The Stress & Back Pain Connection

Put your hand up if you've ever felt stressed - OK it looks like everybody has got their hand up.

In fact, if you were about to order a truck load of horse manure to be delivered to your boss' office, or desperately wanted to slash the tires of the idiot who cut you off on the way home, read on.

If you really are feeling like that, you can get immediate stress relief here

Of course, temporary stress is a natural and unavoidable part of life and our bodies have numerous built-in mechanisms for dealing with it.

However, a feature of the 21st century lifestyle is that prolonged, or chronic stress is a common experience.

Many people find it hard to cope with this continuous stress. Some don't even realize they are chronically stressed until something happens to finally push them over the edge and the stress explodes like a dam bursting.

OK, so what does this have to do with back pain and sciatica?

Well as far as your body is concerned, chronic stress is like having a perpetual low grade illness that eats away at your health and vitality.

Stress commonly manifests in physical symptoms such as:

• Stomach pains
• Headaches
• Overall stiffness
• Constipation
• Disturbed digestion (which can result in your body being
  short of essential minerals and vitamins)
• Shoulder and neck stiffness
• Poor sleep . . leading to tiredness and low energy levels
• Lower back pain (especially with financial stress)
• Susceptibility to colds and flus and other illnesses

Now given your back is one of the most complicated and sensitive organs in your body, guess where some of the effects of this stress might show up?

You got it - back pain, back stiffness and spasms, your back "going out", sciatica etc.

(People are different and experience stress symptoms in different areas. Some might never have a problem with their back, but have long term stomach pain and so on.)

There are 26 different bones in your back, each supported by a variety of muscles and moving in different ways as you bend and twist.

So if the stress builds up in the muscles around your back, so they're always stiff and tense and/or you're chronically tired and/or you're short of minerals and vitamins, should you be surprised if your back malfunctions?

Find out how to reduce stress and back pain