First thing in the morning, nothing hits like a big stretch. But what is it about rolling your shoulders and flexing your upper back that brings stress relief? We finally have an explanation, thanks to new research published last month in the journal Physiological Reports. The short answer is that this simple action may trigger the body’s parasympathetic nervous system, providing an almost immediate sense of calm.
To learn more about this discovery and how you can use these findings to your advantage, we called up Jorge L. Reyes-Castro, MD, MS, a cardiac electrophysiology fellow in the Department of Medicine at University of Minnesota Medical School and the lead author of the study.
What happens when you stretch your upper back?
In the study, physicians at University of Minnesota Medical School and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine had 24 healthy adults perform a simple upper back and neck stretch. “We asked them to roll their shoulders back to more or less the level of their ears, while stretching their neck back,” Dr. Reyes-Castro says. Subjects were instructed to hold the stretch for at least 10 seconds, while continuing to breathe normally.
According to Dr. Reyes-Castro, this stretch resulted in a “substantial” drop in blood pressure—“a dramatic response for just rolling your shoulders,” he says. Crucially, the drop in blood pressure was not accompanied by a meaningful increase in heart rate. “Usually, what you expect in normal physiology is that when you have a drop in blood pressure, you will have a compensatory increase in your heart rate,” he says. “But in this case, the heart rate doesn't increase much, which could potentially contribute to the pleasant sensation that we feel when we stretch our shoulders, back, and neck.”
The researchers believe that this simple stretch triggers a reflex that activates the body’s parasympathetic nervous system. “The nervous system is controlled by two systems—the sympathetic and the parasympathetic,” Dr. Reyes-Castro explains. “When you’re doing anything that is intense, your sympathetic system is dominating. But when you are resting or calm, then your parasympathetic system is activated and the sympathetic system withdraws. So, what you are probably doing with this [stretch] is enhancing and activating the parasympathetic system, resulting in a state of pleasure, relaxation, and calmness.”
Quick stress relief whenever you need it
While the study’s participants were all seated for the duration of the experiment, Dr. Reyes-Castro says that you can reap the instant feel-good rewards of a quick upper-back stretch while standing or going about your day.
“We see the same response even while standing, and we have studied patients doing that,” he says. “So it's not like you have to be sitting. And I think that, even in other positions, when you stretch the back and neck you can get the same reaction. Basically, just roll your shoulders to your ears, stretch your neck back, breathe normally, and that will cause all of these hemodynamic effects.”
That said, even though the study clearly showed that stretching your upper back and neck can elicit an immediate and substantial drop in blood pressure, Dr. Reyes-Castro advises that people with high blood pressure or hypertension probably shouldn’t be thinking how to replace their medications with intermittent stretching. “This is not a treatment for hypertension,” he says. “You still need to take your pills.”
Instead, think of this stretch kind of like you would breathwork or meditation—another tool for your utility belt in the fight to keep your cool amidst life’s daily stressors. In practical terms, “you could use this in life when you're under a lot of stress, or when you're feeling strong emotions,” Dr. Reyes-Castro says. “It returns your body to its baseline state.”