Long term, if your body is not properly nourished, restored, maintained, and repaired, the effects of chronic wear and tear on your body take its toll and you will end up mentally and physically sick. Therefore, by releasing stress and anxiety, your body creates a loop of positive feedback through the autonomic nervous system, feedback that can rebalance your sympathetic and parasympathetic branches and lead so to improvements in symptoms of your stress and anxiety-related autoimmune conditions. The degree of improvement you can reasonably expect by relieving your persistent stress and anxiety depends on how much you feel that your emotional state affects your health issues.

When dealing with a fractured bone, the standard medical approach is to align and join the broken parts of the bone and let it heal, as this ancestral approach works for everyone and every time. However, when dealing with stress and anxiety, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach. Therefore psychiatry, psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, neuro-linguistic-programming, E.F.T. (emotional freedom tapping), pet therapy, art therapy, mindfulness, yoga, craniosacral therapy, gravity blanket, mini-horses therapy, and many other approaches based on very contradictory and yet scientific concepts, are all available to solve emotional issues.

Chronic, intense, or repetitive stress and anxiety can lead to various emotional troubles and even psychiatric or physical medical conditions. According to the American Psychosomatic Society “… there is no such thing as psychosomatic disease. All disease can be looked at from this point of view”.

Here are a few of the many painful and idiopathic medical conditions, muscle tension, spasms, muscle contractions, various tics, facial twitches, hemifacial spasms, etc that are aggravated, triggered, or even caused by stress, trauma, and anxiety, and for which you can reasonably expect improvements when you improve your emotional health.

 

Anxiety can destroy your life: "During a panic or anxiety episode the muscles go into severe involuntary spasms and this can cause small tears in the muscle fibers. These muscle spasms are the cause of the headaches, backaches, tight chest and feeling of tiredness. The tiredness is a result of the muscles being tight for days or weeks and the effect is similar to doing many hours of heavy weight training."

The effect of stress on arthritis:  "Stories abound of people who connect the evolvement of their arthritis to a stressful incident in their lives. The stressful incident (such as a car accident, death in the family, divorce, loss of a job, or other personal tragedy) is regarded as the precipitating event which triggers the disease. Opinion varies on this theory because it is so difficult to prove, based on the variety of human experiences and human responses."

Back Pain "Back pain can be stress related. Anxiety and Stress can cause back pain, stiffness, tension, pressure, soreness, muscle spasms or immobility in the back. When people are experiencing bouts of stress or anxiety, muscle tighten leading to spasms and spinal misalignment. When the muscles tighten, it squises the blood vessels reducing the blood flow and causes pain."

Stress-Related Back Pain: "No one would disagree that having back and neck pain causes stress, but what about the other way around? Can stress be the primary cause of your back pain? Dr. Sarno theorizes that stress can manifest as muscle tension and spasms which cause severe back pain. While it's only a theory, many spine professionals do believe that stress can be the primary cause of back pain."

Muscle Tension, Persistent Tight Muscles  "Many of those who experience stress and anxiety, comment about tight, sore, and painful muscles and/or muscle tension problems in the head and face, mouth, back of the head and neck, back and top of the shoulders, chest, arms, back, legs, hands, stomach, digestive system, elimination tract, groin, and feet, as well as others. Anxiety muscle tension, aches, and pains can persistently affect one area only, can shift and affect another area or areas, and can migrate all over and affect many areas over and over again. Anxiety muscle tension, aches, and pains can come and go rarely, occur frequently, or persist indefinitely"

Stress causes shaking; “Stress kicks your body into its fight or flight mode, ramping up the release of certain hormones and preparing you to deal with danger. The result can sometimes be hands that shake like maracas.”

Tremor of hands, legs: "Most of the time, tremors are not a sign of a chronic disease. They can be due, for example, to a temporary lack of sugar in the blood (hypoglycemia), to fatigue, to emotions (anguish, fear, anger ...), medication or fever. "

Can Anxiety Cause Muscle Twitching? "There's no denying that anxiety affects your body. One way it can wreak havoc is through muscle twitches. Whether it's something as small as a finger or as large as your entire leg, twitching is incredibly common. Anxiety muscle twitching can be a strange sensation. In some cases, your muscle may even move involuntarily. For those suffering from serious anxiety, this symptom can cause a lot of concern, especially in those with health anxiety, since muscle twitches are associated with some frightening disorders."

Anxiety can Cause Muscle Spasms: "Anxiety can cause a lot of frightening conditions, especially if you find yourself worried about your health often. Muscle spasms are one such condition. Many people experience strange muscle spasms with anxiety, and in some cases these spasm can cause significant distress and further anxiety. Muscle spasms are sudden, involuntary muscle movements. They're often very small, like a twitch or kicking out, and they usually come and go fairly quickly. They may also be cramps - long, drawn out muscle pain that is also considered a type of muscle spasm. Both of these may be caused by anxiety." 

Muscle Twitching and Anxiety: "Muscle twitching, including muscle spasms, cramps, pulsing, throbbing, tremors, and involuntary muscle movements are common symptoms of anxiety disorder, including generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic and anxiety attacks, and others."

Stress Can Force Your Muscles to Tense Up; “That tightening can cause back aches and other ailments.”

Stress-induced inter-vertebral disc degradation: "Inter-vertebral disc degeneration (IDD) is a pathological process that is the primary cause of low back pain and is potentially mediated by compromised stress defense mechanism. Stress can induce inter-vertebral disc degeneration by promoting cell apoptosis and extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation. Therefore, the stress induced suppression of Sestrins might serve as an important cellular homeostasis mechanism in the process of inter-vertebral disc degeneration."

The role of stress in rheumatic diseases: "Rheumatology patients frequently note the occurrence of stressful or traumatic life events prior to the onset of their illness and/or a relationship between stress and disease flares. For our patients, identifying causal events could represent an effort to give meaning to a chronic and often disabling disease, while noting a link between stress and flares may proffer a sense of control. Whatever purpose the report of stress as an etiological or maintaining factor may serve, the science exploring a causal relationship between stress and autoimmune disease onset and course is expanding."

Stress induced chronic prostatitis and chronic pelvic pain syndrome. Stress and emotional health can be  important causative factors in chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS). When a man experiences stress, anxiety, and tension it can elevate his prolactin levels, which can lead to damage of the immune system and cause inflammation. It can also cause an imbalance in the neuroendocrine system, leading to chronic pain. The tension that is brought on by stress and emotional health can lead to a chronic tension disorder, neuromuscular tension disorder, and other pelvic floor disorders, all which can cause pelvic pain and sometimes urinary, sexual, or bowel trouble.

Epigenetic changes from stress exposure can be passed from traumatized parent to offspring: The children of traumatized people have long been known to be at increased risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and mood and anxiety disorders. One of the most intensively studied groups in this regard are the children of survivors of the Nazi concentration camps. From the work of Yehuda and others, there has been growing evidence that concentration camp survivors and their children might show changes in the epigenetic regulation of genes. Children of traumatized parents are not simply born with a PTSD-like biology; they may inherit traits that promote resilience as well as vulnerability. This study raises important questions about the intergenerational transmission of traits from traumatized parents to their children.

Stress Can Mess With Your Genes; “Getting headaches is one thing, but actually altering your genetic code? Yep. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have found that stress can switch on genes that weren't supposed to be switched on. "The consequence is that genes that should be turned off are now active and this may disturb cellular development, identity and growth," the researcher said.”

Extreme stress in childhood is toxic to your DNA. “Studies of children who have experienced major early childhood stress reveal that dysfunction in many organs in the body years after the stressful event, raising the risk of heart disease, lung disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, poor school performance, drug abuse and mental illness. Scientists in the institute where I work have recently shown that the sensitivity of DNA packaging to environmental stress is greater during the first five years of life than all of the rest of life combined.”

Studies highlight lasting effects of early life stress on the genome, gut, and brain: "Excessive stress during fetal development or early childhood can have long-term consequences for the brain, from increasing the likelihood of brain disorders and affecting an individual's response to stress as an adult to changing the nutrients a mother may pass on to her babies in the womb. Childhood stress increases the chance of developing anxiety, depression, or drug addiction later in life by two to four times, while stress during pregnancy may increase the child's risk of developing autism spectrum disorder, as well as several other psychiatric illnesses. Scientists are discovering more about the mechanisms through which childhood or fetal stress disrupts brain development and leads to these disorders, which may help reveal new therapeutic strategies."

Childhood stress leaves lasting mark on genes : "Kids who experience severe stress are more likely to develop a host of physical and mental health problems by the time they reach adulthood, including anxiety, depression and mood disorders."

Stress Worsens Your Memory; “One of those areas of the brain that gets shrunken by stress is the hippocampus, which plays a big part in learning and memory. A 2018 study found that those with higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol did worse on memory tests, especially women.”

The link between anxiety and memory loss “Extensive research demonstrates various ways that anxiety and memory loss are linked, and studies show that people with generalized anxiety and/or panic disorders have greater difficulty remembering experiences from their childhood than their non-anxious counterparts. It’s clear that acute stress can disrupt the process of collecting memories. Anxiety can cause memory loss because it is an incredibly unpleasant emotion, and memory loss allows us to put off dealing with that negative event in an attempt to limit future instances of anxiety,” he says. “Often, specific memories that caused us anxiety are specifically ‘lost’ as a strategic coping mechanism. This coping skill is very common when dealing with those who have struggled with trauma.”

Frog in your throat? Stress might be to blame for vocal issues “University of Missouri researcher studies relationship between stress and voice disorders such as dysphonia. Glossophobia, or the fear of public speaking, often comes up in lists of greatest fears. Such anxiety can often impact voice control leading to stammering or feeling like there is a “frog in your throat.” A researcher from the University of Missouri has found that there is more to vocal issues than just feeling nervous and that stress-induced brain activations might be to blame."

Cough "Many of us have experienced a feeling of something stuck in our throats. Your natural instinct is to try and cough it out. If you suffer from anxiety you know the unpleasant sensation of choking or being suffocated and coughing may seem to be the logical way of getting rid of the “obstruction”. The unpleasant truth is that when you suffer from anxiety the constant lump in your throat is not a physical thing that you can cough up."

Dizziness is often associated with stress and anxiety. “This is for a number of reasons. As stress increases, this can lead to changes in breathing rate, which in turn can change the CO2 levels in the blood. This isn’t dangerous but can cause physical symptoms like dizziness. In addition, the body’s response to stress involves the release of stress hormones. These hormones lead to various changes in the body that enhance our ability to deal with immediate threat (escape or fight – the ‘fight or flight’ response). One such response is that blood is re-directed to the areas that need it for ‘fight or flight’ – blood tends to be redirected from the head and this can lead to dizziness.”

Dystonia "Dystonia disorders cause involuntary movements and prolonged muscle contraction, resulting in twisting body motions, tremor, etc. Dystonia can occur as a result of emotional difficulties or due to a stress reaction."

Stress Can Give You Headaches; “Your head is more likely to throb when you're stressed, according to the Mayo Clinic, with a tension-type headache or even a migraine. And feeling under pressure is also likely to make your headaches worse.”  

Headache & Migraines  "Stress is the most commonly recognized trigger of headaches. It can be physical or emotional. It can be good or bad. It is an unavoidable part of life. Events causing emotional stress can trigger a migraine headache. Migraine sufferers are thought to be highly responsive emotionally." 

Ways stress can impact migraines: "A major stressful event, such as death or divorce, may cause someone’s first migraine attack. Stress can trigger migraine attacks. In some, stress makes a migraine attack worse. Some migraine sufferers say that stress makes migraine attacks last longer. Stress may cause more frequent migraine attacks. Stress can cause a migraine after the stressful situation ends, which occur after the sudden release of tension—sometimes called “weekend migraines”

The stress and migraine connection: "Research has suggested that stress may be a precursor in as many as 62 to 80 percent of migraine attacks. Other studies have shown that at least three out of every four patients with migraine believe that stress has acted as a direct catalyst for attacks. Those with chronic migraine have also reported higher levels of stress, with research showing that psychological anxiety in the several days leading up to a migraine attack plays an important role in migraine occurrence. Amazingly, stress can actually cause migraine to develop for certain patients with a higher risk for the headache disorder. Furthermore, stress may worsen migraine over time for those with episodic attacks and ultimately lead to increasing chronicity."

What’s the Link Between Stress, Anxiety, and Vertigo? “When you chronically feel anxious, your body’s level of cortisol and other stress hormones remain elevated and negatively impact your vestibular system. A 2016 retrospective study looked at 7,750 people with anxiety disorder and an equal number of people without it.  After 9 years of following the participants, the researchers found that people with anxiety disorders were 2.17 times more likely to develop benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), the most common type of vertigo, than people without anxiety disorders. Some people may experience sudden vertigo when faced with the trigger of their anxiety.”

Anxiety and stress related dizziness and vertigo: " Stress and anxiety may play a role in causing dizziness or, more commonly, may be a contributing factor in dizziness from other causes, such as inner ear diseases."

Low Back Pain "Factors that increase the risk of developing low back pain include smoking, obesity, older age, female gender, physically strenuous work, sedentary work, a stressful job, job dissatisfaction and psychological factors such as anxiety or depression."

Muscle Spasms "Since this symptom is caused by stress and how it affects the body, reducing your body’s stress is the best way to winnow out stress and anxiety caused muscle twitching. As your body’s stress diminishes, this symptom should diminish and eventually disappear."

How stress affects your menstrual cycle; “Research has shown that various kinds of stress can wreak havoc on a woman's period, making it irregular or disappear altogether. And to make matters worse, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development studied 259 women and found that stress can also make premenstrual syndrome (PMS) pain worse.”

Menstrual cramps; "Many women report that psychological stress worsens their menstrual pain. Chronic lifestyle stress can have wide-ranging effects on the body, including suppression of the immune system. Psychological stress can also worsen symptoms or delay healing in myriad medical conditions including asthma, cardiovascular disease, infections, and diabetes."

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS or SEID): "The cause of CFS is unknown, but a virus or an immune system reaction may be responsible. Preliminary research suggests herpes infection, for example, may trigger CFS. Risk factors include extreme stress or anxiety, flu-like illness that does not completely go away, poor eating habits, and psychological conditions, such as obsessive compulsive disorder, neuroticism, and perfectionism. Depression can make the condition worse and make it last longer."

Myofascial Pain Syndrome; "People who frequently experience stress and anxiety, may be more likely to develop trigger points in their muscles which can lead to Myofascial Pain Disorder."

How stress might be ruining your teeth: ”Clenching or grinding the teeth, a common dental problem that can be related to stress, can cause headaches, chipped or flattened teeth, and tight jaw muscles.”

Stress Can Cause Ringing In Your Ears; “Tinnitus, that same kind of annoying ringing you get after, say, sitting through a Metallica concert, might just be induced by stress. One study by the Egypt's Minia University found that those suffering from chronic ringing tended to be more stressed. In short, "There is a direct correlation between duration of tinnitus and severity of stress."

Ringing in the ears (Tinnitus), stress and anxiety: This new research has found that many people report the onset of ringing in the ears (tinnitus) after experiencing a significant stress or anxiety. So elevated stress, such as stress-response hyperstimulation, is a common cause of ringing in the ears. And this makes sense, since chronic stress, such as that caused by overly apprehensive behavior, increases the electrical activity in the amygdala, which is involved with auditory processing, it stands to reason that chronic stress and its effects can cause ‘phantom’ ringing in the ears due to the way chronic stress adversely affects neuronal production and electrical activity in the brain.

Stress in the classroom can be as contagious as the flu Stress, it seems, is contagious in the classroom—and it’s particularly virulent when transferred between teachers and students. Stress contagion theory posits that while human emotions may seem personal and internally generated, we are in fact biologically sensitive to the emotional tenor of those around us. When the prevailing mood of our company is negative, our bodies have the tendency to respond by releasing hormones that make us feel negative too. The phenomenon has already been observed occurring between mothers and their infants and between romantic partners.

Stiff-Person Syndrome "The association between SPS and anxiety disorders has been reported. Anticipatory anxiety is common in SPS patients, occurring in situations perceived as physically unsafe, such as crossing a busy street or walking unaided in open spaces. These situations may precipitate attacks of increasing stiffness or spasms that result in falls. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and phobic disorders have been described in patients with SPS."

Tension Headache; "Most of the time, tension headaches are triggered by stress from work, school, family, friends, or other relationships.
Episodic ones are usually set off by a single stressful situation or a buildup of stress. Daily stress can lead to the chronic kind.

Shoulder and Back Pain "A provocative new book suggest it's not physical problems that cause backache - but emotional tension. Stress and tension, which can come from a number of areas in our lives - family conflicts to stress at work, or even unrealistically high expectations of ourselves. This emotional stress expresses itself in painful physical tension - most commonly in the soft tissues in the neck, the top of the shoulders and shoulder blade, the lower back and the outside of the buttocks. This is where a slow accumulation of anxiety and stress over many months, even years, can cause the arrangement of muscles, nerves, tendons and ligaments to tighten and change - restricting blood and oxygen supply. Muscles deprived of oxygen can build up deposits of lactic acid, triggering pain, spasm, tingling or numbness."

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Disclaimer: The above article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author. It is intended for general informational purposes and does not constitute psychological or medical professional advice. I don't diagnose medical conditions, nor do I interfere with any treatments given by your medical professional.

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