How Stress Can Impact the Back
Oh, your aching back! Could part of your problem be stress?
Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders?
Have a particularly difficult cross to bear?
Dealing with a yoke around your neck?
Whatever metaphor you want to use, emotional stress can go hand in hand with back pain. For many people, emotional stress often exacerbates pain, makes it more persistent or harder to ignore, or actually gets it going. Still, stress’s effects on the back run the gamut. The research on this topic is fascinating, showing that how we feel emotionally can have as much or more to do with physical pain as structural glitches in our bodies.
In a study conducted at Stanford University, researchers found that psychological distress may be a better predictor of lower back pain down the line than magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which can identify cracks or tears in cartilage along with other structural problems.
Following dozens of people for four years, the Stanford scientists discovered that the association between MRI findings and future back pain was not statistically significant. But what emerged clearly was that the subjects suffering psychological distress were three times more likely to develop back pain-and take medications for it and lose work days-than people with better coping skills. That is, psychosocial factors trumped the actual state of the back when it came to making a link to future lumbar spine pain.
In another research project, conducted in Sweden, when investigators reviewed 37 studies on possible predictors of back and neck pain, they identified a clear link with psychological variables. Those variables-stress, distress and anxiety-were all found to be significant factors in back pain, related not only to the onset of pain but also to whether it was chronic rather than lasting just a short while.
In yet another study that took place in New Zealand, nursing students followed during their three years of training and for one year afterward were more likely to experience new episodes of lower back pain if they had preexisting psychological stress.
