Why am I tense?

Tension occurs in your body in so many ways for so many reasons.  Often when getting a massage or manual therapy, you are there because your body is sore and/ or tense.  Maybe you feel tension somewhere and want some help releasing it.  Perhaps you sit at a desk all day and find that your tired, stiff and feeling stuck through your body; or you're a weekend warrior that likes to weight train or run and your muscles feel tight; maybe you're a parent and running after your kids has left your body aching; you could be going through a stressful time personally, or in any aspect of your life and you somehow feel tight or you're getting headaches and tension.  There are infinite life stimuli that could be “causing” or creating tension, but how the muscles are used, how your brain creates muscle patterns, and hydration and nutrients all affect how you hold tension in your body. 

Muscles are contractile tissues in your body controlled by the brain. This is a complex system involving certain minerals, stimuli, the brain and your nervous system.  How you use your muscles and the muscle memory patterns your brain creates plays a big role in the tension that can be created. Your brain is programmed to be as efficient as possible, that means it wants to use the least amount of energy as possible to do something.  This is great when you think about a more involuntary action like breathing- you don’t have to THINK about breathing all day in order to do it, thank goodness.  But this also means that the brain and body can create more “lazy” patterns.  Your brain might see this as more efficient, but it can also mean that the body and muscles are not being used for their intended pattern or purpose.  

For example in the upper back, you have the upper trapezius muscle, mid and lower trapezius (traps) muscles, and rhomboids (as well as many others, but we will look at these only, for more simplicity).  The mid and lower traps and rhomboids are there to help our shoulder blades do what's called retraction (bring the shoulder blades closer together).  With technology and having everything in front of us, this is a movement that we do not do often in our daily life. The upper traps muscle is very good at “shrugging” our shoulders up- something that can happen more easily in our body, and is more accessible.  Over time your body creates muscle memory patterns to help with lifting things, sitting, walking, all of our daily movements, and what can happen is that when we should be accessing the mid and lower traps and rhomboids for a motion, our body and brain coordinate to use the one larger more familiar muscle, the upper traps.  It uses the upper traps to try and achieve that scapular (shoulder blade) retraction because this is a more well-known muscle so it sees it as more “efficient” to use.  It takes less energy and brain power for the body to use the upper traps as it is more familiar with using it. But the upper traps can not properly stabilize the shoulder joint, and provide that action, its just not what it is made for. Your body is in a constant state of wanting to conserve as much energy as possible, so the brain sees it as more efficient to use one big muscle vs three “smaller” muscles. When your body is constantly using these same big mover muscles, and ignoring the smaller ones, you create imbalances and compensation that can result in overuse and tension and/ or pain.

demonstration of scapular retraction, shoulder blades squeezing closer together

The brain creates these patterns through specific movements and daily activities that your life requires.  Humans are creatures of habit, and over time if you are not conscious of how you should/ could be moving, these patterns persist for ease of your brain but can be less ideal for your actual muscles and physical body  Using the upper traps all the time seems efficient to your brain, but with time that muscle tissue and its surrounding connective tissues become fatigued and can create tissue tension, adhesions, strain, or even just get more stuck- take a second right now as you are reading this to see if your shoulders are hunched up and forward, can you relax them back and down? Were they up there unknown to you?

Hydration and nutrition have another important role in how your body holds tension.  When a muscle contracts, certain minerals like magnesium and potassium and salt are required to cross the muscle cell membranes and engage the contractile portion of the muscle cells.  These minerals are also recruited to enable full release of those contractile tissues.  When those nutrients are not there, the contractile tissues can not do their job as well, which can create pain, cramping, strain, and tension.  Your muscles also need to have enough hydration to keep them moving and able to perform.  When your muscles are properly hydrated, blood and various nutrients like those minerals can more easily pass through the muscle cell membranes.  When you are dehydrated, the cells and tissues are literally more viscous- more thick and less pliable.  This increased viscosity doesn’t allow those essential nutrients to pass through as easily, making it more difficult for your muscles to react.  When it's more challenging for our muscles to react our brain and body are going to rely even more heavily on our pre-patterned system for “efficiency” and therefore feed the cycle even further for more tension and dis ease. 

When you continue to be properly hydrated and have the right nutrients available, it allows our body to rest and recover properly.  Especially crucial at night during sleep, you want your body to be able to fully relax and release so it can repair any tissues and cells that need it.  If the nutrients and hydration are not available, our muscles are more likely to stay tensed, or they won’t repair in the same way- very important for people wanting to build muscle and strength! 

You can not be “perfect” with your posture or movement all the time.  But by learning more about your body, how you currently move, and looking at how you nourish yourself are some great ways to start decreasing some of that “tension” that you are feeling.  The great thing about your brain and body connection is that if we can build the muscle patterns one way, you can rebuild and reprogram them another way.  If you discover your muscle patterns and become attuned to how you are moving, you are more able to change your movement patterns.  It will certainly take some effort, but gaining the knowledge and creating some small changes can have big impacts on the tension, pain, or discomfort you feel.

Questions? Want to look more into your movement patterns? Reach out- I love hearing from you and helping you on your journey to restore health.