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. Many of you have experienced tension in your neck and jaw and tightness in your low back. This can be driven primarily by emotions.
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.
Trauma, anxiety, and other emotions can get trapped in your body- essentially emotions can get stored in your autonomic nervous system 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are a number of ways to reduce physical tension. These include meditation, exercise, tai chi, massage, visualisation, yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, and slow breathing techniques. To reduce our stress it is important that we practice relaxation techniques on a daily basis.
There are some long-term effects on the body and mind are caused by stress and anxiety. Harvard Health (2008) found that Anxiety was related to chronic illness such as GI issues and heart disease. The Mayo Clinic (2017) included other worsening symptoms such as headaches and migraines as well as sleep issues.
EFT tapping is used for anxiety, depression, headaches, pain, weight loss and more. The main EFT tapping points are the side of the hand, eyebrow, the side of and under the eye, under the nose, chin, collarbone, underarm and top of the head. Research has found EFT tapping to be effective for some people.
Muscle Tension From Anxiety
The muscle pain may last briefly, for a few hours, or even be persistent. Muscle pain may affect just one part of the body, shift to another part, or your whole body can ache all over.
Muscle tension is almost a reflex reaction to stress—the body's way of guarding against injury and pain. With sudden onset stress, the muscles tense up all at once, and then release their tension when the stress passes. Chronic stress causes the muscles in the body to be in a more or less constant state of guardedness.
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.
These are areas of the body where deep, sustained pressure should be avoided because of the structures that lie beneath. Those areas are the anterior and posterior triangles of the neck, suprasternal notch, sternum, axilla, spinal column, umbilical area, inguinal triangle, popliteal fossa, and the antecubital fossa.
Some may have a fight-or-flight type of response, which may include muscle tension, heart pounding and sweating because their body "believes it needs to activate," she explains. Others maybe experience a freeze response, which can look like someone who struggles to move or get out of bed.
It won't rid you of PTSD and your fears, but let your tears flow and you'll maybe feel a little better afterwards. 'Crying for long periods of time releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, otherwise known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals can help ease both physical and emotional pain.
Traumatic experiences can initiate strong emotions and physical reactions that can persist long after the event. Children may feel terror, helplessness, or fear, as well as physiological reactions such as heart pounding, vomiting, or loss of bowel or bladder control.
Shame is the uncomfortable sensation we feel in the pit of our stomach when it seems we have no safe haven from the judging gaze of others. We feel small and bad about ourselves and wish we could vanish. Although shame is a universal emotion, how it affects mental health and behavior is not self-evident.