27/05/2026
Stress/ anxiety.
“ It’s not the load that wears us down, it’s just the way we carry it”
The vast majority of us will experience neck, shoulder and upper back pain at some stage in our lives. That pain and discomfort can be really debilitating and start to really impact on our daily lives. From suffering with severe headaches, to feeling real discomfort due to muscle stiffness in the neck and shoulders that can get so bad it eventually leads to people not been able to even turn their heads with that extreme pain, muscle stiffness that can gets so tight /taut it may eventually lead to feelings of numbness and tingling in the hands and fingers.
Simple daily tasks like driving a car, become impossible to do as people can' t even turn their heads to check for oncoming traffic, so it would be unsafe drive. Neck / shoulder pain can also prevent people sleeping, as it becomes so uncomfortable to try to sleep on a pillow due to neck and shoulder pain.
While neck,shoulder back pain can be caused by injury due to falls, car accidents or even due to strains in muscles and ligaments, the pain I am talking about today is as a result of living daily with stress/ anxiety helping to cause extreme tension in the upper body.
When we have to live daily with lots of stress and anxiety, it is really common to suffer with neck, shoulder and upper back pain.
An area of the upper back, neck and shoulders is even called the dreaded tension triangle.
Tension loves to live in this space and will often make its presence know to us when we least expect.
While our bodies can deal with short term anxiety / stress, dealing with excessive stress and anxiety now thats a different matter,
either way ,our bodies will always recognize that real threat lurking in the back ground and will then try to give us a wake - up call.
Some of the warning symptoms eg headaches,
neck pain, mild discomfort in the shoulders and we may even start to feel some back pain.
If we continue to ignore these warning symptoms and just carry on day to day, hoping that in time these symptoms will just go away, we are making a mistake, a really big mistake.
Eventually all the muscles in the neck, shoulders and upper back will become shortened and get really stiff. Suddenly we start to experience really serious pain and discomfort in the neck, shoulders and upper back.
Muscles in the neck and jaw suddenly become so tense that blood flow to the head and scalp is constricted it can eventually cause severe headaches. Is there a worse feeling than having to deal with a severe headache?
Well maybe a toothache or earache can be as bad, but it is such a horrible feeling, is it not?
Muscles in the chest, shoulders and neck become so tight and taut, that they can cause compression to nerves, leading to numbness and tingling in the hands/ fingers.
If this tightness in the muscles is not reduced
these condtions will greatly increase and simply become unbearable.
The good news is that neck, shoulder and upper back muscle stiffness/ tautness can be effectively treated and that discomfort can be greatly reduced using effective therapies like orthopaedic and sports massage
therapy.
When treating people suffering with neck, shoulder and upper body pain and discomfort I always use a combination of massage, suction cupping, and stretching, to effectively reduce that stiffness and tautness in the area.
It is wonderful to see the change in a person who is in real discomfort at the start of a treatment, as they start to feel pain reduction both during and at the end of a session. Even their facail expression changes from the start to finish of the treatment, pain greatly reduced and a great weight lifted off their shoulders.
There will also be great improvement in range of motion of the arms, and turning the head will be so much easier, with reduced discomfort when doing so.
So my advice today is , when people start to feel an increase in tension in the upper shoulders, neck and upper back, in that area know as the tension triangle, have it treated.
Getting bodywork or massage done on a regular basis is one of the best ways to get rid of tension in the area and too help to prevent it building up again.
Our bodies are simply amazing and they will
let us know when something is not just right.
Listen to your body and always take good care of it.
Please feel free to call me on 0862465163
Joe Brady.
Killmurray
Trim
Meath
C15y230
People can start to feel better.
