What is the role of anxiety, depression, or other emotional factors in low back pain?

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You may be wondering if depression or anxiety has anything to do with low back pain. The simple answer is yes. This is especially true if you’ve had low back pain for a long time. It’s very important to recognize this link so your low back pain can get better. Talking about this openly with your doctor doesn’t mean the pain is in your head. It just acknowledges that pain and mood are closely linked and should be dealt with together. Trying to fix one without fixing the other might mean that your low back pain will last longer or be more severe than necessary.

If you’ve had low back pain for a long time, it’s easy to start feeling a bit depressed. Being in constant pain can dim your outlook on life. This can make you less tolerant of others around you, especially if they don’t know about, don’t understand, or don’t believe your low back pain. Thinking you can’t participate in your normal activities can also bring you down. These things could naturally lead you to withdraw a bit from everyday life. That’s the wrong thing to do.

The best thing to do if your mood is down because of your low back pain is to remain active. You need to focus on what you can do, even if it causes a bit of discomfort. Withdrawing from activities will only make you focus on the pain more. If your mood gets very low and you start thinking about harming yourself or anyone else, talk to your doctor. They can help you find ways to cope with this so you can be healthy and your low back pain can get better.

If you’ve been living with low back pain for a long time, you’ve probably felt pain either before, during, or after just about any type of activity. If this happens over and over, you may start to become anxious about doing specific things. You might think it’s easier not to do those things that you think have triggered low back pain before, even if these activities are necessary. Once this happens, you can develop what doctors call “fear avoidance behavior”. That’s the term when fear of activities makes people avoid doing things that have hurt them before. This is usually perfectly natural behavior. For example, children who touch a hot stove and burn their finger won’t be eager to do it again.

People can also become afraid of trying new things that might hurt them. Some will also be so worried about aggravating their pain that they simply stop doing a lot of normal activities. But when people with low back start avoiding normal activities they used to enjoy doing, this behavior can interfere with recovery. There are specific rehabilitation approaches aimed at overcoming this behavior so your low back pain can get better. Talk to your doctor about fear avoidance training to see if it might be right for you.

 
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