The Chronic Pain & Stress Connection: Why Your Body Won’t Calm Down

When people go for pain rehabilitation—like chiropractic care or physiotherapy—stress is almost never part of the conversation, even though it plays a HUGE role in how your body experiences pain. Stress triggers feelings of fear, threat, or danger, which activates the release of epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol. This is your classic fight-or-flight response, designed to keep you alive when things get scary.

Cortisol is actually anti-inflammatory in the short term. It signals your body to release stored glucose for quick energy, keeps inflammation down, and helps prevent tissue and nerve damage. When stress is short lived, cortisol adapts well and helps your body bounce back from both pain and non-pain stressors.

But when stress becomes long-term, cortisol regulation starts to break down.
That’s when inflammation increases, pain intensifies, and your whole system becomes overwhelmed.

Your Nervous System & Stress: A Tug-of-War

Your body relies on the autonomic nervous system to maintain balance.
It has two sides:

1. Sympathetic Nervous System (Fight or Flight)

This system ramps you up when you feel stressed or threatened. It affects almost every organ all at once—your brain, heart, lungs, digestive tract, liver, kidneys, adrenal glands, and more. Symptoms may include:

• sweating

• faster reflexes

• increased heart rate

• faster breathing

• tense muscles

2. Parasympathetic Nervous System (Rest & Digest)

This system slows everything down so you can relax and recover. It lowers your heart rate, slows breathing, improves digestion, and supports healing.
These two systems are supposed to balance each other—but chronic stress keeps you stuck in “go-go-go” mode, with very little “rest.”

How Your Body Reacts to Stress (a.k.a. Why Fear Makes You Feel Weird)

When you experience stress or fear, your body shifts into survival mode:

• Energy surge – your liver releases glucose for instant fuel

• Rapid breathing – more oxygen to the brain and muscles

• Increased strength – blood flow moves to your muscles

• Pale skin – blood shifts away from the skin to protect against blood loss

• Pounding heart – drives oxygen and nutrients to essential organs

• Pain resistance – brain releases endorphins (your natural painkillers)

• Sweating – prevents overheating

• “Butterflies” – digestion slows as blood moves to vital organs

• Dilated pupils – sharper vision to detect danger

This is helpful in emergencies…

but not helpful when your “danger” is a work email, traffic jam, or overdue bill.

When Stress Never Ends: Chronic Stress = Chronic Pain

Chronic stress comes from everyday pressures—financial worries, work overload, unresolved conflict, constant rushing, or emotional strain. With no downtime, the body never gets a break.

The long-term effects can include:

• fatigue

• headaches

• high blood pressure

• abdominal pain

• weakened tissues

• increased inflammation

This constant stress sensitizes the nervous system, making you feel pain more intensely and more often.

How Pain Signals Work

Pain is your body’s alarm system. When tissue is damaged, chemical changes activate nerve sensors that send signals through the spinal cord to the brain. The brain then interprets these signals as pain.

There are two main types:

Acute Pain

Sharp, sudden pain that demands immediate action—pulling your hand from a hot pan, reacting to a cut, or responding to sudden stress.

Chronic Pain

When the pain lingers after the tissue has healed. It becomes dull, throbbing, persistent, and often tied to inflammation, swelling, or an overactive nervous system.

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Author

Janette deVries RHN, B.ed, H.BA

YouNique Holistic Nutrition

#pain #stress #naturalhealing #youniqueholisticnutrition

Sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4263906/

Abrahams, Peter Dr. How the Body Works: A Comprehensive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Anatomy. London. Amber Books Ltd: 2007.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5546756/

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