Tight Muscles – Anxiety will run tension through the body and impact different muscles. People feel the tightness in other areas. Some will feel it in their neck, jaw, chest, or the stomach. There is no specific area – wherever the brain sends the nerve signals.
All of us have preferred places in our bodies where our pain, worry, and fears are most readily expressed in muscular tension. The three key areas in the body that have the potential to be most affected by emotional forces are the pelvic floor, the diaphragm, and the jaw.
Trauma, anxiety, and other emotions can get trapped in your body- essentially emotions can get stored in your autonomic nervous system response. Your nervous system has two responses: the sympathetic response and the parasympathetic response.
The most common areas we tend to hold stress are in the neck, shoulders, hips, hands and feet. Planning one of your stretch sessions around these areas can help calm your mind and calm your body. When we experience stressful situations whether in a moment or over time, we tend to feel tension in the neck.
Emotional information is stored through “packages” in our organs, tissues, skin, and muscles. These “packages” allow the emotional information to stay in our body parts until we can “release” it. Negative emotions in particular have a long-lasting effect on the body.
Exercise helps your body burn off adrenaline, release endorphins, calm your nervous system, and relieve stress. While any physical movement can help get your energy moving, some forms of exercise are especially helpful for trauma.
The shoulder well point is in your shoulder muscle. To find it, pinch your shoulder muscle with your middle finger and thumb. This pressure point is said to help with relieving stress, muscle tension, and headaches. It can also induce labor, so don't use this point if you're pregnant.
Results uncovered that finances are the number-one cause of stress. If the state of your finances is stressing you out, you're far from alone.
Anxiety, either about a current situation or forthcoming event is a normal bodily reaction to stress. This reaction begins in the Amygdala - an area in the brain which sends distress signals to the hypothalamus. These signals are then communicated to the rest of the body to evoke a 'fight or flight' response.
During the stress response, your heart rate increases, breathing quickens, muscles tighten, and blood pressure rises. You've gotten ready to act. It is how you protect yourself. Stress means different things to different people.
Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, increases sugars (glucose) in the bloodstream, enhances your brain's use of glucose and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues. Cortisol also curbs functions that would be nonessential or harmful in a fight-or-flight situation.
When you're stressed, your breathing patterns change and cause strain and tension in the mid-back. Your shoulders hunch up and cause pain throughout the upper and middle back. Low-back pain includes the tailbone and lower half of the back muscles. These muscles affect flexibility and posture.
Neck Tension = Fear and Repressed Self-Expression
Fear and anxiety are also frequently stored in this area, particularly as a physical response to danger (as the neck is a vulnerable area) or strange environments. Neck muscle tension is also related to trust issues.
Ever since people's responses to overwhelming experiences have been systematically explored, researchers have noted that a trauma is stored in somatic memory and expressed as changes in the biological stress response.
Researchers have discovered that the gut and brain are closely connected; and that this relationship serves an important function not only in managing emotions and stress but also aiding digestion. Emotions are felt in the gut. Feelings such sadness, anger, nervousness, fear and joy can be felt in the gut.
An anxiety disorder can be caused by multiple factors, such as genetics, environmental stressors and medical conditions. New research also indicates that chronic anxiety symptoms that will not go away can be due to an autoimmune response, triggered by common infections.
Stress. Daily stressors like traffic jams or missing your train can cause anyone anxiety. But long-term or chronic stress can lead to long-term anxiety and worsening symptoms, as well as other health problems. Stress can also lead to behaviors like skipping meals, drinking alcohol, or not getting enough sleep.
Chronic, untreated anxiety is linked to panic attacks, depression, substance abuse, brain fog and other serious issues.