What are you going through?

🪨 Tension

Why stress settles in your shoulders, jaw and stomach — and how to let it go.

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What it is

Tension is stress you can feel in your body: tight shoulders and neck, a clenched jaw, a knotted stomach, a headache that grips the forehead, or hands that won’t stay still. When the body prepares for a threat, muscles tighten — and when stress goes on for days, they can stay that way.

Many people only notice the tension when it has turned into pain or exhaustion. Learning to notice it earlier, and to let it go on purpose, is a skill you can practise like any other.

Why it happens

• Ongoing stress keeps the body in a ready-for-action state.
• Long hours in one position — at a desk, a phone or a steering wheel — without a break.
• Holding feelings in: worry, anger or grief that has not been spoken often sits in the body.
• Poor sleep, which leaves muscles with less time to recover.

How it can show up

• Shoulders up near your ears, a stiff neck, a sore or clenched jaw.
• Tension headaches, a tight chest or a churning stomach.
• Grinding your teeth, tapping, fidgeting or finding it hard to sit still.
• Feeling tired even after rest.

Everyone is different. These are common signs, not a checklist.

What helps right now

1. Scan from your forehead down: jaw, shoulders, hands, stomach. Where is the grip?
2. Tense that area on purpose for five seconds, then let it go completely and notice the difference.
3. Drop your shoulders, unclench your teeth, and let your tongue rest at the bottom of your mouth.
4. Take five slow breaths, letting each out-breath be longer than the in-breath.
5. Stand up and move for two minutes — roll your shoulders, stretch your neck gently, walk.

Guided techniques to try

• Progressive muscle relaxation — (10–15 min · Moderate evidence)
• Body scan — (8–10 min · Moderate evidence)
• Five-minute mobility — (5 min · Practical evidence)
• Slow breathing — (2–5 min · Moderate evidence)

What helps over time

• Build short movement breaks into long stretches of sitting.
• Practise progressive muscle relaxation regularly, not only when tension is bad.
• Move most days — walking, stretching or strength work all help the body let go of stress.
• Look at the stress behind the tension: what keeps your body on alert?
• Protect your sleep, which is when muscles recover.

What tends to keep it going

• Ignoring it until it becomes pain.
• Pushing through long days with no breaks at all.
• Relying on alcohol to relax, which disturbs sleep and recovery.

When to get help

Any one of these is enough of a reason to talk to a doctor, a counsellor or someone you trust.

• Pain is severe, sudden, or getting steadily worse.
• Tension comes with numbness, weakness, fever, or headaches unlike any you have had before.
• It has lasted weeks and is affecting your sleep, work or mood.

What the evidence says

Moderate evidence: Several studies support it, but the effects are smaller, the studies are fewer or less rigorous, or results vary between groups.

Progressive muscle relaxation and regular physical activity have good evidence for reducing stress-related tension for many people. How much they help varies, and ongoing pain should always be checked by a professional.

Where this comes from: Stress physiology research; Exercise and health research; WHO “Doing What Matters in Times of Stress”.

Fields that study this: Clinical psychology, Exercise science.

Afterwards, ask yourself

Where in your body does stress usually show up first for you?