One of the world’s first researchers on stress, Hans Selye, M.D., documented three stages a person goes through in response to stress:

·          The Alarm stage: the body’s defenses, or the fight-or-flight mechanism, are activated.

·          The Resistance Stage: whereby the body adapts to the threat or successfully resists the stress and returns to normal.

·          The Exhaustion Stage: the body’s failure to return to normal.

Some may view stress as a purely emotional issue. However, when you consider how worry, anxiety and tension can create bodily changes within us, we recognize how intertwined the emotional and physical sides of stress really are. 

One way to define stress is that it is the rate of wear and tear on the body as a result of anxiety, worry or exhaustion from a difficult or challenging situation. There are many situations that can cause stress, for example, work, financial difficulty, relationships with parents and children and even poor eating habits are just a few. To avoid stress we need to avoid life. Since that is not an alternative, we need to learn how to manage stress.

 A few primary symptoms of stress are: headaches, fatigue, pain and tension in the neck, shoulders, or low back. Stress also makes muscles contract. It makes people feel uptight and causes them to become tense and restricted.
 
Try these two simple tests to see if stress is causing tension in your joints and muscles:
 
1.         Check the tension in your neck by rotating your head to the right as far as you can. Then rotate as far as you can to the left. Do you notice a difference? Can you move more easily toward one side than the other? This restricted motion could be from muscle tension in the neck and upper back or your shoulders.

2.         Stand up and try to touch your toes without bending your knees. Do you feel tightness in the muscles and joints of the lower back? Stress usually attacks the body in areas of predisposed weakness. If you had an injury to your neck or low back, then stress is more likely to show up as neck pain, headaches or low back pain.

What can we do to reduce the effects of stress? Try exercise or some form of relaxation. Here are a few simple exercises to relieve stress in the neck and shoulders:

·          Sit up straight in a chair looking directly ahead. Roll your shoulders in a circular motion to the front, repeat 5-10 times. Then reverse this action by rotating your shoulders backwards in a circular motion 5-10 times.

·          In the seated position, rotate your head to the right and hold for 5 seconds and than rotate your head to the left and hold for 5 seconds. Repeat each 5 times.

·          Flex or bend your head backwards and hold 5 seconds.

All of these movements relax the neck and shoulders. Another good exercise is to take a walk. Just a 10-20 minute walk is enough to increase energy and alter your mood. Walking effects a positive change that could last several hours.

The best way to manage stress is to find out what situations cause you to feel tense and avoid them!  Since that is impractical, it is best to learn how to respond to stress in a less destructive manner.  Often that can mean reaching out for help, involving supportive professionals, family and friends, and recognizing that you are only one person!

Keep trying and practicing different techniques—such as exercise or walking—that work best to help you relax. Allow yourself several short breaks during the day to perform these activities. All together these are just a few ways you can learn to counteract the effects of stress. Remember, if at any time you have pain while exercising, stop and consult your chiropractor or physician before continuing.

 
(1) Stress and Natural Healing, Hobbs, Christopher

Dr. Michael Errichiello has been in private practice in Palisades Park and Ridgefield, NJ, for over 25 years. He can be reached at Chiropractic Healthcare Associates at 540 Bergen Boulevard, Ridgefield, NJ.