How Diet Creates Muscle Tension

Muscle tension is not a way of life, but it does define many people’s lives who suffer from the knots of tension that accumulate naturally throughout the day. Posture and exercise aside (these being the 2 other greatest factors), there is an even more direct way that you can affect the severity and quantity of tension that besets your muscles during the standard work week and that is with diet. When it comes to muscle tension we focus on 3 key ingredients:

• Caffeine is the #1 offender of the bunch, for its role in stimulating the nervous and muscular systems, which leads muscle to stay contracted for longer than they need. Furthermore, caffeine is a well-known diuretic, which causes you to pee, in the process losing water, vitamins and minerals that need to be maintained…
• One of those minerals is calcium, and deficiency of calcium can also cause muscles to stay stuck in the contracted position. 
• Soft drinks are a go-to at work, most likely for their delicious, caffeinated qualities and not for the high levels of phosphorous that are present in many brands. High levels of phosphoric acid steals calcium away from our bones and making less available to the muscles, thereby increasing muscle tension.

Balance is important when dieting for anything, and dieting to reduce muscle tension begins with drinking less caffeine and soda where possible. Consuming the B-complex vitamins, especially B-12 found in meat, poultry, fish, eggs and milk products, are crucial for influencing the relaxation of muscles. At Haynes Chiropractic, we care about your well-being and a great way to improve it is by removing chronic muscle tension from your life. The chiropractic care we offer helps to regulate the nervous system and correct spinal imbalance, preventing your own nerves from contributing to muscle tension. Configuring your diet and finding time for regular exercise are two of the other ways we can help you keep muscle tension at bay. 

Dr. Jeff Haynes, D.C.