Muscle tone can be illustrative of the rev counter of the brain. As more information comes into your brain (nervous system) knowing what to do with it helps our brain to rev up to deal with times of more going on in life and revs down when there is less going on. During times of rev up or rev down muscle imbalance can be learned and then adopted as an unhelpful movement pattern.
Muscular imbalance is a learned condition just as muscle balance is a learned condition. Increased tone doesn’t mean you aren’t coping or that you are stressed, you might just have a lot going on. For those people in a state of anxiety unable to sort through the noise of life to what is important to take in and what is important to ignore the corollary in the body is increased muscular tone.
Physically muscle tone can be heightened through a change in exercise (intensity, frequency, duration) level. When a muscle is in a higher tone of spasm, the movement of body nutrients is affected meaning muscles can’t get food in nor waste out. A root cause for muscular pain.