Column The Relationship Between Stress and Back Pain: How to Maintain Good Mental and Physical Health

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02.28.2025

The relationship between back pain and stress

Stress tend to affect brain performances. It has been found that various disorders may appear in the lower back and other parts of the body As a result (*1).

＊1 : Anne-Katrin Puschmann, et al. Stress and Self-Efficacy as Long-Term Predictors for Chronic Low Back Pain: A Prospective Longitudinal Study. Journal of Pain Research. 13, 2020. Sungwoo Choi, et al. Association between chronic low back pain and degree of stress: a nationwide cross-sectional study. Scientific Reports. 11(1), 2021.

When stressed, the autonomic nervous system becomes unbalanced, the sympathetic nervous system takes the upper hand, muscles become tense, causing poor blood circulation. When blood flow is compromised, pain occurs.

The greater the stress, the more the body stiffens as a defensive response, often leading to back pain.

This is how stress causes back pain, but persistent back pain also causes new sources of stress, thus creating a vicious cycle.

How to Check for Stress-related Back Pain

Stress-related back pain is characterized by symptoms that can vary from person to person, but you can still conduct a self-check to see if your back pain is due to stress.

If you tick any of the following boxes, you may be suffering from stress-related back pain:

Pain remains despite changing posture or resting

Pain is often present in the morning

Presence of chronic pain

Irregularity in the location of the pain.

Pain is subjected to one’s mood

Lack of appetite

Easily fatigued for no apparent reason

Difficulty in falling or remaining asleep

How to Prevent Stress and Back Pain

exercising self-care in everyday life is crucial to preventing back pain.

Exercising moderately

Engaging regularly in light exercise such as walking, jogging, yoga, etc. can improve blood circulation, relieve stress, and alleviate back pain.

Balancing the autonomic nervous system

Taking time to relax by taking deep breaths is also important. By simply closing your eyes and taking a series of deep, slow breaths, you can activate the parasympathetic nervous system.

Getting good quality sleep

A good night’s sleep will refresh you. Creating a relaxing environment before bed and allowing your body to recover during sleep can help improve back pain.

Treatment at our clinics

If you have back pain, getting a fundamental treatment may also be necessary.

Our clinic offers the Cellgel Method, a treatment that repairs damaged intervertebral discs.

With our Cellgel Method, we inject a drug that fills in the cracks in the disc, which then turns into a gel that repairs the cracks, thus providing a fundamental treatment. It is characterized by the fact that the volume of the disc is not reduced and the drug remains in the disc as a gel-like implant after treatment, thus preserving the disc.