Does Stress Affect Chronic Pain?

Yes. Stress can make chronic pain worse. The responses to stress include neural, endocrine, and behavioural changes. The body has built-in coping strategies to address these stressors. When it comes to pain perception, this can result in either stress-induced analgesia or stress-induced hyperalgesia. Basically, added stress can cause your muscles to tense or spasm. This increases pain. And, when you feel stressed, levels of the hormone cortisol rise. This can cause inflammation and increase pain over time.

To add to this, anxiety created by stress can also create pain of its own. It can also contribute to chronic pain problems. For example, chest pains from panic attacks, headaches from stress, and even more muscle pain from the constant tension. And, causing even more muscular tension (and pain) the stress itself makes us more sensitive to the chronic pain.

Given this link, between stress and pain, and the fact that the American Psychological Association notes that most Americans experience moderate to high-stress levels. Pressures that have increased significantly over the last year and a half. This leads to serious concern over the physical and emotional well-being of Americans, particularly those already suffering from chronic pain disorders.

Stress is the human response to physical, emotional, or mental changes in the body or one’s living environment. Many things can cause stress — the death of a loved one to the loss of a job. There are also health concerns that lead to anxiety — the thought of illness to an actual diagnosis. There are also happy events that induce stress — the birth of a child or a job promotion.

Now, going back to how stress affects the perception of pain. Stress influences this in two ways: stress-induced analgesia and stress-induce hyperalgesia. Stress induced analgesia is influenced by gender, age, and encounters with pain, stress, or provocations. And it involves the activation of the descending pain modulatory system that suppresses pain. Stress-induced hyperalgesia is when stress, anxiety, and fear are extant. This exacerbates pain and influences its intensity, duration, and cause.

As the stress level rises, the body generally responds in what is called the general adaption syndrome (GAS). This defines how the body undergoes psychological changes and breaks down to three stages after stressful events.

  1. Fight or flight

  2. Resistance

  3. Exhaustion

The stress system is closely aligned with the nervous system, including peripheral and central areas that interact with the brain. These are the areas that also happen to interpret pain. When the body reacts to stressors, it begins to modify pain symptoms, thus stimulating a different and/or higher pain perception in the body.

Of course, your body has a natural response system for this and, in normal situations, will regulate itself out. However, in a person with a chronic pain disorder, there is benefit to be had from stress and pain management care. Doing so can help to prevent increased long-term pain impairment.

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