can register the cause almost immediately of a spell of palpitations or some pelvic burning.

3 weeks now & I my diary I am soon to record a 3rd week of "GOOD" pain. For me anxiety is absolutely the most impacting causal factor of my pain!

[GP2]

In my case it was more the attitude to my whole life...so I changed from "success is the most important objective in my life" to just enjoy and be conscious about the moment as life doesn't take place on your bank account but simply on the base of being a part of our "wonderful" world. This might be sound quite kitschy, but a lot of wise guys came to a similar result e.g. Buddha (Gautama), stoics like Seneca, Epiktet, Mark Aurel and a lot of other philosopher.

I agree. I have completely changed my attitude to life partly thanks to reading tons of material by authors such as Deepak Chopra, Alan Watts, Dr M Peck, Eckhart Tolle. I just live one day at a time if I can. It aint always gonna be easy but the KEY thing I have learned from all this is -

1. Nothing in life is that scary and all bad things pass.
2. Even if I have pain for the rest of my life I only have to deal with it for one day, one hour, one second, one moment at a time.
3. After the last 2 years of a complete emotional collapse every 2 weeks over this condition I now fear very little. I genuinely mean that - I have done many things in the last year or so that I was too afraid to even contemplate years ago.