The high-stress levels affect every person, and it can cause physical pain in the body.
Most of us may notice symptoms associated with stress in different situations. As a parent, you can be experienced while you try to discipline your children. The busy schedules at work may even lead to a stressful situation for many employees. Household financial management or coping with a challenging relationship can even lead to a stressful scenario for many people.
In short, stress is everywhere.
The little amount of stress is not a problem as it can also have a beneficial impact on many people. However, a high amount of stress can make wear down any person and can harm health. The person may even experience a physical impact on the body because of high-stress levels.
It is necessary to identify the symptoms of stress in the first step. It can help any individual in controlling stress. Though, sometimes the identification of stress symptoms can be hard for the people.
Most of the people are so much used to stressful situations. They are often not aware that they are stressed out until they experience a breaking point. It can be a dangerous situation, and maximum efforts are needed to control the overall stressful situation of any person.
Tip: If you have not read already, here are the links to the symptoms of stress in men, women
and children. The symptoms depend on your sex and age.
Saying so, the primary intention of my article to address the question Can stress cause physical pain in the body. And, I will also be covering the connection of the mind and body when it comes to stress and relation between chronic stress and chronic pains.
Most importantly, How to Identify Stress-related Chronic Pain? Some valuable tips for you to help to deal with pains resulting from stress will also be covered in this guide.
Let’s start exploring by defining what stress is.
What is Stress?
The high-stress level results from a reaction of the body to harmful situations. They can be either real or perceived for any person.
From a biological perspective, when you feel threatened, a chemical reaction occurs in the body that allows you to act in a particular way to prevent any injury. The reaction is termed as a “fight-or-flight” or the response of the stress.
As your body responds to a given stressful situation, your heart rate can increase, breathing can even quicken, muscles can get tightened, and the blood pressure can also rise. Any person needs to get ready to act. It can help you to protect yourself.
Stress can have a different meaning for different people. Some of the people are in a better position to handle stress as compared to others.
Sometimes, not all stress is bad for any person. However, any stress that can cause physical pain in the body is surely not right.
Our bodies can handle small doses of stress, but we are often not ready in handling chronic stress that can lead to ill consequences for our bodies. Therefore, It is essential to fight against any long-term physical pain in the body because of your high-stress levels.
The Connection of the Mind and Body with Stress
You may be having regular headaches these days, and in recent times, your neck has also been feeling tight with severe pain, then it becomes necessary to visit the doctor.
However, did you know that it might happen that the doctor will not see anything physically wrong, and he might even ask, “What is happening in your life these days?” You can tell him that things are quite intense these days.
You are not just experiencing multiple deadlines at work, but you may also be having some volunteering activities and also taking care of your parents/kids, who are not well.
Then the doctor will indeed suggest you gently that the main reasons for severe headache and pain in the neck are the hectic schedule and feelings of depression related to your parents/kids’ well-being.
Also, based on the results of the multiple studies conducted in recent years, it is clear that depression, stress, panic attacks, anxiety and emotional events can cause some of the severe physical symptoms associated with stress.
Tip: There is a difference of effectiveness between Alpha-Stim and TENS for treating pain, anxiety, depression and insomnia.
Let’ find out what are the common physical symptoms associated with stress.
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Physical Symptoms Associated with Stress and Emotions
There can be short-term and moderate pain, but in some situations, there can even be severe and chronic pain.
Some specific events or stressors can make any person upset or anxious. The example in this regard is of the death in the family or because of job loss.
Such situations can release cortisol
in your body, causing significant inflammation, increasing heart rate, and constrict blood vessels. Thus, these changes in your body can cause an extreme level of pain.
Furthermore, when any person experiences difficult emotional times, stress can indeed make the immune system weak. As a result, you can become more susceptible to colds, flu, and other kinds of infections.
Tip: Did you know that you shouldn’t use Hydrogen Peroxide on infected wounds?
Stress can even make you eat a lot or drink too much and skip on your regular exercises.
Below is the list of some common physical symptoms related to stress:
- Stomach pain
- Severe headaches and migraines
- Palpitation of the heart
- Excessive sweating
- Dryness in the mouth
- Dizziness
- Hands and Feet getting sweaty and cold
- Shaking or trembling
- Rapid level of breathing (hyperventilation)
Is Stress a Leading Cause of Chronic Pain in the Body?
Based on research studies, chronic pain does not just happen due to physical injury. It also happens because of stress.
Physical pain due to stress is most familiar with people who have experienced a severe level of trauma and even had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These people are at higher risk of experiencing chronic pain.
What is Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain is defined as a physical pain that prolongs quite longer, usually over 3 months.
Mainly, this kind of pain is experienced when any person has some significant injuries, inflammations, neuropathies
(nerves disorder), and even neuralgias.
However, there is a considerable portion of the people who experience chronic pain just because of the feelings associated with stress, anxiety or depression.
Chronic pain is dangerous as it can hinder one’s complete ability in moving with ease and also affecting their normal functioning.
Usually, the best remedy often perceived by people is having pain medications, but their side-effects further compound the overall problem.
Most people are aware of an essential fact that emotional stress can cause some severe problems such as irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, and stomachaches. However, they might not know very well that it can even cause some other kinds of complaints that are physical along with chronic pain.
One logical reason, as some of the studies have found, is that when people are more stressed and anxious, their muscles become tenser
and also constricted. As a result, the muscles then not just become inefficient but even fatigued as well over some time.
Tip: Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) can help you in treating muscle pain.
How to Diagnosis of the Major Stress-related Chronic Pain?
One of the significant examples of stress-related chronic pain is lower back pain. This condition is usually not diagnosed by many medical professionals. However, the mind-body experts who understand the impact of stress on the human body do not find it difficult at all in diagnosing the lower back pain and the cause of it (i.e. stress).
When the process starts for diagnosing stress-related lower back pain, the other possible reasons in this regard are ruled out by the mind-body expert. The majority of these patients suffering from chronic lower back pain are diagnosed with the condition known as “sprain-strain“.
After this particular diagnosis, the patient can then form a possible connection between lower back pain and stress. A fruitful dialogue with the physician can then take place by the patient. A physician would later adopt a meaningful cure in addressing the relationship between stress and the back pain of the patient.
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Tip: Having a massage can help you to relieve stress as well any related physical pains. Human Touch Foot and Calf Massager, OSITO Foot Massager, Thumper Massager and a few of Best Massagers
to consider for home use.
How to Deal with the Chronic Pain Resulting from Stress?
As “Tension Myositis Syndrome” occurs both mentally and physically, nature; thus, there is a strong need for a multidisciplinary approach for treating this particular condition. The reasons for Tension Myositis Syndrome-related pain is mainly in your emotions.
For example, your emotions make you feel that you have a ‘back pain’, while actually, they are no ‘physical pain’ (or actual back pain).
Tip: For example, this ‘back pain’ is different from the pain feeling resulted from a bulging disc or disc prolapse.
The four factors that have immense value in treating chronic pains resulting from ‘stresses’ are emotional, physical, environmental, and cognitive.
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Physical
Under this approach, the specialist is going to work up with you to loosen up and relax all your affected muscles.
The combination associated with stretches and all other kinds of physical exercise routines can prove very valuable for the people affected by chronic pain because of severe stress levels.
Walking is the best activity for such people as it has a high effectiveness level. Walking leads to numerous benefits for the people. It can strengthen the muscles not just around the lower back but also in the abdominal area.
The weight is controlled, and the release of pain-fighting endorphins even takes place.
The walking regimen can start with just 10 minutes per day, and the gradual increase of the time can take place by 30 to 40 minutes.
With time, the doctor can even suggest the addition of strength training and stretching of the physical conditioning program.
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Emotional and Cognitive
It is essential to understand there is a difference between the emotional and cognitive factors.
Emotional issues have a link with the overall feel of the people, whether they are angry, anxious, and in a deep depression.
In contrast, the cognitive factor refers to the way people think about any issue and whether they are too pessimistic. Their whole focus would be on the way things can go wrong rather than fixing the present situation.
Concerning these two factors, appropriate cognitive therapy is the best remedy for people. Therapy can help them in overcoming their negative feelings and thinking. It can be one of the best solutions for them to reduce their overall stress levels.
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Environmental
These are factors regarded as external influences that can hamper anybody’s life.
For example, the most affected aspects of the people are their living situation and their career. Thus, the identification of the crucial variables is essential, and the steps can then be taken in bringing about permanent change.
Under these circumstances, it is indeed a valuable method for a medical practitioner to provide counselling to the patients. A trained medical counsellor or even a psychologist can teach useful strategies to patients to cope up with the causes of the stress.
For instance, he or she can give you teaching to plan everything. They can even help by developing essential strategies in dealing with difficult people in their life. They should also not be compassionate towards many issues and take things lightly rather than focusing too much on any matter.
Conclusion
It can be indeed tough for many people to believe the stress as a major cause of physical pain in their bodies. However, it is now a documented scientific fact.
It is not at all advisable for the people to simply ignore life stressors and get on with their day-to-day life as if nothing has happened. This thinking would only further aggravate the problem.
Like with any other medical issue, stress-related chronic pain is addressed most effectively by the person when the step is taken to meet the root cause of the problem.
The experiencing of consistent pain is dangerous for any person. The visit to the medical doctor, especially the specialist, is the best strategy in overcoming such pains. It can then help any person having first hope in getting rid of the pain on an immediate basis.
As such, now it’s clear to all of us that stress is one of the significant causes of physical pain in the body, but the cure is possible with the help of effective treatment.
Tip: Having a massage can help you to relieve stress as well any related physical pains. Human Touch Foot and Calf Massager, OSITO Foot Massager, Thumper Massager and a few of Best Massagers
to consider for home use.
Tip: HealthyLine Infrared Heating Therapy can help you with managing stress and pains as well.
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