Pain and Stress Reduction
Solve One to Solve the Other

Pain and Stress Reduction
Go Hand in Hand

Management of pain and stress reduction go hand in hand in two ways. First, you have likely noticed that whenever you feel very tired or stressed, all your aches and pains hurt way more? Because of this fact, it could be said that STRESS CAUSES PAIN; therefore, by reducing or better managing emotional stress, in your life, you can reduce aches and pains in your body.

Second, but maybe not as well known, PAIN CAUSES STRESS. By allowing minor aches and pains to exist unchecked in your body, you are allowing a different kind of stress (oxidative stress) to accumulate. Oxidative stress is now known to be the root cause of more 100 chronic degenerative diseases. Oxidative stress, caused by free radical damage, is created from many different sources, including pain and injury; therefore, it is a very BAD idea to ignore seemingly minor aches and pains for very long time.

Stress and Back Pain

Let’s look at stress and back pain, for example. Never does a person’s lower back pain or neck pain bother them more than when they are stressed out. But often, they are too busy or preoccupied to get out of their chair and do some deep breathing or stretching to relieve the pain and stress and so they just endure the pain in their backs and necks for extended periods.

Eventually their tolerance for this mild, nagging discomfort builds and then they are able to put up with still higher levels of pain all the time. The higher the pain threshold, the greater amounts of free radicals being created and the more damage being done. Described this way, the need for management of pain and stress reduction is obvious.

In a roundabout way, your back pain IS CAUSED by stress (emotional) but your back pain is also the CAUSE OF stress (oxidative). Pain and stress, left unchecked, can create a very vicious cycle in your helpless, unsuspecting body.

Stress & All Kinds of Pain

The same is true of stress and chest pain, stress and joint pain, stress and stomach pain or stress and any kind of pain. Therefore, when you feel stressed or tired and your lower back or neck start to ache, even a little, remember the pain and stress reduction connection and take a few minutes to do some deep breathing and stretching. Don’t let chronic disease win the day.

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