Can stress make back pain worse? Part 3: Inflammation and the chemistry of pain

When people think about back pain, they often imagine something mechanical.

A disc is bulging. A muscle has been strained. A joint has worn out.

Sometimes that is true. But it’s rarely the whole story.

By now, we’ve seen how stress can change the way we breathe, the way we hold ourselves and the tone of the muscles that support the spine. There is one more piece of the puzzle that is less visible, but just as important.

 

Stress changes the body’s chemistry

When we experience stress, the body releases hormones and chemical messengers that help us respond to challenge. In the short term, this is exactly what they are designed to do. They sharpen our awareness, mobilise energy and prepare us for action.

The difficulty comes when stress becomes chronic.

Instead of returning to a balanced state, the body can remain in a low-level state of physiological alertness. Stress hormones stay elevated, inflammatory processes become more active, and the nervous system can become increasingly sensitive.

This matters because pain is not simply a measure of tissue damage. It is an experience shaped by the nervous system. When that system becomes sensitised, the threshold for pain can become lower. A movement that once felt effortless may now provoke discomfort. Minor irritation may feel much more significant than it otherwise would.

This helps explain why two people can have very similar MRI scans yet experience very different levels of pain. A scan can reveal the structure of the spine, but it cannot show the body’s internal environment or how sensitised the nervous system has become.

For many people, this is a turning point in understanding persistent back pain. The question shifts from What’s wrong with my back? to What conditions is my body living in?

That doesn’t mean the pain is ‘all in the mind’. Far from it. The pain is real. But it is influenced not only by the structures of the spine, but also by the state of the nervous system, the chemistry of the body and the cumulative effects of stress.

This whole-person understanding lies at the heart of how I work. Whether through the Buttafly Technique, one-to-one consultations, courses or educational resources, the aim is always the same: to help create the conditions in which the body no longer has to protect itself, allowing it to move more freely and recover more naturally.

Taken together, these three articles point to a simple but often overlooked truth: stress doesn’t just affect how we feel. It changes how we breathe, how we move, how our bodies function and how we experience pain.

Understanding those connections is often the first step towards lasting change.

This broader understanding of back pain is why natural back are looks beyond the spine itself, considering not only structure and movement, but also the wider influences that shape how the body adapts and heals.