Why Your Stress Shows Up in Your Shoulders (And Your Stomach and Your Jaw)
Your body has been keeping receipts this whole time, and you probably didn’t even know it was taking notes. That knot in your shoulders after a difficult conversation? That’s not just tension. That churning in your stomach before a family gathering? Not just nerves. That jaw clenching you do in your sleep? Your body’s way of saying “we remember what happened, and we’re not taking any chances.”
Here’s what nobody tells you about trauma: it doesn’t just live in your memories or your thoughts. It sets up permanent residence in your nervous system, your muscles, and even your digestive system. Your body becomes a walking library of every stressful experience you’ve ever had, complete with detailed footnotes about which muscles to tighten and which organs to activate when similar situations arise.
Van der Kolk (2014) wasn’t just being poetic when he titled his groundbreaking book “The Body Keeps the Score.” He was describing a literal biological reality: trauma gets stored in your body as much as it gets stored in your mind, which explains why you can’t just think your way out of trauma responses.
So the next time someone suggests your physical symptoms are “all in your head,” you can politely inform them that they’re only about half right. Your symptoms are in your head, and your neck, your back, your gut, and probably your immune system too.
How Your Body Becomes Trauma’s Personal Storage Unit
When you experience trauma, your body doesn’t just passively witness what’s happening to your mind. It actively participates by creating physical memories of the experience that can be triggered independently of conscious recollection.
Your Nervous System’s Overprotective Security Detail
Trauma essentially turns your nervous system into an overprotective security detail that never got the memo that the threat has passed. Your sympathetic nervous system, which controls fight-or-flight responses, gets stuck in “on” position, constantly flooding your body with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
This chronic activation leads to all sorts of physical symptoms: muscle tension, headaches, digestive issues, sleep problems, and general exhaustion that no amount of rest seems to fix. Your body is essentially running a marathon 24/7, preparing for dangers that may not actually be present.
Your Muscles: The Ultimate Historians
Your muscles have an incredible memory for trauma experiences. During traumatic events, your body often braces for impact, creating patterns of tension that can persist long after the danger has passed. Your shoulders might perpetually rise toward your ears, your jaw might clench constantly, or your back muscles might stay rigid, all as protective responses to threats that no longer exist.
These aren’t just temporary stress responses; they’re deeply ingrained patterns that your body learned during traumatic experiences and continues to repeat as a way of staying prepared for similar threats.
Your Digestive System Gets the Memo Too
The gut-brain connection is so strong that your digestive system often becomes a primary location for trauma storage. Mayer (2011) describes how stress hormones directly impact gut function, slowing digestion and affecting the balance of gut bacteria that influence both physical and mental health.
This is why trauma survivors often experience chronic digestive issues, food sensitivities, or changes in appetite that seem unrelated to their actual nutritional needs. Your gut is responding to stress signals that originated from traumatic experiences.
Your Immune System Joins the Overreaction Party
Chronic trauma activation can suppress immune system functioning, making you more susceptible to illnesses, infections, and autoimmune conditions. Segerstrom and Miller (2004) found that chronic psychological stress significantly impacts immune function, creating a cascade of physical health problems that can persist long after the original trauma.
This isn’t your immune system being “weak”; it’s your immune system being overwhelmed by the constant stress signals it receives from a nervous system that’s stuck in survival mode.
Why Body-Based Healing Isn’t Just New-Age Nonsense
For too long, trauma treatment focused primarily on talking through experiences and changing thought patterns. While these approaches can be helpful, they often miss the crucial fact that trauma is stored in the body as much as the mind.
Your Body Doesn’t Speak English
You can tell yourself all day long that you’re safe now, but if your body is still holding trauma patterns, your nervous system might not get the message. Your body communicates through sensations, movements, and physiological responses, not through rational thoughts or verbal processing.
This is why purely talk-based therapies sometimes feel insufficient for trauma recovery. Your mind might understand that you’re safe, but your body might still be prepared for danger.
Movement as Medicine
Physical practices that help your body release stored trauma can be incredibly effective for healing. Van der Kolk and colleagues (2014) found that yoga significantly reduced PTSD symptoms in trauma survivors, likely because it combines gentle movement, breathing awareness, and present-moment focus in ways that help regulate the nervous system.
But you don’t need to become a yoga instructor to benefit from movement-based healing. Simple stretching, walking, dancing, or any form of gentle physical activity can help your body discharge stored tension and practice new patterns of response.
Breathing Your Way Back to Safety
Your breath is one of the most direct ways to influence your nervous system. When you’re in trauma activation, your breathing becomes shallow and rapid, which maintains the stress response. Learning to breathe slowly and deeply, especially with longer exhales, can signal to your body that it’s safe to relax.
This isn’t just about relaxation; it’s about literally changing your physiological state from activated to regulated. Your breath is a bridge between your conscious mind and your autonomic nervous system.
Practical Ways to Help Your Body Heal
Body-based trauma healing doesn’t require expensive equipment or years of training. Many of the most effective practices are simple and can be integrated into daily life.
Mindful Movement That Feels Good
The key to using movement for trauma healing is paying attention to what feels good in your body rather than pushing through pain or discomfort. Trauma often involves experiences where your body’s signals were ignored or overridden, so learning to listen to and honor your body’s responses is part of the healing process.
This might mean gentle stretching when you notice tension, walking when you feel restless, or even shaking or trembling if that’s what your body wants to do. Animals in the wild naturally shake off traumatic experiences; humans often suppress these natural responses, which can keep trauma stuck in the system.
Grounding Practices That Connect You to Your Body
Grounding techniques help you reconnect with your physical self when trauma responses make you feel disconnected or dissociated. This might involve focusing on the feeling of your feet on the ground, the texture of objects you’re touching, or the sensation of air on your skin.
These practices work because they redirect your attention from internal trauma activation to present-moment sensory information, helping your nervous system recognize that you’re currently safe.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
This technique involves systematically tensing and releasing different muscle groups, which can help you become aware of where you hold tension and practice the physical sensation of letting it go.
Start with your feet and work your way up through your body, tensing each muscle group for a few seconds and then releasing. This helps your body remember what relaxation feels like and gives you a concrete way to practice releasing stored tension.
Creating Physical Safety in Your Environment
Your environment can either support or hinder your body’s ability to relax and heal. This might mean making your living space feel more secure, comfortable, and calming, or it might mean identifying places where you feel physically safe and spending more time there.
Pay attention to how different environments affect your body’s stress levels and make choices that support your nervous system’s ability to regulate.
When Professional Help Becomes Important
While self-help practices can be valuable, trauma that’s significantly impacting your physical health, daily functioning, or quality of life often benefits from professional support that understands the body-mind connection in trauma recovery.
Somatic experiencing, EMDR, and other body-oriented trauma therapies can help your nervous system complete interrupted trauma responses and learn new patterns of regulation that talking alone might not address.
At Green Mountain Counseling, we understand that trauma recovery involves the whole person, not just thoughts and emotions. We integrate body awareness and nervous system regulation into our trauma treatment approaches because we know that lasting healing addresses both mind and body.
For San Antonio residents, The Ecumenical Center for Education, Counseling and Health offers trauma-informed counseling that recognizes the physical dimensions of trauma and incorporates body-based approaches into treatment.
The Center for Health Care Services provides comprehensive trauma treatment that can include both traditional therapy and complementary approaches that address the physical aspects of trauma recovery.
University Health System offers integrative approaches to trauma treatment that recognize the importance of addressing both psychological and physical symptoms of trauma exposure.
Your body isn’t just along for the ride during trauma recovery; it’s an active participant that holds both the wounds and the wisdom needed for healing. Learning to work with your body rather than against it can accelerate healing and help you develop a more integrated sense of safety and wellbeing.
The physical symptoms of trauma aren’t signs of weakness or evidence that you’re not healing fast enough. They’re your body’s way of communicating about experiences that were too overwhelming to process fully when they happened. With patience, understanding, and appropriate support, your body can learn new patterns that support health and resilience rather than maintaining old patterns of protection and survival.
Your body has been keeping the score, but it can also be part of writing a new story.
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References
Mayer, E. A. (2011). Gut feelings: The emerging biology of gut–brain communication. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 12(8), 453–466.
Segerstrom, S. C., & Miller, G. E. (2004). Psychological stress and the human immune system: A meta-analytic study of 30 years of inquiry. Psychological Bulletin, 130(4), 601–630.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
van der Kolk, B. A., Stone, L., West, J., Rhodes, A., Emerson, D., Suvak, M., & Spinazzola, J. (2014). Yoga as an adjunctive treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 75(6), e559–e565.