Condition · Neck

Stress and tension

Your body holds what your mind ignores. Under sustained stress your breathing moves up into your chest and neck, and the muscles that were only ever meant to help you breathe in an emergency — your scalenes, your SCM, your upper traps — end up doing it all day. They get tight because they are overworking, you get tired because you never recover, and everything that already hurt starts hurting more. Nothing here is broken; the volume is just turned up.