How Emotions and Carpal Tunnel are Related

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Before going any further, it’s important to know what carpal tunnel syndrome is. Note that the proper name is “carpal tunnel syndrome”, although most of the world simply calls it “carpal tunnel”.

Basically, it’s a neurological disorder . It happens as a result of a series of events within a narrow space deep inside your wrist joint. That space is called the carpal tunnel , which is where the name of the condition comes from.

Symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome  usually begin gradually. In fact, they generally develop so slowly that patients hardly notice there’s a problem at all. 

The major symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome are felt in the hand or fingers:

• Numbness
• Tingling
• Pain
• Itching
• Burning
• Soreness
• Puffy feeling
• Weakness
  

To understand the relationship between emotions and carpal tunnel, it’s necessary to appreciate a key feature of wrist anatomy. That is, the intense crowding of structures inside the wrist joint. 

The center of this tightly-packed area is the narrow carpal tunnel space or passageway. The walls of the passageway are comprised of wrist ligaments and bones – all of which are very rigid structures. 

The two main structures inside the passageway are the median nerve and flexor tendons . The median nerve is one of main nerves to the hand. It sends sensations to the brain like touch, pain, and vibration.  The median nerve also transmits signals from the brain to move the fingers. 

The flexor tendons are rope-like structures connecting the muscles of the forearm to each finger. One tendon makes one finger move (“flex”) whenever its corresponding forearm muscle contracts. All of the tendons make the fingers curl and grip.

The median nerve and tendons are packed tightly together. It’s like a fist full of drinking straws. Let's say one straw represents the median nerve while the others represent the tendons. Your clenched fist represents the stiff bony wall of the carpal tunnel passageway. All of the crowding within this confined space means there’s no room for anything to expand. 

People who perform repetitive grasp-and-release motions are more prone to getting carpal tunnel syndrome. This is the " repetitive stress" risk that many doctors attribute to getting this condition. Jobs infamous for having carpal tunnel are:

• guitar player
• assembly line worker
• transcriptionist
• power tool user
• dental hygienist
• hair stylist
• cashier
• graphic artist
• carpenter
• fine artist

Likewise, rapid and repeated finger movements also put you at risk. That’s why gamers, sonographers, and computer keyboard users have a high incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Poor sitting posture is an often-overlooked contributor to carpal tunnel syndrome And it’s the real focus of this article. You'll see how stressful emotions and carpal tunnel syndrome have a common link.

The National Institutes of Health warns that sitting for long periods of time is harmful. Specifically, we know that sitting at a computer workstation results in a higher incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome. 

Why? There are two main reasons: 

1. Rapid & repetitive finger typing
2. Poor posture

We already discussed the direct link between repetitive moments and carpal tunnel. But when it comes to poor posture, the relationship is a bit murkier. 

We know poor posture can result in head, neck, shoulder, arm, and hand pain. Nearly everybody's experienced that just by typing at a keyboard a lot.

With any muscle strain, the location of the pain depends on which muscles you strained. Moreover, other muscle groups try to compensate (or balance) forces created by the strained muscles. That compensation, in turn, strains additional muscle groups which are also trying to balance forces. 

There are numerous muscle groups that must work together for optimal balance. The illustration above shows 6 primary forces needed just to balance the shoulder blade and arm.

Muscle groups trying to balance a strain is like your car being out of alignment. Wheel misalignment transmits everywhere, causing the entire car to shake and rumble.

For example, let's say you have neck muscle strain. Most of the forces in your upper body (neck and shoulders) are then transmitted downward, to your upper arms, lower arms, and ultimately to your wrists. The wrists are the final major joint to balance all of the stressful postural forces in the upper body. 

As a result, any compensation by upper body muscles will put strain on the wrist’s anatomy. The result is almost certain disturbance of the carpal tunnel passageway. 

When any force disturbs the normal environment of the carpal tunnel - even just a little - it impacts on the amount of pressure against the median nerve. 

Those forces that compensate for upper body muscle stress are the underlying link between poor posture and carpal tunnel syndrome.

At first glance, emotions and carpal tunnel seem completely unrelated. How can happiness, sadness, anxiety or stress influence your wrist joint? But as we saw, the common link is poor sitting posture. 

Emotions like anxiety and stress are tightly linked to hunching and slouching while you're seated.  But scientists don’t know if we slouch because we’re stressed or we’re stressed because we slouch.

The typical stressed-out worker

Everybody is familiar with this: work deadlines and pressure to perform result in stress and anxiety. Getting the job done quickly and properly is paramount - or else! 

One consequence is that while at their workstations, most people don’t focus on anything but the job. Maintaining good posture is usually completely ignored. 

In fact, the stressed-out, slouching or hunched-over typist is the typical image of today's office worker. Slouching and hunching are the very definitions of poor posture. These positions tense muscles in the upper body and disturb the natural anatomy. 

The tense muscles produce unbalancing forces in the upper body. In order to compensate, the body ultimately transmits the stressful forces downward, toward the wrist joint. Hence, the carpal tunnel space is disrupted.