Back muscle tension can be caused by purely physical injury or overexertion, but is often the direct result of internal stress, unresolved psychological issues and painful emotions. For the purposes of this dialog, tension describes the feeling of being taut, strained or stretched to the limit.
The back is a place where we both literally and figuratively carry all the burdens of life. When the back muscles are chronically tense, there is almost always some underlying emotional process as the direct cause or major contributor. It is vital to understand that the mindbody process ensures that the mental and physical components will always be linked together in functionality. If one aspect is stressed, the other will suffer.
This article will help to shed light on both physical and psychoemotional causes of internalized muscular tension.
Physically-Induced Back Muscle Tension
Muscles can become tight due to a strain, sprain or other injury. Back muscle pain can be very severe, even when the condition is not serious. Tension without pain is often the result of overexertion of the back muscles. This is a condition which should go away after a good night of sleep.
Tense back muscles should respond well to simple physical treatments, such as heat, massage and hydrotherapy.
If your muscle pain endures despite all attempts to relieve it, you might want to consider that your pain is actually from a psychological source. This should be of no concern, since emotional tension in the body is inherent to the human condition. However, people do not universally recognize or acknowledge their emotional sources of this tight, uncomfortable feeling and this is where their trouble truly begins.
Psychogenic Back Tension
Chronic muscle tension is a common expression of psychosomatic back pain. Patients with this condition will often progress towards worse symptomatic expressions of this mindbody condition. Psychological dorsalgia is one of the most common of all chronic back pain syndromes. It is also the least likely to be accurately diagnosed.
Most psychosomatic conditions are blamed on some coincidental and completely innocent back pain scapegoat condition. Physical treatments are useless against this type of psychogenic pain, which explains the medical community’s dismal results when it comes to successfully curing mindbody back ache.
Knowledge therapy may be worth exploring for any unresponsive and unresolved back pain condition.
Resolving Back Muscle Tension
That feeling of holding the weight of the world on your back is much more than a metaphor. It is extremely common for patients to experience stress related back pain and muscle tension from internal psychological conflicts. The source of these conflicts can be obvious, but is more likely well hidden deep in the subconscious mind.
Problematic issues need to be acknowledged and accepted in order to enact a real cure for the psychogenic syndrome. This might sound like science fiction to some patients, but it is verified and accepted fact based on the complex interaction between the mind and the body.
The main question is: Who will accept that their chronic muscle pain may be a result of a psychological process and who will continue to suffer needlessly? This is surely not to infer that all chronic muscle tension is psychosomatic. This would be an incredibly foolish statement! However, physical expressions of muscle tightness almost always respond well to the previously mentioned simple treatments, since tension-based on minor injury or overexertion will resolve on its own. All it takes is time and patience.
