Breathe and Release: Unlocking the Secrets of Upper Back Tension

Feeling tension between your shoulder blades? 🌿 

Have you ever noticed that lingering tension between your shoulder blades and wondered what your body might be trying to tell you? 

Your body’s pretty smart, and sometimes it holds onto stress and emotions in your upper back.

If this resonates with you, this video was recorded especially for you.

 

Here are 5 ways this video might help you:

✅  Understand the subtle signals your body may be sending you, before it becomes a chronic issue

✅  See how the body’s support systems, particularly the muscles between the shoulder blades, adapt to psychological and physical stress. 

✅  Learn about the science of muscle fatigue, the role of the vagus nerve, and how shallow breathing can impact your overall well-being. 

✅  Understand why your breath might feel shallow

✅  Gain a fuller, felt understanding through insightful Zen stories

PLUS See steps you can take to release the tension before it becomes chronic, and to boost your energy too.

✨ Join me as we explore how your upper back tension may be linked to emotional stress and fatigue. 

Rather read the transcript?

Here it is…

 You take a deep breath, and it doesn’t feel stuck, but it doesn’t feel full either.

Your upper back feels heavy. Like someone placed a weight between your shoulder blades. You can’t quite stretch it out, but you can’t ignore it either.

Hello and welcome

Hello and welcome. I’m Sarah Gowans, remedial massage and craniosacral therapist, as well as emotional integration facilitator at BlossomingMe and the Healthy Learning Lounge.

Here we’re a sanctuary, for you to tap into and nurture your journey to health, to wellbeing, and to a positive mindset. We focus on helping you to clear  stresses, tensions, and blocks that are holding you back from living your most fulfilling life.

Join me today as we explore your body, when it’s being used, as the backup plan. There are times your nervous system can’t hold it all, so your body steps in. It doesn’t complain. Well, not at first. It just adapts. The emotional, becomes the physical. The support systems get stretched and in the earth season, late summer, It commonly shows up between your shoulder blades. 

This week we’ll be exploring why the upper back quietly carries emotional weight, the role of the nervous system and vagus nerve in muscular fatigue, and the science behind the biochemical depletion that mimics tension, and how you can respond to this subtle sign before it deepens. Before it gets really painful.

Subtle signals from your body

Our postural muscles that hold emotions, not just our, position in the world. That deep dull ache between your shoulder blades, it isn’t just poor posture. It’s your body’s quiet way of saying, “I’m tired”. Your rhomboids, trapezius, and the thoracic erector spine muscles are part of our postural support system.

These muscles help you sit upright to breathe and move with ease. They’re built for endurance, but not for big dramatic effect. When the earth element is depleted and the load that you are carrying mentally, or emotionally isn’t being processed, these muscles pick up the slack. They hold your body upright, yes; but they also hold your overwhelm. 

This is especially common for parents in full-time caring roles, emotionally, physically, or mentally. 

 

It isn’t just physical

When you can’t rest, your upper back carries that effort. And this isn’t just physical fatigue, it’s biochemical. Prolonged muscle use without adequate recovery increases the reactive oxygen species, ROS, and it also decreases the calcium availability. Impairing the ATP production, the energy production in our muscle cells.

This leads to energy-starved tissue that can’t fire effectively or efficiently. Not because you’re weak, but because your body hasn’t had the rest period that it needs.

 

The Earth Element Link

In TCM, traditional Chinese medicine, this area between the shoulder blades also connects with our bladder meridian channel, which runs down both sides of the spine, including the region between our shoulder blades.

While we are focusing on the earth element this month, and the spleen and stomach meridian channels that govern recovery, nourishment, and muscle tone.

When our earth element is strained, overloaded, depleted. This is when the bladder meridian energy steps in, your earth element, the stomach and spleen meridian energy is exhausted, and your back is compensating. That compensation often shows up as achiness between the shoulder blades, where the bladder meridian lives.

Making it the messenger, not the root cause.

 

We can illustrate this with a Zen story

A farmer once carried a heavy sack of grain up the same hill every day. That sack was tied with an old rope that bit into his shoulders, but he never questioned it. One morning, as he reached the steepest part of this hill, the rope snapped, the grain spilled everywhere, and he was forced to stop and sit.

In that pause, he noticed the deep bruises on his shoulders, the marks he hadn’t even felt forming. 

“I didn’t know how much it hurt,” he whispered, “until I let it go.”

How often do we carry burdens the same old way? Simply because we always have. Not realizing how much it’s costing us until we finally stop.

 

Breath restoration without panic, a telltale sign

It’s not anxiety. It is not a full-blown panic attack, but your breath doesn’t feel full. It feels shallow, a bit stuck, maybe. Especially in the upper back and ribs. That’s another earth fatigue sign or pattern. When your diaphragm and intercostal muscles are tired or underused. Often from long periods of caretaking, stress, or even desk work. The breath doesn’t fully descend. It doesn’t come down into your belly fully. Instead, your body is relying on shallow breathing.

And upper chest expansion, which puts extra strain on your shoulders and your upper back.

The result? 

You feel like your breath can’t quite reach where it’s supposed to go. The middle of your back, deep in your belly, like it used to.

Breathing like this keeps our body in a state of low-level stress. You’re not panicked, but you’re never fully relaxed either. Your whole system is braced as if it’s waiting, ready for the next demand to be put on it.

Further, our secondary breathing muscles, like the scalenes, upper traps, and levator scapula muscles, start to overwork. They’re not meant to be the main players, so they fatigue really quickly.

 

The Vagus Nerve Tie In

Full deep belly breathing activates the vagus nerve and calms your system. But when you’re stuck in shallow breaths, this doesn’t happen. The vagus nerve stays quiet, and your body stays switched on.

 

A quick Zen Buddhist story, for a clearer picture.

The monk smiled and plucked a leaf from the garden. He handed it to the student and said “Hold this in the wind and keep it still.”

The student held it. He held it out in the wind and watched it whip and flutter no matter how hard he tried. 

The monk then placed the leaf in the student’s palm. “Now let it rest.” He said The leaf settled. “This,” the monk said, “is how the breath finds peace. Not by effort, but by release.” Just like the breath, calm doesn’t come from trying harder. It comes from giving the body a place to rest, to pause.

 

Our muscles that act like bodyguards

 When support becomes tension, the shoulder-bracing reflex. There’s another group of muscles that often gets overlooked, but it shows up every day in many busy clients.

When support becomes tension, the shoulder bracing reflex. There’s another group of muscles that often get overlooked, but show up every day in many busy clients. Especially those juggling jobs, family, and life responsibilities: the levator scapula and upper trapezius muscles. These are classic tension holders. Muscles that act like bodyguards. They’re always on alert. They tighten automatically when you’re stressed, overthinking, or feeling emotionally exposed. And while they’re meant to assist with our posture and shoulder movement, they often become overworked during times of emotional load and mental fatigue. 

This is your shoulder bracing reflex. Where you’re unconsciously holding your shoulders up or forwards, to brace against the next thing. It kicks in automatically when we need to, hold on, stay ready, or protect ourselves.

These muscles lift our shoulders, support our neck, and steady our posture. But when they’re turned on all the time, not just during movement, they become tired, tight, and heavy. Over time, this low-level tension becomes chronic. This can shorten your breath and drain your energy.

 

What’s really happening in your body, in the muscles, when you’re stressed?

And just like the deeper postural muscles. This isn’t just mechanical tension. The biochemical picture matters here too. Prolonged activation of these muscles without recovery increases the oxidative stress that we spoke about earlier. It reduces the calcium signaling. And impairs the energy metabolism of our cells. So that ache in your shoulders. It’s not just stress. It’s your muscle tissue telling you that it’s running out of fuel.

So what’s really happening in the body when these muscles are overactivated for long periods? Like when you’re stressed, thinking hard, or emotionally strained.

Three things happen at once here:

They’re being asked to do a job that they weren’t designed for. These muscles are meant to help, but they’re not built for constant activation. They fatigue faster than the deeper stabilizing muscles. 

Their cells run low on fuel. 

Just like your phone battery gets low when you use it all day. Muscles need energy, ATP energy in our cells, to work. If they don’t get time to rest, calcium signals falter, as well, and more reactive oxygen species, ROS, build up. This makes your muscles feel sluggish and achy. They start to feel tight and locked up over time.

This isn’t just passive tension. It becomes a habitual brace, and we get stuck in that posture.

So that ache in your shoulders isn’t just tension, it’s muscle tissue that’s run out of energy, and it’s stuck halfway between working and resting.

 

Why your shoulders tighten with stress: The pattern your body, your nervous system uses

When you are under stress, thinking, worrying, responding, organizing, your breath gets shallower, and the vagus nerve isn’t getting the chance to calm things down.

Here’s the body pattern in your nervous system. Shallow breathing keeps the vagus nerve less active, and so the body is constantly in ready mode. That sends a signal to muscles like the levator scapula and upper trapezius to stay on. These muscles brace, even when you’re not physically doing anything. Because the body thinks something demanding is coming. 

This then turns on a feedback loop:

Stress > Shallow breath > Muscular bracing > Fatigue > More nervous system alertness > And more bracing.

 

From an energetic perspective

Shoulder tension is your body’s way of holding the world on its shoulders. From this perspective, we’re looking at the throat chakra as well as the heart chakra expression and giving and love. These chakras are both connected to this group of muscles.

If you are not saying what you need or not receiving help, your body starts to hold that unexpressed weight in your shoulders.

 

When Earth Element Energy is Low

In TCM Meridian terms, this area is near the fire element, and the small intestine and triple heater meridian channels. These meridians are also associated with processing [life] experience, and distributing heat and our energy throughout our whole body.

When our earth element support is low, and the energy through the stomach and spleen, meridian channels are not flowing; these channels get called in to compensate. Keeping you braced.

To help make this feel felt, instead of just explained, here’s a little zen parable to help understand this pattern

There was once a young monk who carried two heavy buckets of water up a steep path each morning. Over time, his arms and back became strong, but his steps became stiff and rigid. One day, his teacher asked him to walk this path without the buckets. The monk tried, but he stumbled.

His teacher smiled. “Strength isn’t just about carrying,” he said, “It’s about moving freely when support isn’t needed. Strength without softness,” he said, “becomes a burden.”

Just like the monk, your muscles may grow strong from holding tension, but strength without softness can become the very thing that tires you out.

 

Simple, Practical Steps:

This isn’t about stretching more. It’s about asking less of our body, of these muscles in particular, until they can recover.

It’s about letting that shoulder reflex soften, letting your shoulders exhale.

 

Shoulder Roll Exhale:

• Shoulder rolls with your next exhale. 
• Then take a slow, deep breath in, and 
• Exhale again, slowly letting your shoulders drop

not forcing them, just allowing

Letting gravity and breath do their job. Melting your shoulder muscles and letting them sink, wiith each breath out.

You might like to repeat this simple exercise five or 10 times and see how your body feels when it’s asked to soften instead of brace.

 

Back-body breath:

• Place your hands on your lower ribs or your back and inhale slowly into that space.
• No forcing, just intention.
• For three to five breaths, this can shift your whole nervous system

 

You may also like to try journal writing:

You could ask yourself questions like:

• What part of me has been quietly holding everything together? 
• And what might shift if I give that part just five minutes to rest today?

 

Pause. Before it hardens into stiffness or sharp pain

So in conclusion, before the ache becomes tension, pause. 

That heaviness between your shoulder blades isn’t random. It’s your body’s way of carrying what hasn’t been released. Before it hardens into stiffness or sharp pain, there’s an opportunity to soften, to breathe deeper, to restore what’s been stretched too thin, too far.

You don’t need a new posture. You need a new pattern, a new habit, one that supports you, emotionally, structurally, and physically.

 

So I hope you found value in today’s video. If you did, please like and share it. And join us next week, where we wrap up our four weeks on the Earth Element series. Looking at fatigue, particularly around our jaw and neck. So that you can feel more comfortable in your body and keep living your most fulfilling life.

From my heart to your heart,

Namaste.

Sarah xx

 

 

And the help you even more

I’ve created a FREE eGuide, to help you ease your shoulder, neck, and jaw pain and tension.

Click the link below to download yours!

Interested in further reading?

From Thoughts to Tension: A Guide to Mental and Muscular Fatigue

Restoring Your Inner Strength: A Guide to Overcoming Physical Fatigue

From Burnout to Balance: Building Strong Foundations for the New Year

Decoding Stress: How the Fire Element Affects Your Shoulders

Ease digestive issues, mood disorders, and settle your Vagus Nerve, using the Triple Heater meridian

About Blossoming Me

BlossomingMe offers a fully integrated approach to your wellbeing. Located on Sydney’s Upper North Shore. Sarah is our Cranio-sacral and Remedial Massage Therapist and health and lifestyle coach. She can help relieve those problematic knots, tightness and other specific ailments to promote a healthy recovery. These complementary massage therapies can be combined to suit your needs, and include: craniosacral therapy, shiatsu, acupressure, reiki, remedial, swedish, and body-mind-massage. 

Our qualified Osteopath, Alexis, offers a drug free, minimally invasive, “hands on” treatment focusing on the musculoskeletal system with its associated muscles, tendons, ligaments, membranes, bones and joints. Alexis takes a functional approach. This means that she focuses on the way a component (body part, tissue or group of tissues) performs its role, as well as the way the body works, performs and integrates as a whole. Our team can support you to improve your posture and therefore your overall health.

**Disclaimer** The information provided by BlossomingMe, on our website, in our courses, and in our blogs and posts, is for educational and informational purposes only. The information provided on this site and social outlets is not, nor intended to be, a substitute for profess

ional advice or care. Please seek the advice of a qualified health professional before you make any changes to your health regime, before dealing with new symptoms, and, if something you have read here has raised any questions or concerns regarding your situation.