Why do our muscles hold tension? - Karishma Patel, DC
Our muscles hold on to tension which cause pain due to chronic physical, mental, and emotional stress. Muscle tension is a reflex reaction to stress; it’s the body’s way of guarding against even more injury or pain.
With sudden onset of stress, the muscles tense up all at once, usually in the neck/upper back, shoulders, and/or lower back. Tension is released once the stress passes. However, with chronic stress, your nervous system will hold on to tension and it will accumulate over time in your muscles. This is how chronic pain starts.
Chronic stress causes the muscles in the body to be in a more or less constant state of guardedness. When muscles stay taut and tense for long periods of time, this may trigger other reactions of the body and even promote stress-related disorders such as tension type headaches and migraines, nerve compression, disc bulges, and joint pain.
Most patients will come into our office and say, “I’ve had this problem for a couple months/years, I’m not really too sure what started it.” This is one of the first signs of chronic stress related muscle pain.
What determines whether or not an injured person goes on to suffer from chronic pain is how they respond to injury. Individuals who are fearful of pain and re-injury, who seek a cure for the injury generally have a worse recovery than individuals who maintain regular visits to the chiropractor and do moderate physical activity.
Our office provides relaxation techniques and other stress-relieving therapies to reduce muscle tension, decrease the incidence of certain stress-related disorders, and increase a sense of well-being. Muscle manipulation, spine maintenance, and joint care can help reduce long term wear and tear, it does not matter how sedentary or physically active you are.
Maintenance care helps keep muscle tension, stress, and joint pain away long term and keeps the nerve tissue healthy.
Give us a call and let’s see how we can help you reduce stress signs and symptoms.
