How Trauma Lives in Your Body
You might think trauma is something that lives in your mind, in memories and thoughts you try to push away. But if you've ever noticed your heart racing when you smell a certain scent, felt your stomach drop when someone raises their voice, or experienced unexplained physical pain that doctors can't quite diagnose, you've experienced how trauma lives in your body.
At Be Seen Therapy, we understand that trauma isn't just a psychological experience. It's a whole-body event that gets stored in your nervous system, muscles, and tissues. This is why talking about trauma, while important, isn't always enough to heal it. True healing requires addressing the physical manifestations of psychological wounds.
What Does "The Body Keeps the Score" Really Mean?
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's groundbreaking book "The Body Keeps the Score" brought mainstream attention to something trauma therapists had known for years: traumatic experiences get encoded in our bodies, not just our minds. When something overwhelming happens, especially if it happens repeatedly or in childhood, your body learns to stay in a state of high alert, ready for the next threat.
Your nervous system doesn't distinguish between a tiger chasing you and emotional abuse from a parent. Both trigger the same biological survival responses. When trauma occurs, especially if you couldn't fight back or escape, that survival energy gets trapped in your body. Your nervous system essentially gets stuck with one foot on the gas pedal, unable to fully relax even when the danger has passed.
This isn't something you can think your way out of. You can understand intellectually that you're safe now, that the trauma happened in the past, but your body might still respond as if the threat is current and real. This is why people with trauma histories often experience physical symptoms that seem unrelated to any medical condition. Their bodies are holding onto experiences that were never fully processed or released.
Our EMDR and trauma therapy approach recognizes this mind-body connection and works to help your nervous system finally process and release what it's been holding onto.
Common Physical Symptoms of Stored Trauma
Trauma can manifest in your body in countless ways, often without you realizing the physical symptoms are connected to psychological experiences. Here are some of the most common physical manifestations of stored trauma:
Chronic Pain and Muscle Tension
Your body may hold trauma in specific areas where you unconsciously tense up, leading to chronic back pain, neck pain, jaw clenching, or persistent headaches that resist traditional treatment.
Digestive Issues
The gut-brain connection means trauma often manifests as chronic stomach problems, irritable bowel syndrome, nausea, or digestive issues that flare up during stress or triggering situations.
Fatigue and Exhaustion
Living with a dysregulated nervous system is exhausting, often leading to chronic fatigue, difficulty sleeping, or feeling tired no matter how much rest you get.
Heart Palpitations and Breathing Problems
Trauma can cause your heart to race unexpectedly, create feelings of breathlessness, or lead to panic attacks that feel like heart attacks, even when there's no medical cause.
Autoimmune Conditions
Research increasingly links childhood trauma and chronic stress to autoimmune disorders, as the constant state of high alert can cause your immune system to malfunction.
Chronic Inflammation
Ongoing activation of your stress response system can lead to body-wide inflammation, contributing to various health conditions from arthritis to cardiovascular disease.
Numbness or Disconnection
Some people experience physical numbness, tingling, or a sense of disconnection from their body (dissociation) as a way of coping with overwhelming trauma memories.
Sexual Dysfunction
Trauma, especially sexual trauma, can manifest as difficulty with physical intimacy, pain during sex, or a complete shutdown of sexual response and sensation.
If you're experiencing unexplained physical symptoms, it's important to work with medical professionals to rule out other causes, but also to consider trauma as a potential factor. Our individual therapy services can help you explore these connections in a safe, supportive environment.
The Nervous System and Trauma Response
Understanding your nervous system is key to understanding how trauma lives in your body. Your autonomic nervous system has two main branches: the sympathetic nervous system (which activates your fight-or-flight response) and the parasympathetic nervous system (which helps you rest and digest). In a healthy, regulated nervous system, you move fluidly between these states depending on what's happening around you.
When trauma occurs, your nervous system kicks into survival mode. The four main trauma responses are fight (confronting the threat), flight (running away), freeze (becoming immobilized), and fawn (people-pleasing to stay safe). In the moment of trauma, your body chooses whichever response seems most likely to ensure survival.
The problem is that trauma can cause your nervous system to get stuck in one of these survival responses. You might find yourself constantly on edge, ready to fight or flee, even when you're safe. Or you might frequently freeze up, unable to speak or move when you need to. Some people develop a fawn response, automatically trying to please others and losing their sense of boundaries in the process.
This isn't a choice you're making consciously. It's your nervous system doing what it learned to do to keep you alive. The good news is that nervous systems can be retrained. Through specific therapeutic approaches, you can help your body learn that the danger has passed and it's safe to relax. Our work with anxiety treatment often involves helping clients regulate their nervous systems and find safety in their bodies again.
Childhood Trauma and Adult Bodies
Trauma that occurs in childhood has a particularly profound impact on your physical body as an adult. This is because trauma during developmental years actually shapes how your brain and nervous system develop. Children who grow up in environments of chronic stress, abuse, neglect, or instability develop nervous systems wired for danger rather than safety.
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study found clear links between childhood trauma and adult health problems. People with higher ACE scores have increased rates of heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, chronic pain, and other physical health conditions. This isn't because they're imagining their symptoms or being dramatic. The chronic stress of childhood trauma literally changes how the body develops and functions.
As adults, people with childhood trauma may struggle with emotional regulation, have difficulty trusting their bodies' signals, or experience physical symptoms that seem to come out of nowhere. They might have learned to disconnect from their bodies as a survival mechanism, only to find as adults that this disconnection creates its own problems.
Healing childhood trauma requires not just processing memories but also helping your body learn new patterns of response. It means teaching your nervous system that it's finally safe to relax, that you don't have to be constantly vigilant anymore. This is slow, gentle work that honors how hard your body has worked to keep you safe. Our depression treatment and trauma services address these deep-rooted patterns with compassion and evidence-based approaches.
Healing Trauma Through the Body
Because trauma lives in your body, true healing must include body-based approaches alongside traditional talk therapy. Here are evidence-based methods for releasing trauma stored in your physical being:
1. Somatic Experiencing
This therapeutic approach helps you tune into physical sensations and gradually release the fight-or-flight energy that got trapped in your body during trauma, allowing your nervous system to complete the responses it couldn't finish during the original event.
2. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to help your brain reprocess traumatic memories while tracking how your body responds, creating new neural pathways that integrate the experience in a less distressing way.
3. Breathwork and Breath Regulation
Conscious breathing practices directly influence your nervous system, helping shift from sympathetic (stress) to parasympathetic (calm) activation and providing a powerful tool for self-regulation.
4. Mindful Movement and Yoga
Trauma-informed movement practices help you reconnect with your body in safe ways, rebuild the mind-body connection, and release tension stored in muscles and tissues.
5. Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Systematically tensing and releasing muscle groups helps you become aware of where you hold tension and teaches your body how to truly relax, creating new patterns of physical ease.
6. Grounding Techniques
Practices that connect you to your physical senses and the present moment help interrupt flashbacks and anxiety, bringing your nervous system back to safety when it gets triggered.
7. Therapeutic Touch and Bodywork
Modalities like massage, acupuncture, or craniosacral therapy can help release trauma stored in tissues, though it's essential to work with practitioners who understand trauma and can create safe experiences.
The key with body-based healing is going slowly and honoring your pace. For some people, reconnecting with their bodies after trauma feels scary or overwhelming. That's okay. A skilled therapist can help you develop these skills gradually, always staying within your window of tolerance. Our evidence-based therapies integrate multiple approaches to address trauma comprehensively.
EMDR and Processing Stored Trauma
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) has become one of the most effective treatments for trauma precisely because it works with both mind and body. Unlike traditional talk therapy, where you discuss your trauma extensively, EMDR helps your brain reprocess traumatic memories while you simultaneously engage in bilateral stimulation (typically following a therapist's fingers with your eyes, or using taps or sounds).
This bilateral stimulation appears to mimic what happens during REM sleep, when your brain naturally processes experiences and files them away as memories. For people with trauma, certain experiences didn't get properly processed. They remain stuck in a raw, unintegrated state, which is why they can feel as real and threatening years later as they did when they originally occurred.
During EMDR, you briefly focus on the traumatic memory while engaging in the bilateral stimulation. This allows your brain to finally process and integrate the experience. You're not trying to forget what happened or pretend it didn't hurt. Instead, you're helping your brain and body understand that it happened in the past, it's over now, and you survived.
Many people report that after EMDR, the traumatic memory loses its emotional charge. They can remember what happened without experiencing the physical symptoms, panic, or overwhelming feelings that used to accompany the memory. Their bodies finally understand that the danger has passed.
At Be Seen Therapy, our therapists are trained in EMDR and other trauma-focused approaches. We understand that healing trauma requires patience, safety, and working with both your mind and body. Whether you're dealing with religious trauma, childhood experiences, or more recent events, we're here to support your healing journey.
Reclaiming Your Body, Reclaiming Your Life
Understanding that trauma lives in your body isn't meant to be discouraging. Yes, it means healing requires more than just talking about what happened. But it also means there are concrete, effective ways to release what you've been carrying. Your body has been trying to protect you, holding onto these responses because it learned they were necessary for survival. With the right support, you can help your body learn that it's finally safe to let go.
If you recognize yourself in these descriptions, know that healing is possible. At Be Seen Therapy, we offer trauma-informed care that honors the connection between mind and body. Whether through couples therapy if trauma is affecting your relationship, neurodivergent-affirming therapy, or specialized trauma treatment, we're here to help you find peace in both your mind and body.
At Be Seen Therapy, we believe that you are meant to be seen, heard, and validated on your healing journey. If you're ready to take the next step toward growth and transformation, we're here to support you; contact us today to schedule your consultation.
