Stress causes many different issues to the body, and each person experiences stress differently. When you suffer from anxiety, you constantly put your body through long-term stress, which can have both immediate and long lasting effects. When your body is in “fight or flight” mode, it generally means it is releasing stress hormones (especially adrenaline and cortisol) that can create muscle tension and an overall feeling of unpleasantness. This only adds to your existing stress and/or anxiety.
Neck pain is one of the most common physical symptoms of persistent anxiety. It does not occur in everyone, but a significant portion of sufferers experience some degree of neck pain that can range from slightly irritating to severe.
Anxiety Increases Neck Pain Risk
Several factors can increase your likelihood of neck pain. If your neck pain is severe or impeding your way of life, it is advised that you visit your primary care provider. Other issues such as whiplash, a herniated disk, arthritis, etc. can all present as neck pain but require medical intervention. As always, if your pain is sudden and extreme, seek medical treatment as soon as possible to decrease the chance of further damage.
What Causes Anxiety Neck Pain?
The main cause of neck pain appears to be tension. During extremely anxious moments, your muscles contract and tense up significantly. Whenever you hear of individuals needing to get back or neck massages for “knots” in their muscles, it is often due to stress-induced muscle tension. This muscle tension especially targets the neck, shoulders, and back. The more anxiety you undergo, the more your tension may cause significant pain and discomfort.
Mindset means everything, especially in anxiety sufferers. Many people get muscle tension in their neck even if they do not have anxiety; however, those with anxiety tend to be more prone to noticing and focusing on it. Unfortunately, anxiety can cause people to fixate more on negative sensations unintentionally. This can make the neck pain feel more severe than it would to someone without anxiety, despite the pain being similar objectively.
General Neck Pain and Anxiety
For similar reasons, those with anxiety may be more prone to having greater degrees of neck discomfort than those without anxiety. Mild to moderate neck pain is common without having any health problems; it can be the result of sitting in chairs all day, sleeping in uncomfortable positions, looking down too long (especially on cell phones), not stretching, etc.
If you do not have anxiety, you might pass this off as a normal ache or pain that commonly occurs to everyone. However, if you have anxiety you might be more sensitive to physical sensations and unable to focus on anything else. Those of you who have panic attacks can have more heightened discomfort. The degree of mental energy you place on your neck may increase the pain and possibly worsen anxiety.
Neck Discomfort and Panic Attacks
Those with panic disorder can have feelings of neck tension they believe to be pain, but may actually just be discomfort leading to worse feelings. For example, anxiety sufferers may perceive that they have trouble holding up their head, almost as if their neck is weak.
It is not clear why anxiety causes this problem, but it is quite common to those with panic attacks. As advised, if your pain and/or discomfort is moderate or severe and stopping you from performing your daily activities, please visit your primary care provider.
How to Control Neck Pain From Anxiety
Generally, when anxiety causes neck pain through muscle tension, the best thing to do is to control the muscle tension first and anxiety second. Most anxiety symptoms require you to respond to the anxiety directly in order for the symptoms to go away, but muscle tension has a tendency to linger. This means that additional treatments might be needed. Consider the following:
- Massage - Massage is one of the best ways to reduce neck pain. It can either be a self-massage or one performed by someone else. Either decision you make, massaging out your tense muscles can genuinely assist in reducing muscle discomfort in your body. This will also help in relieving some of the stress that caused the muscle tension to begin with.
- Hot Bath/Shower - The application of heat is very soothing to tense muscles. A hot bath is ideal; however, a hot shower can still be beneficial if you stand in there long enough to have your muscles warm up. Heat forces muscles to relax, making it harder to hold tension. For some, hot water and/or steam can be soothing for anxiety.
- Exercise - If it is not too painful, exercise can improve muscle tension symptoms. Jogging and stretching are especially helpful. When you regularly workout your muscles, it will become harder for them to tense up during times of stress.
These strategies make it possible to reduce some of the effects of muscle tension on your body. You should also make sure you continue to sit with good posture, stretch regularly, and sleep comfortably. Regular pain may feel more severe if you have anxiety; so reducing the likelihood of pain can decrease your chances of muscle tension. But of course, if you do not address your anxiety directly, many of these symptoms will return. Overall, that is why it is best to develop a strategy to properly manage your anxiety.
Summary:
Muscle tension is the most common cause of neck pain from anxiety, followed by sleeping issues, immobility, and other anxiety-adjacent symptoms. Neck pain can be addressed as its own separate issue, yet it will still be important to try to manage anxiety.
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