Fight or flight is an amazing and marvelous survival mechanism that has allowed human beings to flourish since we first walked the earth. It was designed to activate in the presence of physical threats. The sympathetic nervous system releases chemicals into the body that make us run our fastest and fight our strongest in the face of physical threats. Ages ago it might have been a saber toothed tiger wandering into the encampment or the attack of a neighboring tribe. In modern life it would be activated when camping and hearing the rustling of a grizzly bear outside your tent. Or in town while walking across the street you hear the footsteps of an unwelcome stranger. Perhaps you have heard the story of the mother who lifted up a car to release her young child pinned under a tire. Where did that superhuman strength come from? The activated sympathetic nervous system.

The fight or flight response was designed to activate for brief periods of time to ensure we survive a physical threat. After the five, ten or fifteen minutes expended running or fighting, hopefully we have escaped the life threatening situation and once again the parasympathetic nervous system predominates as we return to the “rest and digest” activities of everyday life.

Now here is the problem we face in modern life – most of the “threats” we experience are not physical, and yet we remain wired to activate the fight or flight response. Money worries, relationship conflicts, job dissatisfaction, even traffic jams – all activate this sympathetic fight or flight mode. Most of us have this system activated throughout the day. And this over activity of the sympathetic nervous system is the first and most common complicating factor contributing to complicated pain. This over activity you will better know as anxiety, tension, stress, worry, panic and insomnia.

Remember, sympathetic activation releases chemicals that prime the body to run or fight. These chemicals by their very nature induce muscle tension. When you are sympathetically activated – stressed or anxious – some muscle in your body is tense. Depending on your predisposition, you are clenching your jaw, furrowing your brow, hiking your shoulders, gripping your fists, squeezing your butt cheeks, pressing your toes to the floor, shaking your leg or shifting back and forth. Now, if you already have an area of your body that is stressed or injured and you are tensing muscles around it, you are creating or worsening pain. Even in a perfectly healthy part of your body, if you tense the muscles long enough you will create pain. Just try clenching your fist hard and see how long it takes before your hand hurts. Many headaches, neck and back aches are caused, worsened or lengthened in duration by the muscle tension induced by sympathetic over activity.

There are very effective ways to calm the sympathetic drive and restore balance which become an integral part of the pain recovery process.