How Emotions Can Affect Your Back

According to Plato, the body is the prison of the soul. Sometimes it’s like a bad friend who comes with a message that something is hurting or going wrong. If you are wondering how emotions can affect your back, that is a pretty clear answer. They can cause cramps and tension. Pain that medicine can not always relieve.

Back pain is one of the most common problems worldwide. It is estimated that one in ten people often get back pain, and this is one of the biggest reasons for receiving sickness benefits from work. 

In addition, there are many different causes of back pain. Among the causes are poor ergonomics at work, hernias, kidney problems, osteoporosis, arthritis, disc degeneration, etc. But there is another factor that most people overlook.

As you can probably guess, we are talking about a mind-body connection. But our concrete focus is emotions and their effects on this complex, fascinating combination of bones, ligaments, tendons, muscles, intervertebral discs, joints and nerves.

Things like stress and anxiety cause small changes in all physical structures. Little by little, this leads to inflammation, lack of coordination and periods that are so painful that they affect the quality of life.

How emotions can affect your back

How emotions can affect the back is as different as it is interesting. There are some specialists who have no problem saying that our spine not only supports our physical weight but also our emotional weight.

Our backs are like a pillar in our lives, and that in a non-spiritual sense.

Just think of what the purpose is: to protect and enclose our perfect nervous system. Having lung pain, cramps or worse; chronic back pain that can paralyze you completely and that can force you to stop everything.

But that pain is really like a loyal watchdog guarding your house.

When there is some danger, it “barks”. Giving it pills to silence it will not help if you do not know the cause of the problem. You need to find out what is threatening your body’s backbone, the balance point in your life.

Sadness, worry and stress related to your back

As strange as it may sound,  back pain is actually one of the most common physical symptoms for people with depression and anxiety. This is why you see so many people go through endless meetings with physiotherapists and back specialists. They can not find answers. Nor do they find a cure for their recurrent back pain, at least not until they finally get the correct diagnosis from a psychologist or other psychological health professional.

Do not forget that pain is really just a neurological phenomenon that our nervous system sends through our body.  When you are worried, scared, disappointed or down, this  indicates a chemical imbalance in your brain. For example, irregularities with serotonin and norepinephrine usually result in a higher level of pain perception.

Stress and anxiety also lead to higher levels of cortisol in the blood. This is important because this hormone increases blood flow and muscle tension. It also starts certain autoimmune processes that can attack your joints,  affect your nerves, and even reduce the calcium in your legs.

Emotional pain and back pain

Swimming, anti-inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxants… None of these drugs work when your back problems are due to emotional pain. An article has even been written in Psychology Today (English) on this subject.

They say that emotional problems are a sign that something inside you is broken, untidy. The invisible wound usually manifests itself in the form of back pain, headaches, digestive problems, etc.

There are some places, like Duke University Medical Center, that specialize in treating conditions like this. Dr. Benson Hoffman says that  80% of us get back pain at some point in our lives. 

This is the most common problem in humans. He points out that our emotions can affect our backs, and that emotional issues such as sadness or disappointment center around that part of our body. It is certainly a fascinating and revealing topic.

How to prevent and treat back pain related to your emotions

Take a second to imagine a visual image. Imagine you have a backpack with arrows on your back. This is a backpack full of arrows to help you get rid of pain, handle it better and defend yourself from anything that can hold you and become a problem.

• One way to make sure you have enough arrows in your backpack is to do a biofeedback therapy.  It is a kind of exercise that shows you how to improve your health by becoming more aware of things like blood pressure, heart rate and muscle tension. It really means training your brain to work for you. You do this by paying attention to bodily processes that you have never paid attention to before.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy can also be very helpful.  This is a great way to gain more control over your thoughts, process your emotions and encourage yourself to make a better and healthier lifestyle a habit.
• It is quite clear that emotions can affect our backs. So there is no need not to try different techniques to find out what works best for you. The American Chronic Pain Association has some recommendations.  You can do things like add more vitamin B to your diet or use something called “distraction techniques”. This basically involves training yourself to think of specific images, smells or songs to distract you from your pain.

What are you waiting for?

Now you know that emotions can affect your back. So how about learning to prevent it? Take care of your emotions just as you do with your diet, and never forget activity. A body that moves and a mind that is cleansed every now and then are the secrets to good health. So what are you waiting for? Start!