Stress & the Skeletomuscular System
Statistics suggest that 60 percent of U.S. adults experience daily stress. While a little bit of stress is natural and even healthy, we must learn to navigate these ups and downs so they don’t grow out of hand.
Stress can have powerful effects on the mind and body, for better or for worse. Our experts at Dynamic Fitness & Rehabilitation explore the difference between “good” and “bad” stress and how each can impact the skeletomuscular system. We will also provide resources to manage your stress.
Read on, and let go of the tension!
Why Good and Bad Stress are Different
When facing a stressful situation, your body and mind respond to this threat from the environment with hormones and messengers to redirect energy from your nonvital digestive and reproductive organs to vital organs such as your heart and lungs. You’re in survival mode.
Good stress has helped us evolve, as it signals to our body that we’re in danger and need to somehow escape the situation. Beating your record speed while swimming away from a shark or being able to throw yourself through a window in case of a house fire are examples of “good stress” in action. But this stress is only “good” in moderation when it’s actually keeping us out of danger.
While acute stress is beneficial for self-preservation, chronic stress can have serious consequences on the body.
However, when there is no obvious threat but your body is still in a state of stress for extended periods of time, this is called “chronic stress.” This is the “bad” kind we were talking about. Prolonged stress or anxiety can lead to anything from acne or hair loss to debilitating physiological and psychological symptoms.
Stress and Skeletomuscular Pain
One of the most common symptoms of stress is muscle tension. This tension is often an involuntary reflex that occurs to protect the body and prepare to run or fight. In most cases, the body doesn’t need to run or fight, so this stress doesn’t serve us.
Stress causes the muscles in the body to tense up and only relax when your stress hormones have leveled out. As you can imagine, constant exposure to stress may leave the body’s muscles in a tight, guarded state.
When muscles are tense for long periods of time, this could lead to other reactions in the body and even illness. The following conditions have been linked to stress:
Shoulder / neck pain
Injury, Stress, and Chronic Pain
In some cases, a musculoskeletal disorder or an injury may trigger a chronic pain and stress state. How an individual recovers from injury is often determined by their mindset. Those who are afraid of re-injury and simply look for a cause and cure typically don't recover as well as people who manage their stress and engage in a functional movement rehabilitation program of some kind.
An optimistic mindset and low stress levels often dramatically improve recovery from injury.
At Dynamic Fitness & Rehabilitation, we recognize that the whole body is connected and use this fact to guide our care. If you have suffered from an injury, we will help you safely rehabilitate to get back to feeling your best. Schedule your evaluation today!
How to Counteract Skeletomuscular Stress
In our modern age, we are constantly exposed to stress from other people - it can be contagious. With constant exposure to the indirect threats of the world, it’s crucial to protect yourself with stress management. Build some of these techniques into your routine to lower your stress levels:
Work with a Functional Movement Expert
We often don’t realize how many activities we do with incorrect form, such as sitting at our desks for long hours or sleeping in certain positions. Sometimes, our bodies need to be re-taught how to work as a cohesive system instead of separate parts, potentially resulting in muscular imbalances.
With Muscle Activation Techniques by Maurice Harden, Dynamic Fitness & Rehabilitation will help you assess and correct muscle imbalances that may be causing pain or functionality issues. Schedule your assessment today and relieve yourself of symptoms.
Prioritize Your Health
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by stress when you aren’t taking care of yourself. It’s easy to place work, family, or community in front of yourself in terms of your priorities. But you can’t pour from an empty cup.
Put yourself first. This means nothing comes before the basics – a healthy diet, regular exercise, and adequate sleep are essential to your wellness and longevity. So don’t sacrifice them.
Learn More > Self-Myofascial Massage
Build Systems & Get Organized
Stress may be the result of you feeling inadequate or underprepared to fulfil responsibilities. Making lists of what tasks may cause you stress can help you feel less overwhelmed and more on top of things. Take the time to develop systems that work for you, and remember that you will only grow from here!
Stretch Your Body
Stretching acts by reversing the cycle of tension. Movement of any kind will help improve circulation, improve range of motion, decrease joint stiffness and muscle tension, and more.
Release Trauma with EPT™
Our holistic therapist, Paige Cargioli, can help you release trauma from the body that may be causing you pain and other symptoms. Her work focuses on rebalancing the energetic roots of suffering in our systems. Contact Paige to learn more!
Restore Your Stress Levels with Dynamic Fitness
Feeling stressed is rarely fun. We must face some stress to grow, physically and emotionally, but that doesn’t mean you should feel stressed 24/7. This could cause issues in your body and quickly become a vicious cycle of pain and stress!
At Dynamic Fitness & Rehabilitation, we’ll teach you how to release stress from the body. We will restore functionality to your various muscle groups while increasing your range of motion. Movement is medicine, and we want to help you heal!
Schedule your assessment at Dynamic Fitness & Rehabilitation.