Like the headache pain it frequently triggers, stress is thought to be a natural part of everyday life. In the workplace or at home, stress can't be avoided. It must be confronted with stress management that produces stress reduction and, ultimately, stress relief.

Stress: It's a Personal Thing

Any demand on our physical and mental capabilities, including changes in our normal routines, can be interpreted as stress. "Interpreted" is the key word here, because if the demand is interpreted as one we can handle, it's "good" stress. If it's a demand that's beyond our capabilities, it's interpreted as "bad" stress.

Our reactions to bad stress manifests itself in many individual ways--anxiety, hyperventilation, muscular tension, panic attacks, "burn out" or stress related pain and disease.

Symptoms of Stress

Often stress management and, subsequently, stress relief are made difficult because symptoms are misdiagnosed. This is because stress can compound or be mistaken for other symptoms. This confusion is caused by the fact that stress is interrelated to physical, mental, behavioral and emotional conditions.

Physical signs of stress can include fatigue, insomnia, muscle pain, heart palpitations, cramps, trembling, cold extremities and perspiration. Short attention spans, forgetfulness, indecisiveness, confusion and humorlessness are evidence of mental stress.

Angry outbursts, crying, smoking, drinking, over eating and nervous nail-biting and foot tapping are symptoms of behavioral stress. While emotional stress can be seen in depression, worry, impatience, anxiety and nervousness.

As you can see, there's overlap in these symptoms. And when you combine any of them with the "pain cycle of chronic stress," discussed later, getting to the root cause of stress and the pain it's triggering requires the talents of a skilled and insightful professional.

Acute Stress

Acute stress is an immediate, yet temporary, incident (like an argument or traffic jam) that creates unexpected circumstances in our lives. Generally, we adapt to this sudden change and the stress is resolved. Yet, even brief encounters with sudden stress like this can induce physical reactions such as headache pain which may last for hours.

Sudden changes to our daily life can be viewed as acute stress, yet their impact can result in physical illness and even death in the following months. The death of a spouse, divorce, marital separation, prison time, family deaths, injuries, marriage, a job loss and even retirement are stressful events that can have a devastating impact on our health.

Chronic Stress

Unlike acute stress, chronic stress is the result of continuous, unchanging circumstances, like persistent physical pain or an unpleasant lifestyle. Unrelenting stress can raise blood pressure to dangerous levels that might lead to a heat attack or stroke. It has been determined that stress is as great a contributing factor in heart disease as smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

The Pain Cycle of Chronic Stress

Chronic back pain and conditions like arthritis, TMJ, bursitis, tendonitis, herniated disc, migraine headaches, sciatica, fibromyalgia, whiplash and carpal tunnel syndrome set off a chain reaction of physical and mental side effects.

The persistent stress of chronic pain can affect the nervous and immune system. It can also intensify negative reactions to everyday stress. Coping with chronic pain can bring on depression, causing the brain to perceive even more pain, which subsequently creates even greater chronic stress. It's a vicious circle of stress and pain.

Pain Inducing Stress: Headaches

Headache pain is one of the most commonly associated physical symptoms of stress. The pressure and aching of a tension headache is the most typical. Stress is created by continuously tightening head and neck. muscles.

Along with particular foods, stress can trigger migraine headaches that throb on one side of the head and can be severe and debilitating. Migraines are a kind of vascular headache which may be rooted in abnormalities in the brain's blood flow system.

While stress causes other types of headaches, only migraine headaches affect the entire body. Reactions to migraine headache pain can include nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light, sound and movement.

Stress has also been know to set off sudden, severe cluster headaches which have a short duration, but can attack up to six times a day.

Surgery for Stress Management and Stress Relief

Surgery is a last resort for stress related pain. The procedure generally involves some form of blockage to inactivate the nerve causing the pain. This can involve either traditional surgery or, more recently, microwave heat.

The success of surgery in the relief of stress and pain is approximately 50% and long term results are rare. Individuals who've gone to doctors for a series of surgeries experience a lower level of pain relief with each subsequent operation.

Stress Management and Stress Relief Medications

Pharmaceutical treatments for stress management range from over-the-counter medicines like aspirin to prescription drugs. The problem with stress management treatments that involve drugs is that they lose their effectiveness. Worse, they actually create more stress and pain.

Excessive use of aspirin, acetaminophen and ibuprofen create what is called analgesic rebound effect in which the body creates more pain so it can receive a larger dose of drugs. In other words, an painkiller addiction has been created. Drug use can also alter serotonin levels in the brain which are linked to stress pain like migraine attacks.

More sophisticated prescription stress pain remedies carry with them additional harmful side effects like heart disease, digestive disorders, ulcers and liver damage.

In some cases, steroids may be prescribed for pain associated with stress. These may be administered by injection as a nerve block (a pharmaceutical approach to the surgery mentioned earlier). Though steroids may, at best, provide temporary stress pain relief, they carry with them life threatening side effects and shouldn't be used for prolonged periods of time.

Natural Stress Management, Alternative Stress Relief Therapies

Fortunately, alternative medicine professionals offer the option of natural stress management and stress relief therapies without the risks of surgical and pharmaceutical approaches. Besides being more conservative than the medical establishment's methods, natural stress management and stress relief through is just as effective if not more so.

Stress management therapy is a cognitive behavioral approach that teaches people to recognize and manage warning signs, cope with pain and deal with stress-generating situations to avoid the pain they produce.

Pain Relief Professionals connects you to natural pain and stress management practitioners--Acupuncture healers, Doctors of Chiropractic and Doctors of Naprapathy. Their state licensed status assures you of expertise in natural pain and stress management that'ssuperior to unregulated alternative medicine healers.

For natural stress management and alternative stress relief, click a button below to find Pain Relief Professionals near you.