Sometimes back pain can seem to come on unannounced, ‘I haven’t done anything’ is a common statement. There could be many other causes of their pain; it’s usually a combination of many different factors. We will be examining stress as one of those factors and looking at what degree it can affect your back pain.
Taking a person’s case history can quickly tell us potential triggers for pain. If you have ever seen an Osteopath, you might have thought, why are they asking me about surgery I had years ago or if I have anything stressful going on at the moment.
Usually, this is because you’ve presented without the most common causes of your pain. Therefore, we are looking for further clues.
One reason for this could be that your body has a high cortisol level, a stress hormone that can adversely affect your muscles.
One way it can do this is by affecting how you perceive pain. Someone in a chronic state of stress (which could be work-related, personal life issues etc.) is also likely to feel pain more intensely. I found an interesting paper describing chronic pain and chronic stress as “Two sides of the same coin” (Study).
Another mechanism is the effect of stress (and therefore cortisol) on muscle tone. When we become stressed, we all know that our shoulders become tight, and we generally tense up. All made worse by old injuries, as these places in your back can already be tight. So the combination of this leads to a flare-up of your pain.
Stress has been shown to reduce long-term muscle strength and performance (Study, Study). This means that your ability to garden or how long you can play tennis will be reduced. In my opinion, people use the ‘it’s just because of my age’ excuse, and yes, age can come into it.
But, if you looked at reducing your stress and increasing activity levels (therefore increasing muscle mass and further reducing stress), this will significantly decrease your chances of developing back pain.
Lastly, reducing stress can help after an injury. When stress levels are high, inflammation and healing times are increased. A decreased level of cortisol being circulated around the body helps reduce the time taken for injuries to heal (Study). Decreased cortisol also allows the repair stage of the healing process to work more efficiently and speedily, increasing its effectiveness.
Conclusion
There are many other aspects I could discuss further, but I think you can get the point. Don’t underestimate the importance of reducing your stress on helping your back pain. There are many ways of reducing stress, but due to the complexity of causes, I won’t go into this here.
Needless to say that exercising, especially out in nature, is one of the best stress-busting methods, so get outside and get moving.
February 23, 2021. Andrew Horide, Osteopath