Have you ever noticed that when stress runs high, your back pain flares up? Or when you have a headache settle in? It’s a very common response. Emotional stress, anxiety, and hormone cortisol levels play a direct role in producing physical pain. At Inspire Movements Massage Therapy in Colorado Springs, we see this pattern daily:
People walk in carrying the invisible weight of stress, and their bodies show it through low back strains, migraines, general tension that just won’t ease up. Let’s discover how your cortisol levels tie in the emotional stress to your physical pain. Let’s see how massage therapy, specifically ashiatsu massage, gives your body the reset it’s been seeking!
The Biochemistry of Stress and Pain
When you’re anxious, under pressure, or have any kind of stress, your body emits cortisol, which is what we call the “stress hormone.” While shorter bursts are standard, chronically being on high stress alert keeps cortisol levels high. We have our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Our sympathetic nervous system is often referred to as “fight or flight” mode. We need this when running from prey we are hunting, high priority stress jobs at work, or that late night paper we just keep procrastinating on (we’ve all been there, I can guarantee that😅).
Our parasympathetic nervous system is our “rest and digest” system. As hard as it is to believe, this is where we need to be living most of our days in. In this stage, we are conserving our energies, slow our heart rate, and have proper digestion. This is where the problems begin. We tend to:
Guard muscles and retain tension: Cortisol keeps your nervous system on high alert. locking muscles in your skull, lower back, neck, and shoulders.
Inflammation: Elevated cortisol disrupts your body’s natural recovery process, leaving tissues inflamed and achy.
Migraine Susceptibility: Stress hormones increase vascular changes in the brain. At times, this is setting the scene for migraines and stress headaches to thrive.
Sleep Disruption: Poor sleep cycles from stress compounds muscle recovery problems, worsening pain cycles. In other words, emotional stress doesn’t just make you “feel tense.” It creates a biochemical environment where pain flourishes.
Why Stress and Pain Work in Unison
If you’ve been intuitive enough to be searching for answers to: “stress causing my lower back pain” or “anxiety related headaches relief”
You are at least instinctive enough to be noticing the mind-body correlations this is making. Which is wonderful! Good for you for noticing, but relief doesn’t come from burying stress even further. It comes from you seeing and hearing the flashing signs and helping your body reset from there.
How Massage Therapy Resets Cortisol and Relieves Pain At Inspire Movements
For starters, we don’t treat massage as a luxury here, it’s a therapeutic reset calculated to help your nervous system shift out of the “fight or flight” cortisol intensity. Our signature approaches include:
Ashiatsu Massage: Deep, broad pressure from barefoot techniques with added in techniques that help to melt your muscle guarding, especially in your lower back.
Cupping Therapy: Helps cut your massage time tremendously by using techniques to bring the tension closer to the surface level, promote better circulation, decrease the free-radicals (toxins), and decrease the general muscle inflammation that your body has been holding onto.
Red Light Therapy: The gentle, cellular recharge that your body has been waiting for. RLT reduces the free radicals, decreases inflammation and supports faster tissue recovery. This isn’t “chasing pain around.” It’s about restructuring your body’s current stress responses to headaches, migraines, and low back flare-ups. We don’t want those to control your week, lets put you back in the drivers seat.
Where to Find Stress-Relief Massage in Colorado Springs
Our office at 1295 Kelly Johnson Blvd, Suite 250, is minutes from Academy and Kelly Johnson Blvd, Briargate Parkway, and the United States Air Force Academy. We have this location because it’s convenient for healthcare workers and providers, deskbound workers, parents, and all busy professionals to stop the midday rush and take care of themselves. Carrying stress in the body is a problem, and with how crazy life is, it is going to get worse each day but let’s fix that.
Why Consistency Is Key
Cortisol doesn’t just spike once and vanish; it will build alongside of your daily habits. This is why it is most ideal to book a massage every 2 weeks, not because it’s indulgent; it’s a start to a strategic plan to retrain your nervous system to release strains, reduce inflammation, and restore natural balance.
Ready to Quiet Your Cortisol Levels and Reset?
Don’t wait for your next migraine or low back flare-up to hit before you have time to act. Your body deserves a proactive reset.
👉 Click now to book your cortisol-calming massage and give your body the stress relief it’s been asking for. Therapy isn’t maintenance, it’s building momentum.