Your Stress Can Cause Back Discomfort

By Stepy Kamei

Stress is a real health issue which can affect your body, despite what society may have you think. It's tempting to merely tell yourself to "calm down" or "let it go" whenever you're experiencing a high amount of stress or anxiety. In truth, stress is your body's way of warning you that you need to slow down and take it easy, and it's a warning that not enough people take seriously. Left unchecked, repeated bouts of high stress and anxiety can begin to take a serious toll on a person's physical and mental health. It can raise blood pressure, encourage inflammation in the body, and promote stiffness in the muscles. All of this can create back pain in many people. If you've been experiencing aches, pains, soreness, or any sort of discomfort in your back, yet you've never been completely sure of the cause, take a moment to consider where your current stress levels are. Stress may be what's causing your back pain.

Stress' Impact on the Body

When you're feeling anxious, your body physically changes and reacts to this. Your fists and teeth clench, your muscles tighten and contract, and your heartrate goes up. Chiropractors often see a link between patients with high amounts of stress and high amounts of tension in the neck and shoulders. Anxiety can also cause changes in a person's posture, which doesn't help lessen back pain at all. It turns out that poor posture caused by stress will only degrade the health of the spine over time, possibly leading to degradation of the discs in the spine.

For those of you who still think anxiety is "all in the head," it should be noted that people with high anxiety tend to experience a higher sensitivity to physical senstions of pain. So, even if the pain isn't necessarily too bad physically, it may be perceived to be worse by people with high stress levels, which is a health problem all on its own.

By turning to chiropractic, you can begin to take back control of many aspects of your health. Chiropractors at The Joint Chiropractic clinics will use manual manipulation techniques to relieve tension in the body and bring the spinal column back into its proper alignment. This will usually bring about pain relief, and it can also reduce feelings of stress in the body. This is because chiropractic adjustments have been shown to inhibit the production of cortisol, the stress hormone, in the body. 

If you're ready to give chiropractic care a try, come on in to The Joint Chiropractic clinics. With over 340 locations nationwide and affordable rates, there's no reason not to check us out.