Can emotional stress cause or increase pain?
We know that stress increases the volume of pain signaling. All pain is physical, with documentable neural signaling in bodily, spinal cord, and brain pain systems, as well as having neurotransmitter/neural chemical components. We also know now that emotions, thoughts, and the reactions to the environment can also change our neural and specifically brain signaling, causing more real, physical pain. This is why we can no longer think of pain as physical or psychological. It is always both. So stress at home, social stress, academic stress, and economic stress will increase any type of pain, even arthritis. I would imagine that the country’s economic decline is placing greater stress on families with a concomitant increase in pediatric pain. Also, many children have difficulty expressing negative emotions such as anger, sadness, worry, etc. and hold those feeling inside. The body often responds as a pressure cooker and can react to these held-in emotions with muscles that remain in spasm
