Don't you know that excessive stress can affect your physical body and behavior?

Do you feel like your pain could be linked to stress? Are you constantly complaining of headaches, sore shoulders, tight jaw, or sore neck?

Most of us know that stress can have a big impact on our mental wellbeing, but did you know that excessive stress can also have an effect on our physical body and behaviors too?

Hi everyone! My name is Helen and I'm an osteopath here at Melbourne Headache Solutions. Today, I want to talk to you all about the physical signs of stress, what to look out for, and what you can do about it.

We all have stress in our lives. It could be from things like work deadlines and traffic, family drama, and more. When we have stress, whether it’s short term or long term, our bodies release certain hormones called adrenaline and cortisol. Now these are known as a fight or flight response. A small amount of these hormones can actually be quite beneficial. These help heighten our alertness, increase our focus, and are really useful in emergencies. However, when the stress is ongoing or overwhelming, it can contribute to a number of health problems. You might not actually realize it, but some of the regular aches or pains or complaints that you've been experiencing could actually be linked to stress. Some of the physical manifestations of stress include things like frequent headaches and migraines.

Both stress and anxiety can be a catalyst for headaches and migraines, most commonly reported type of stress headache we see is the tension type headache. These are often described as a band like headache, which is a tension or pressure or an ache. People will often complain of pain through the temple, through the forehead, and in the back of the skull.

Now, for the thing that people would describe as jaw pain, stress can cause people to hold their jaws really tight. They also might clench or grind their teeth known as bruxism. This affects the muscles surrounding and controlling the jaw and this is going to be often accompanied by the headaches.

Neck and/or shoulder pain is another thing that people regularly complain of. Muscle tension will occur when a group of muscles stay contracted for a long period of time. Muscle tension is really commonly triggered by stress. This is brought about by our nervous system and how our nerve functions. The brain is continuously sending these new signals to the muscle to tell it to contract even when the muscle was no longer needed for use. So, this can last for a short period, or it can actually last for days on end. The longer it lasts, and the muscle stays contracted for, the more pain that you'll find yourself in. This also reduces the blood flow to the muscle and can create muscle tension and painful sights in the muscles.

People commonly describe digestive problems. Your gut is often referred to as your second brain. This is because of the complex nervous system between the gut and the brain. Your gut is full of neurons and neuro-transmitters are constantly sending signals back and forth to the brain. So, when we’re stressed or overwhelmed, we might experience symptoms such as nausea, loss of appetite, or there's some people experience increased appetite, frequent urination or butterflies in their stomach. These all happen because of our gut motility and the secretion of fluid within our gut suddenly increased. You may have noticed that like right before big events, you suddenly have to make a nervous trip to the bathroom –so that sort of thing.

Another thing that people often describe as insomnia. If you're struggling to manage stress, it can be really difficult to get a good night's sleep. This is due to your mind being too active and under pressure. Stress-related sleep disruption is often described as a difficulty falling asleep, having nightmares, waking up in the middle of the night and being unable to return to sleep, or clenching and grinding. The longer that this drags on for, the more that your stress becomes heightened and your coping abilities become affected as well. This kind leaves you in a bit of a disrupted cycle, and then you get negative stress cycles of sleep. This leads to the next thing, which is fatigue.

Stress can cause fatigue, which is often described as that overwhelming exhaustion. It can't be relieved by sleep. This may start from simple tiredness from your disturbed sleep or it, but then it progresses to exhaustion and the longer it drags on.

Another thing that you may experience is weight problems. Stress can make you gain weight and make it much more difficult to lose weight. This occurs for a number of reasons. Firstly, stress can induce unhealthy eating behaviors or drinking behaviors, and it also makes us crave sugar. So, this sugar craving is due to the rise of cortisol and adrenaline in the body, and this causes a glucose to release into the bloodstream. And when this is prolonged, you crave sugar in order to get that quick energy boost. Your body then tends to store the exist sugar and it's mainly stored as abdominal fat, which can be really difficult to shed. Furthermore, the high levels of cortisol can actually slow down your metabolism so that makes it even more difficult to lose weight. 

People might also describe skin conditions. Skin rashes have been known to occur with stress. Probably, this is due to the release of extra chemicals like neuropeptides and neurotransmitters during times of stress. These chemicals can change how your body responds to things and it causes sensitivity, inflammation, and skin discomfort.

 

So, what can you do about it?

Well, introducing relaxation techniques is probably one of the best ways that you can help yourself. Some really great stress relieving activities have been found to reduce muscle tension, relieved the headaches and migraines, improve sleep and digestion amongst a bunch of other things.

 

Some ways in which you can manage your stress is by:

- Talking about your worries to somebody that you trust.

- Winding down at the end of the day. If you've had a busy day and get yourself in a cycle where you can wind yourself down, towards time to go to sleep.

- Staying off alcohol and caffeine before bed or later into the afternoon and turning off electronics. - You could also exercise daily, which has been known to be really beneficial for stress and sleep and in wellbeing.

- Eating a good diet or maybe sticking to sort of paleo type diet or very well-rounded diets are really good. If you notice that sometimes, certain foods contain caffeine, histamines, or those sorts of things, they can be quite inflammatory and can create stress as well.

- Making sure that you take time for yourself. Make sure you're taking a break. It can be as simple as taking like a lunch break or a coffee break during the day, or as big as taking holidays or even micro holidays. Break is really important for our general wellbeing.

- Practicing mindfulness or meditation. Both are really useful in reducing stress.

 

Addressing your stress could be the key to reducing a lot of your pain and discomfort. So, if any of this resonates with you and you want to find out more about what you can do to help your headaches and migraines, and please get in touch with us here at Melbourne Headache Solutions, or you can book your initial consultation here.