After another long, hard day at work trying to meet your deadline, you groan with neck pain. Although you’ve done your best to maintain healthy posture throughout the day and you haven’t suffered an official injury, your neck and upper back muscles ache and feel miserable. Perhaps your muscle tension comes from your stress. What is the relationship between these two issues? What can you do to alleviate stress and muscle tension? Keep reading to find out!
How Chronic Stress and Muscle Tension Are Connected
Biologically, the human body has evolved to respond to stress in certain ways. For instance, if you face something dangerous, your heartbeat speeds up, you start to sweat, and your muscles tense, preparing for a flight away or a fight to win. When this stress response occurs infrequently, it can save your life!
Unfortunately, in modern life, humans are confronted with far too much stress regularly, and this routine or daily exposure causes damage to the body over time. Constantly having these fight or flight responses can result in physical pain in your muscles—particularly in your neck, back, and other areas.
How to Release Stress and Muscle Tension
Although the most straightforward solution would be to remove chronic stress from your life entirely, many situations are beyond your control, which means stress will probably continue to find you. However, here are ways you can manage your body to deal with stress and muscle tension and feel better.
Chiropractic Care
As an expert in joint and nerve health, your chiropractor can help your muscles relax, relieving your pain. Through regular massage therapy, joint adjustments, and other treatments, the nervous system calms down and doesn’t manifest this debilitating symptom as badly or as frequently.
Relaxing Breaths
Even if you don’t feel you have time to officially meditate, you can deliberately take deep breaths every now and then in your schedule, which can bring your stress levels down and reset your body.
In addition to these breaths, you can add some simple stretches into your routine. Not only can these stretches prevent injury as you go about your day, but they can also help your muscles release tension, allowing your nervous system to ease.
Healthy Eating and Exercise
The food you consume impacts your entire body, which means that if you eat junk, your body won’t have the nutrients it needs to fight inflammation or keep you comfortable. Anti-inflammatory foods, like berries, leafy greens, most nuts, and avocados, can bring down irritation.
Although it may seem counterintuitive to encourage someone with tight muscles to work out, smart exercise can be quite beneficial. It helps your body release stress as well as tension and makes you produce endorphins, which can reduce pain.
In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have to experience stress, but it’s going to happen at some point in life. It’s better to have a plan to manage it and muscle tension so that you can carry on with what needs to get done without suffering unnecessary pain.
About the Author
AlignRight Chiropractic in Richardson is owned and operated by Dr. Zinovy Chukhman, who is normally called Dr. Z. With more than 20 years of experience treating injuries and chiropractic issues, he graduated from the Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas and has completed all 4 levels of certification with the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners. To work with Dr. Z and his team, call 972-907-2800 or contact his office online and schedule an appointment.
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