With the stress of modern living amplified by the traumatic event of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, society has collectively experienced an increased amount of anxiety, depression and other emotional detriments that can manifest in a variety of ways.

If you’re mourning the loss of a loved one, dealing with the stress of social isolation or are trying to cope with a recent job layoff, you may struggle with increased feelings of stress, loneliness and hopelessness. This could manifest as increased fatigue, loss of appetite, or irritability. But did you know that emotional pain can also manifest physically?

Whether you’ve recently noticed muscle spasms that occur throughout the day or have been dealing with unexplained stomach problems, your body may be trying to tell you something. Here are some unexpected ways that the emotional roller coaster we call life may be manifesting physically.

1. Muscle Pain & Aches

If you’ve been dealing with unexplained muscle aches and joint pains throughout the day, whether it be a shooting pain down your arm or a cramping feeling in your legs, this may be caused by anxiety. According to the American Phycological Association, your muscles tensing up is a reflex reaction to stress, which is the body’s way of protecting against injury. If your body has been feeling achy for a while, even after taking medication, the root of your aches and pains may be from an emotional standpoint.

2. Tinnitus

Although a ringing sensation in your ear may be caused by hearing loss, head or neck injuries, or certain medications, this ringing sensation (also known as tinnitus) can go hand-in-hand with anxiety. According to Swift Audiology, anxiety activates the flight or fight system, which puts pressure on our nerves. This pressure can easily travel into the inner ear and lead to symptoms of tinnitus.

3. Decreased Pain Tolerance

As unfortunate as it is, if your nerves are hurting more than usual without explanation or pre-existing health conditions, this could actually be linked to depression. A 2015 study found that depression may impair and influence the feeling of pain. The results of the study found that patients dealing with major depression had a lower pain tolerance and threshold than patients who were age-matched healthy controls. Although there was no clear cause-and-effect relationship, it’s important to understand that depression and an increased sensation of pain often co-exist.

4. Hair Loss or Hair Thinning

It’s very common to experience changes in the texture, colour and thickness of your hair over the years, but if you’re pulling out more strands of hair than usual from your hairbrush, it may be stress-related. Although its common to experience hair loss from hereditary and environmental factors, excessive physical or emotional stress can cause white blood cells to attack your hair follicles, leading to thinning hair around the scalp. Other factors that cause hair loss include hormonal changes, medication, illness and chemotherapy, but it’s a good idea to check in with your doctor to determine the cause.

5. Vision Problems

When the human body is severely stressed, its adrenaline and cortisol levels quickly rise, causing increased pressure on the eyes, leading to eye pain and blurred vision. You may have felt these symptoms after a gruelling day of working long hours in front of the computer screen. As technology continues to advance, staying connected through our screens has never been more important, but it’s even more important to take breaks throughout the day to give your eyes a break. Even looking away from your screen for five minutes multiple times throughout the day can do wonders!

6. Digestive Problems

Indigestion, IBS, constipation, heartburn and nausea. If you’ve ever experienced these symptoms without an underlying cause, stress and anxiety may be to blame. Don’t worry, you’re not alone! As one of the more common symptoms of emotional pain, you’ve probably felt “butterflies” in your stomach at some point. Just like eye pain, the human body’s adrenal glands release cortisol into the bloodstream, causing a fight-or-flight response that puts immense pressure on your abdomen, leading to symptoms earlier mentioned.

7. Jaw Pain

Although experiencing jaw pain is extremely common when dealing with emotional hardship, this symptom often goes unrecognized as the pain can go up into your ear, neck and shoulders, causing headaches and muscle aches around the neck and shoulder area. Jaw pain and stress often run parallel with each other because of the subconscious clenching that puts pressure on the temporomandibular joints. Over time, worsening symptoms can often lead to jaw locking, jaw clicking and difficulty eating solid foods if left untreated.

Dealing with emotional pain is challenging enough. When physical symptoms begin to bloom from stress and anxiety, it causes even more emotional hardship which can create a never-ending domino effect of even more physical pain. If you are dealing with chronic pain from emotional stress or trauma, you don’t have to live like this forever. It is recommended to talk to your doctor about the chronic pain impacting your life while keeping track of when and why you feel these symptoms. A self-care day may be in order!

7 Ways Emotional Pain Manifests Physically