Emotional stress happens to us everyday.  We have to interact with other people, family, work, relationships. Sometimes we are brought joy from these relationships and other times it can be stressful.  

Emotional stress can accumulate and fester leading to a physical ailment.  Eventually this will impact our health. 

People are not the same and everyone will hold stress in different areas.  You may have jaw tightness, neck pain, headaches, low back pain, hip pain or a plethora of other different physical symptoms from stored emotional stress.  

The more stress trapped in our body, the more our body and brain will try and protect us by compensating.  This means it will tighten up to protect us.  That is why tightness is alway a sign of stress and will lead to pain if left untreated.  

How does emotional stress impact our body?

When we are stressed our brain reacts as it has always done since humans have been alive.  We have an instinct called “fight, flight or freeze”. 

Anytime our brain feels like we are threatened even by something minor, we immediately are put in this instinctual reaction.  Our body will prepare to run. Our hips and neck will begin to tighten up getting ready to retreat.   

This is why the most common stressed muscles are in the neck and hips.  

Since many of our essential organs are around the hip and pelvic area, our reproductive organs, low back, digestive organs, lymphatic system, blood vessels and glands can be greatly affected by emotional stress and the accumulation in the body.  

This is why chiropractic is so effective because the neck and hips can be treated and stress can be released.

Fight or flight response:

The way we manage stress is by our body’s ability to adapt and handle stress and release it. We need a balance of our sympathetic nervous system (fight, flight, freeze) and parasympathetic nervous system (rest, digest).  

A large part of our sympathetic nervous system is located near our psoas muscle which lays over our hips.  So keeping the hips aligned along with the rest of the spine is pretty vital to keeping stress down.  

Again, emotional stress leads to physical stress.  Keeping the stress as low as we can to make sure our body is capable of adapting to new stress is key to health and vitality.  

Body work is always a necessity because stress likes to hide in the joints and tissues.  

Dr. Amie Gregory, DC, CCEP, ANF is a San Francisco, CA and San Carlos, CA chiropractor that understands full body health.  She works with athletes, expectant moms, office workers and everyone else in between.  Contact our San Francisco, CA chiropractic office or San Carlos, CA chiropractic office today!