Your Body Remembers: How Trauma and Stress Are Stored In Your Body, And Ways To Reconnect With It

Ashton Barnes
3 days ago
6 min read

This blog post provides psycho-education on how trauma and difficult emotional experiences really do live in our body and how understanding our threshold for stress can allow us to reconnect with our body’s presence. By slowing down in this way, we are better able to regulate our incredible nervous system and get out of survival mode.

Connection Between Our Mind and Body

Most of us walk through our extremely fast paced days on autopilot, always working towards the next ‘thing’ we feel we need to achieve without stopping to reflect or notice anything about ourselves or our experience. Often, this is reinforced by our productivity-driven society, where a lot of us feel we have limited value or worth unless we are actively producing something other people can benefit from. This external focus really disconnects us from our internal world and the physicality of our bodies, and creates a widening gap between living/experiencing and simply surviving.

In other words, not taking the time to slow down and live more in the present moment prevents us from noticing the complex interaction between our unconscious (and conscious) mind and our body’s responses. In this instance, we are not grounded, or embodied.

Embodiment

Embodiment - a term that will be used frequently throughout this blog post - refers to the interconnectedness of our cognitive processes and our body’s systems, and how all psychological processes are influenced by our bodies. Our thoughts and emotions are influenced by our physical sensations, movements, and experiences in the world and vice versa. In order to experience embodiment, we have to be fully aware of and present in our bodies (Fane & Feger, 2024). This experience allows for a fuller experience of life and enhances our ability to regulate emotions, tolerate distress, and engage more intentionally with the present moment.

For those of you that never really stop and think about or even observe your physical body, that is normal! Over time and with practice, you can become more attuned to your body and what it needs by simply checking in with it.

Quick Practice

Get in a comfortable position, whether you are sitting or lying down
Take 3 deep breaths (count to 3 while slowly inhaling through your nose, then count to 3 while slowly exhaling out of your mouth, and then hold your breath for 3 seconds. Repeat 3x)
Bring your awareness to your feet. Are they touching the ground? Do they feel tingly, or tense? What does your foot feel like against the surface it is resting on? Spend a few moments observing your feet in whatever way makes sense for you.
Systematically bring your awareness farther up your body - your calves, thighs, pelvis, abdomen, hands, shoulders, neck, and head. Engage in the same reflection as you did with your feet. Simply observe.
Notice any tension these body parts are holding, or any discomfort. Intentionally take a moment to unclench your fists, drop and soften your shoulders away from your ears, let your tongue relax in your mouth.
Once you have scanned your whole body, observed how it felt, and brought attention to the areas that needed relief, take another set of 3 deep breaths.
Congratulations! You are experiencing embodiment - you are present in and aware of your body and are attuning to what it needs.

Ways Trauma Shows Up In Our Bodies

Because of the fascinating way our minds and bodies are connected, our unconscious minds often make decisions or react long before our conscious mind recognizes the ‘why’, and your body also remembers these things long after your mind has locked them away for safekeeping. This is often a result of the profound impact that trauma, distressing memories, painful emotions, and difficult life experiences have on our nervous system, and prevents us from experiencing embodiment.

When a person experiences trauma (whether this is physical or emotional), the body can either receive repair/connection immediately and then store the sensations, emotions, and feelings associated with the event adaptively in their memory and emotional centers, or it is stored maladaptively. This occurs when a person endures trauma and as a protective mechanism, their body potentially dissociates from the event, or they are unable to receive resources that would promote healing from the event immediately. When this happens, the sensations, emotions, and feelings that were present when the event occurred remain active in our bodies almost covertly. We remain on high alert - or hypervigilant - all the time, constantly preparing for the next threatening experience, and always uneasy as we remain in our fight or flight survival response to keep ourselves safe. This leads to our nervous system being dysregulated. Some signs that trauma/painful experiences are showing up in the body:

Chest tightness
Nightmares or difficulty sleeping
Muscle tension (this leads to sore/achey muscles)
Feeling on edge
Fatigue
Gastrointestinal / digestive issues
Exaggerated startle response
Brain fog
Increased heart rate
Dissociation
Chronic pain/discomfort that is unable to be diagnosed otherwise

The Window of Tolerance

When we are firing on all cylinders and are able to regulate our stress effectively, we are existing in our window of tolerance. This concept refers to our optimal ‘arousal’ zone of functioning; essentially, this is a state that we all can find ourselves in where we experience grounded-ness, psychological flexibility, openness, regulation, and can do the things we need to do and navigate the world’s stressors without a lot of effort. When we have experienced trauma, challenging life experiences, or prolonged stress, our window of tolerance typically gets a bit smaller and different triggers can move us outside of our window quickly. We then become either hypoaroused or hyperaroused. Both states get us farther from experiencing embodiment as we are disconnected from both our minds and our bodies.

Important to remember: This is not our choice. These reactions occur automatically without any conscious thought, and their intentions are to keep us safe and alive. There is no shame in how your body chooses to protect you.

Hypoarousal → This looks like shut down. We might feel numb, detached, withdrawn, dissociated, or depressed. We have very limited responses due to overstimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system, and our survival instinct tells us that collapse is the safest way to escape a threat.
Hyperarousal→ This is when our fight/flight response kicks in. We might feel fear, anxiety, panic, overwhelm, anger, hyper-vigilance, or high energy. We are more reactive and impulsive in this state, as we feel we need to handle a potential threat head-on.

While these stress responses move us out of our window of tolerance, they are survival responses and should be explored with curiosity and compassion rather than shame and judgement. They keep us alive. Below are some ways to come back out of both hypoarousal and hyperarousal, which reconnects us to our bodies and regulates our nervous system in the moment:

Moving out of hypoarousal and hyperarousal→We want to increase our energy to bring us back into our window when we are in shut-down mode, and we want to contain and release our energy when activated. This is accomplished by activating the rest and relaxation response in our parasympathetic nervous system. Here are some ways that help us do just that:

-Physical movement, such as simply standing up or lightly stretching

-Singing/humming as this stimulates our vagus nerve (key in regulating our rest/relaxation response)

-Grounding through the five senses, as this promotes awareness of the present environment and can help prevent dissociation

-Breath work, or intentional deep breaths, as this sends more oxygen to the left side of our brains where our logical mind resides

-Bilateral stimulation (used in EMDR) like butterfly tapping

-Extreme temperature change like holding ice cubes, splashing cold water on your face, or a cold shower

These are short-term techniques that can shift us back into our window of tolerance, where we then have the bandwidth to potentially journal, connect with a trusted support, and reflect on our experience. If you have experienced trauma, difficult life experiences, or painful emotions and feel like you’re stuck in your survival mode, reach out to one of our incredible therapists who can help you identify your window of tolerance and work towards healing!

Sources

Fane, B., & Feger, D. (2024, November 8). Mental health awareness Mondays - better mental health through embodiment. The Scholarly Kitchen. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2024/05/28/mental-health-awareness-mondays-better-mental-health-through-embodiment/

Field, B. (2022, December 21). What is embodiment?. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-embodiment-5217612

Lancaster, Vanessa. “How the Mind-Body Connection Works.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 31 Aug. 2022, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/communications-matter/202208/how-the-mind-body-connection-works?msockid=24c039a561f668cc34082d5d60b9694e.

Lebow, H. I. (2023, January 21). How does your body remember trauma? plus 5 ways to heal. Psych Central. https://psychcentral.com/health/how-your-body-remembers-trauma#trauma-and-the-body