World Mental Health Day 2024 – Work Stress!

As physio’s everyday we see the intrinsic link between people’s mental health from work stress and their pain experience. There seems to be a higher anecdotal relationship between spinal pain and work stress than other areas but the story is always pretty clear. People will be experiencing higher pain during periods where they aren’t happy with their work environment, are feeling stressed, anxious, feeling bullied etc. They then go on a holiday, or simply come off a project, have some time to relax and notice their symptoms improve. Given the lack of general information regarding this relationship in society people commonly won’t see the connection until we point this out. 

This is where the counselling part of our job comes into play. In instances where people’s pain experience is higher due to mental health concerns we could give the world’s best rehab but they might not see improvements. Instead we need to be having open and honest conversations with our clients about what really might be going on behind the scenes and discussing management strategies for these. I like to refer to this as ‘meeting the client where they are’. Simply by being an open ear can have a profound and positive impact on our clients. 

For some it could be just to exercise in general (not rehab for a specific injury site). Finding an activity that the client actually enjoys can be far more beneficial than anything else. The endorphin release, the blood flow or even connecting with their inner child to bring joy are some of the ways in which this works. 

The flip side of this conversation though is sometimes resilience. Sometimes there is nothing we or they can do about the level of work stress for a period of time. So discussing more of a maintenance approach to their symptoms during this period rather than adding more stress discussing trying to improve things can help. I also encourage them to look for ways to build their mental resilience. Integrating with a wider management team at this point is essential and we should encourage our clients to find suitable people to speak to for this. 

If you feel that work place stress might be affecting your mental health and your pain experience, start thinking about ways you can help improve this. It could be a run, a yoga class, dancing in your kitchen, anything that helps bring you happiness (but not something that could provoke the current injury). But see how integrating this into your management strategies starts to improve your pain. If you need help with any of this reach out and lets see how we can help you!