Don’t let pain from stress slow you down: See a Ft Lauderdale chiropractor for back pain relief
It’s summer. Relaxation time. You’re on vacation or lounging around your home, in the air conditioning or at the pool. The hustle of the fall months is still a glimmer in the distance. You’re in midair in terms of responsibilities – you should be floating on a cloud – or relaxing in the water on a raft. So why do you have back pain?
Chances are you have internalized your stress. Maybe you’re not really sailing on a cloud. Even though you’re on vacation, that work desk has attached itself to you. On a lounger in the backyard, you can’t shut your eyes, because your voicemails come back to haunt you.
If you’re feeling the pains of stress in your back you’re not alone. Many people internalize stress, which comes out in different ways – sometimes in the form of back pain. Stress can cause you to tense your back muscles and, hence, put you in pain. As the stress worsens, the back pain worsens. A Ft Lauderdale chiropractor can show you various ways to handle stress and will also help to relieve the pain when it becomes unbearable.
How is stress best managed for our modern lifestyles?
WebMD suggests various ways to beat stress. Among tips from the website include avoiding multi-tasking. Years ago we were lauded if we were able to handle several tasks at once. Now we understand it’s best to focus on one task at a time. In addition, don’t do it all yourself and prioritize your tasks from most to least important. Plan your days so that you’re not backed into a corner, doing various errands at the last minute. WebMD also suggests using the 3Ds: “Deal with it, delegate it, or dump it.”
You may also need to alter your lifestyle to enable your body to adequately recover from stressful episodes. For instance, be sure to get enough sleep. “Your body recovers from stress while you are sleeping,” according to WebMD. Also, eat healthful foods, avoid caffeine and remain active. And avoid smoking. You may think that smoking is helping your stress – smokers often talk about the relaxing effects of a cigarette – but the harm it does to your body far outweighs any immediate benefit.
The website Anxietycentre.com lists several symptoms of stress and anxiety, including frequent back pain, stiffness, soreness, spasms, and immobility, specifically if your back is so sore that it inhibits your movements. “Stress, including the stress that being overly anxious can cause, can cause back problems,” the website states. “When we’re stressed, the body secretes stress hormones, which are stimulants, into the bloodstream where they travel to targeted spots in the body to bring about specific physiological, psychological, and emotional changes that enhance the body’s ability to deal with a threat – to either fight with or flee from it – which is the reason the stress response is often referred to as the fight or flight response.”
When we feel anxiety from worry or fearful thinking, the body prepares for danger in the same way it does when a physical threat is present – it goes into survival mode, causing muscles to tense. Any activity that can help you relax these muscles and return you to a state of well-being will help you. Why is it so important to get these muscles back to relaxation mode as quickly as possible? Because sustained muscle tension can lead to high blood pressure and increased stress over time, the website states, so it’s always important to take action whenever stress and anxiety reach a level at which you feel pain that interferes with your normal daily activities.
Harvard Medical School in its recent Health Report newsletter suggested that the stress relief you employ depends on what you are experiencing and offers tips for healing general stress:
Engage in regular physical activity – it improves your health and gives you an overall feeling of well-being.
Practice some assertiveness training to help you state what you’re internalizing and handle conflicts.
If you are dealing with bereavement issues, seek out a support group.
Think about getting a pet. Owning a cat or dog has proven to help combat stress.
Attend a mind-body program. Some are specifically designed to focus on chronic pain or specific ailments, such as heart disease.
When you experience back pain during a stressful time in your life you should always seek out the help of a Ft Lauderdale chiropractor, to help you both relieve the pain and manage the stress. Since one of the effects of chronic stress is muscle tension and contraction, which can lead to pressure on the skeleton, adjustments that are performed by a chiropractor can help loosen the muscle tension and decrease the stress on certain parts of the skeleton.
The spine is a part of the nervous system, which means the health of your spine dictates how you will feel each day, both physically and mentally. When your spine is at its healthiest, your nervous system can perform its job, which includes handling stress and boosting your immune system. A chiropractor can help you with lifestyle stress and help you to live a better life.