Anxiety and Tension

From the Travell & Simons Manual. Volume 1; Pg. 221

“In some individuals, high levels of anxiety are expressed in the form of muscle tension. Many muscles are held in sustained contraction that overloads them and perpetuates myofascial TrPs. These patients are easily identified as they sit up stiff and straight, leaning away from the backrest of a chair, maintaining their shoulders in an elevated position, and displaying a tense facial expression. Generally, they are unaware of these muscular expressions of tension. Biofeedback and relaxation therapy can help many of them to discriminate between unnecessarily tense muscles and relaxed ones. They then need to learn conscious techniques of relaxation and how to turn excess tension off. Identifying the major sources of anxiety and emotional tension and adopting the changes in lifestyle necessary to abate them, may be required to reduce this perpetuating factor enough for lasting relief.”