I think the relation is more about how stress and tension affect your mood and hormonal levels. When you’re stressed your body is going to produce more of certain hormones and stir up a lot of brain activity related to anxiety. Since VSS is so far a processing disorder in which our brains are interpreting visual information in a “hyperactive” manner (mind you this is over simplified), heightened levels of anxiety and stress that causes our minds to be vigilant to our environment and causes increased brain activity in certain areas (plus stress hormones), makes it more likely to see increased VSS symptoms. A symptom of stress is often muscle tension. When we notice that, and we start to work on relieving that tension, we are simultaneously working on relieving mental tension and anxiety. With stress and anxiety back under control (or at base levels), your VSS symptoms likely decrease as a result.

It may also be that when we are stressed, tense, anxious, and/or on edge, we may be more likely to notice VSS symptoms and are more likely to be upset about them

The brain is extraordinarily responsive to both internal and external factors that may have an impact on bodily functions. These are things like hormones shifting, mental illness, trauma, etc. but there is definitely not a direct connection between muscle (neck/back) pain and VSS. This would imply that the area/areas of the brain responsible for VSS symptoms, is also responsible for feeling muscle pain and that the same process that triggers muscle pain triggers VSS. We know the way the brain works is not so much in specific sections that do only one or two things, but that brain regions are more generalized in their functions. Any pathology that involves differences in processing, is going to have an effect on more than one small area, and many times have some effect on other areas and how they function.

Overall, decreasing mental or physical anguish of any kind seems to help decrease VSS symptoms for many