23 October 2025
When we talk about trauma, we usually focus on the mind—anxiety, PTSD, and emotional scars. But the reality is, emotional wounds are not confined to your mental health.
They unleash a physiological shockwave through your entire body that can contribute to chronic illness throughout your life.
Studies show that emotional trauma has tangible, lasting physical effects. These can range from altering the makeup of your gut microbiome and changing your brain plasticity to serving as a root cause for chronic pain and many other ongoing health conditions. Your body literally keeps a score of your past experiences.
The Critical Shift from Stress to Survival
To understand how this happens, we have to look at how your body handles danger.
Stress is the “fight or flight” response, driven by adrenaline. It’s your body giving you a temporary boost to overcome a challenge. But when the danger or threat is perceived as overwhelming—meaning you can’t run or fight your way out—your body’s nervous system makes a desperate switch to a trauma response, also known as the “freeze” or shutdown state.
This shutdown isn’t a lapse in control; it’s a profound, innate survival strategy. It’s like hitting the accelerator and the handbrake at the same time. While stress hormones may still be present, your body effectively blocks them and initiates a full-system conservation mode.
A person crosses this critical line into trauma when they experience a situation as either:
- “Too much, too fast”: A sudden, overwhelming event, accident, or rapid, compounding losses.
- “Too little, for too long”: Chronic lack of what is needed, such as sustained emotional neglect, chronic deficiency in support, or pervasive feelings of being unsafe or unloved.
When your nervous system determines the threat is inescapable, survival becomes the priority. This leads to cellular damage and a deep-seated biological dysregulation. The system conserves energy by literally forcing the cell’s power stations, the mitochondria, to shut down.
The danger can be real or perceived. To your nervous system, the emotional threat of being abandoned, or feeling like you’re “not enough,” can trigger the same intense, life-or-death shutdown as a physical threat. These emotional beliefs become wired into your biology, deplete vital nutrients, and ultimately fuel a cycle of poor health.
The Signs of Stored Trauma in Your Body
Because trauma is a physical state, it doesn’t always show up as typical anxiety or sadness. Instead, it can manifest as chronic physical symptoms:
- Adrenal Fatigue and Exhaustion: Feeling perpetually drained, even after rest. This is a classic sign of the body shutting down the hormone system because the constant emergency signalling has become pointless.
- Digestive Issues: Persistent IBS, SIBO, or acid reflux, as the traumatised nervous system pulls resources away from the “rest and digest” function.
- Chronic Pain and Tension: Unexplained muscle aches, joint pain, or tension that traditional treatments can’t fully resolve. The body literally holds trauma as bracing and tightness.
- Immune System Dysregulation: Frequent illness, autoimmune conditions, or unusual inflammation. The chronic survival state diverts resources needed for proper immune function.
- Difficulty Regulating Emotions: Small triggers leading to disproportionate emotional responses (like sudden rages or complete emotional withdrawal), because the nervous system is operating from a baseline of danger.
Pathways to Physical and Emotional Healing
Healing stored trauma requires addressing the body, not just talking about the story. While talking therapies are important, you must also communicate a feeling of safety to your nervous system:
- Somatic Practices: This involves therapies that focus on the body’s sensations, like Somatic Experiencing (SE), which helps release trapped “fight or flight” energy.
- Vagus Nerve Toning: Since the vagus nerve is the highway for the shutdown response, gentle exercises like deep, slow breathing, chanting, gargling, or humming can help restore its function and signal safety.
- Mindful Movement: Practices like trauma-informed yoga, Tai Chi, or gentle, conscious walking help build a safer relationship with your body and allow stored energy to dissipate without becoming overwhelming.
- Nutrient Repletion: Address any deficiencies caused by years of chronic stress. Essential minerals like Magnesium and Zinc, along with B vitamins, are critical for rebuilding cellular resources.
- Focus on Connection: Actively seek out supportive, safe relationships. Connection and feeling supported directly counter the sense of isolation that triggers the most profound trauma responses.
Recognising that your past experiences are not just emotional baggage, but physical reality, is the first step towards true healing. By shifting your focus from managing symptoms to resetting your nervous system, you empower your body to finally step out of survival mode.
Remember, the body’s trauma response is a survival mechanism—it did its job perfectly. Healing isn’t about fixing something that’s broken; it’s about shifting that system out of a chronic state of emergency and teaching it safety. By understanding the biology behind your symptoms, you gain the power to choose a new path toward genuine, lasting wellness.
