On Why Your Anxiety Feels Like a Physical Symptom: A Somatic Guide
You know you’re safe. At least, logically, you know.
And yet your chest is tight. Your stomach hurts. Your jaw has been clenched for three hours. Your heart is racing while you’re sitting perfectly still. Maybe your shoulders are practically touching your ears, or you feel shaky, nauseated, dizzy, restless, numb, hot, cold, exhausted, maybe even wired and exhausted at the same time?! Personally, I know that last combo really well…
You might try to reason with yourself: Nothing is actually wrong. I’m fine. Calm down!
And then, frustratingly, your body just doesn’t seem to get the memo.
This is one of the most confusing things about anxiety: we can logically understand that we are safe without actually feeling safe.
From a somatic therapy perspective, that confusion makes sense.
Anxiety isn’t only a collection of worried thoughts. It also involves your nervous system, your muscles, your breathing, your heart rate, your attention, and the ways your body has learned to anticipate and respond to threat.
Perhaps there’s a lot more going on in your body than you’ve realized?!
Even though it may not feel like it, when anxiety shows up as a physical symptom, your body isn’t being irrational.
This is actually what your body is supposed to do, it’s preparing to try to keep you safe from a perceived threat to your safety.
Where the wires tend to get crossed, and confusion sets is, is that sometimes our body misperceives what is actually a threat to our wellbeing.
Can Anxiety Really Cause Physical Symptoms?
The short answer—Yes. Anxiety can be intensely physical.
Common physical symptoms associated with anxiety can include:
chest tightness or pressure
a racing or pounding heart
shallow breathing or feeling unable to get a satisfying breath
nausea, stomachaches, or digestive changes
jaw clenching
headaches
neck and shoulder tension
trembling or shaking
sweating
dizziness or lightheadedness
restlessness
tingling or numbness
difficulty sleeping
fatigue
feeling frozen, heavy, or disconnected from your body
Important to note: physical symptoms should not automatically be assumed to be anxiety, especially when they are new, severe, or medically concerning. A qualified medical professional can help rule out other causes.
But when medical concerns have been addressed and your symptoms reliably appear alongside stress, panic, overwhelm, or particular situations, understanding the nervous system can offer another way to make sense of what is happening.
Why Can’t I Just Think My Way Out of Anxiety?
Because anxiety doesn’t happen exclusively in the parts of your brain responsible for conscious thought.
Your nervous system is constantly processing information about what is happening around you. It’s also constantly processing information about what’s happening inside you. Much of this processing occurs without conscious deliberation.
Imagine walking through a parking garage and suddenly hearing footsteps close behind you.
Your body may respond before you’ve completed a conscious sentence about the situation.
Your muscles tense.
Your attention sharpens.
Your heart beats faster.
Your breathing changes.
You turn toward the sound.
Only then might your conscious mind catch up: Oh. It’s just someone walking to their car.
This ability is useful. If humans needed to conduct a thoughtful risk assessment before responding to every possible threat, our species would have had a rough time making it this far.
The difficulty is that nervous systems don’t respond only to obvious, present-day physical danger.
We can also become activated by uncertainty, conflict, social rejection, sensory overload, memories, chronic stress, relational dynamics, or cues that resemble experiences that were threatening in the past.
This helps explain why saying “there’s nothing to worry about” often has remarkably little effect on anxiety.
Your thinking brain may believe that.
Your body may still be preparing for something.
Of note, if someone is telling you they’re ‘feeling very anxious’ and you tell them ‘there’s nothing to worry about’ it generally doesn’t ease their anxiety. This actually tends to hurt more because now they feel invalidated, alone, out of control, and ashamed that they feel so anxious when really they ‘shouldn’t be worrying’ at all.
What Happens in Your Nervous System When You’re Anxious?
The autonomic nervous system helps regulate functions that happen largely outside conscious control, including heart rate, digestion, breathing, and mobilization.
When your brain and body detect potential danger, sympathetic nervous system activity can increase. This is commonly associated with the fight-flight-or-freeze response.
Your Body Responds Before You Have Time to Think
Your heart beats faster to move blood through your body. Breathing becomes quicker or shallower. Muscles brace in preparation for action. Digestion may change as resources are prioritized elsewhere. Your attention may narrow toward possible threats.
In other words, many symptoms that feel bizarre when you’re sitting at your desk make much more sense when viewed as part of a biological system designed to help you respond to danger.
The problem isn’t that your nervous system has these responses.
The problem is when the alarm system becomes activated too intensely, too frequently, for too long, or in situations where the response is no longer useful.
And sometimes anxiety doesn’t look like obvious fight-or-flight activation at all.
Anxiety Isn’t Always Fight-or-Flight
Overwhelming experiences can also be accompanied by freezing, collapsing, numbing, dissociation, exhaustion, or a sense of disconnection. Human nervous-system responses are more complex than the simplified idea that stress always makes us hyperactive.
This complexity is one reason somatic therapy pays attention to the particular way your body responds rather than assuming everyone feeling anxious needs the same regulation technique.
“But bodies have histories...Sometimes your logical mind and your body are simply holding different pieces of the story.”
A Somatic Therapy Approach Asks a Different Question
Traditional attempts to manage anxiety often begin with the content of a thought:
Is this fear realistic? Am I actually in danger?
That can be valuable. Somatic therapy adds another set of questions:
What is happening in your body right now?
What happens immediately before the anxiety increases?
Where do you notice activation?
What does your body seem prepared to do?
What helps the activation increase—and what allows it to decrease even slightly?
Approaches such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy work with the relationship between thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, posture, movement, and nervous-system responses.
Instead of treating the body as an inconvenient container carrying around your brain, somatic therapy considers bodily experience part of the therapeutic process.
That distinction matters.
If anxiety includes a racing heart, tightened muscles, altered breathing, hypervigilance, or an impulse to flee, working exclusively with thoughts can mean working with only part of the experience.
Want Support Understanding What Your Nervous System Is Trying to Tell You?
You don’t have to figure all of this out on your own.
At Kindman & Co., our therapists integrate relational psychotherapy with somatic and trauma-informed approaches to help you understand not just what you’re feeling, but the patterns underneath—how they developed, how they show up in your body and relationships, and what might help you have more choice in what you do next.
We’re not interested in teaching you to override your body or regulate yourself into being easier for the world to deal with. We’re interested in helping you build a more connected relationship with yourself. A relationship with more flexibility, authenticity, and room to respond differently when old patterns get activated.
If you’re looking for somatic and relational therapy in Los Angeles, you can learn more about working with us on a free match call.
Your Body Learns Through Experience
Our nervous systems are shaped by experience.
If you repeatedly encountered situations in which you needed to stay alert, minimize your needs, monitor someone else’s mood, anticipate conflict, perform under pressure, or protect yourself, your body may have gotten very good at those jobs.
Sometimes too good.
Your Nervous System Learns What to Expect
You may notice that your shoulders tense whenever someone sounds disappointed.
You might immediately feel nauseated before opening your email.
Your heart might race when someone doesn’t text back.
You may automatically scan a room for whether everyone is okay before noticing whether you are okay.
These responses can feel disproportionate when we examine only the present moment.
But bodies have histories.
A somatic and relational approach to anxiety isn’t simply asking, “How do we make this symptom stop?”
We’re also curious about: What has your nervous system learned to expect?
Anxiety Is Relational, Too
Nervous-system regulation doesn’t happen only inside individual bodies.
Human beings are profoundly relational.
Our Bodies tell us about our Relationships
From infancy onward, our developing nervous systems are shaped in relationship with other people. We learn about safety, distress, soothing, attention, rupture, repair, closeness, and boundaries through repeated interpersonal experiences.
That doesn’t end when we become adults.
Think about how differently your body can feel around different people.
With one person, your shoulders drop.
With another, you’re carefully monitoring every word you say.
Around someone you trust, you might notice yourself breathing more deeply without intentionally doing anything.
During conflict, your heart might race before you’ve even figured out why you’re upset.
Our bodies respond to relationships.
This is why relational therapy and somatic therapy can complement each other so well. The goal isn’t to become a perfectly self-regulating island who never needs anyone.
Instead, therapy can become a place to notice how your nervous system responds in relationship: to being seen, misunderstood, supported, challenged, given space, setting a boundary, experiencing disagreement, or repairing a rupture.
Regulation is often relational.
you Don’t Have to Choose Between Understanding and Feeling
Sometimes therapy gets divided into two camps.
There’s “talk therapy,” where (through talking) we understand our histories, relationships, patterns, and beliefs.
And there’s “somatic therapy,” where we pay close attention to the body and nervous system to get more information about our history and build tools to better manage what’s happening here-and-now.
We believe we need both.
Insight Doesn’t Always Change the Response
Understanding your patterns matters. So does noticing what happens in your body when those patterns get activated.
You might understand perfectly well that you tend to overfunction in relationships, and still feel a surge of anxiety when you consider disappointing someone.
You might know that conflict isn’t inherently dangerous, and still notice your throat close, your stomach drop, or your mind go blank when someone is upset with you.
You might have spent years understanding why you learned to make yourself smaller without yet experiencing what it feels like, physically and relationally, to take up more space.
This is where talk therapy and somatic therapy meet.
Integrating Talk Therapy and Somatic Therapy
We can be curious about the story and what your body learned from living it.
We can explore the patterns you developed in relationships and what happens in your nervous system as you begin trying something different.
Yes, insight can be transformative. But sometimes knowing why you do something doesn’t automatically lessen the activation or overwhelm you feel, nor give you the flexibility to do something differently.
If you’re someone who can explain your patterns beautifully but still finds your body doing what it’s always done, we wrote more about why understanding your patterns isn’t always enough.
Somatic work gives us another way into these relational processes.
What happens in your body when you try not to accommodate someone?
What happens when someone is disappointed and you don’t immediately fix it?
What do you notice when you say what you actually want?
Over time, therapy can help create more space between what happens and how you automatically respond. Instead of immediately pleasing, withdrawing, controlling, performing, freezing, or overriding yourself, you may begin to notice:
This is the old pattern.
I can feel why my body wants to do it.
And maybe I have another option now.
That’s part of what we mean by ‘integration’: not choosing the mind over the body, or the body over the mind, but helping you understand yourself more fully. Ultimately, having more freedom to be your authentic and grounded self in relationship.
What Does “Somatic Regulation” Actually Mean?
Somatic regulation is sometimes presented online as if there’s a secret sequence of breathing exercises that will instantly reset your nervous system.
Human bodies are a lot less tidy than that.
Regulation Doesn’t Mean Being Calm All the Time
Regulation doesn’t necessarily mean becoming completely calm.
It can mean developing greater capacity to experience emotional and physical activation without becoming overwhelmed. It can mean greater flexibility in returning toward a state where you can think, feel, connect, and make choices simultaneously.
The aim isn’t to eliminate every anxious sensation. Anxiety isn’t actually bad!
Anxiety has a purpose. We want your nervous system to mobilize when mobilization is actually needed. We want your survival responses available when there is a real threat.
The Goal Is More Flexibility, Not Less Feeling
The important question is whether you have flexibility and fluidity.
Can your system activate and then settle?
Can you feel fear without immediately losing access to yourself?
Can you notice a sensation without assuming it means catastrophe?
Can you stay connected to another person even though you feel uncomfortable?
Can you experience someone else’s disappointment without immediately abandoning your own needs?
Can your body update its expectations when the present is different from the past?
If you’re someone who tends to run anxious, it may feel next to impossible to imagine this kind of flexibility and agency when you’re in the midst of an anxious spiral. I get it. I know that experience personally, and I’ve also worked with many people as they’ve developed more of these capacities over time.
And that last part matters: it happens gradually.
You can’t simply think your way out of anxiety and overwhelm. But you can begin to slow down and notice what’s happening somatically. You can build tools for working with activation and finding more ground underneath you. You can become curious about the patterns your nervous system has learned and experiment with new responses. You can cultivate relationships where you get to be more fully yourself.
Over time, the goal isn’t to never be anxious.
It’s to have more flexibility when you do.
And if some of these patterns developed through trauma, that brings up another big question: Can we actually “release” trauma from the body?
We’ll get into what that means (and what it doesn’t mean) in the next article.
But first, let’s give your nervous system something practical to work with right now.
“For many people in the United States living with chronic illness, the most painful part of their experience isn’t only the symptoms; it’s the American healthcare system meant to help them.”
5 Somatic Exercises for Anxiety
There is no universal somatic exercise that works for every nervous system. If an exercise increases distress, dizziness, panic, dissociation, or discomfort, please stop. Contrary to hyperproductivity culture, regulation isn’t something you earn by forcing yourself through an exercise your body dislikes. In fact, pushing through the cues your body is giving you about what feels like too much, is more likely to increase dysregulation.
Instead, experimentation should be gentle and attuned
1. Orienting: Notice and Name What’s Actually Around You
Rather than immediately trying to make anxiety disappear (again, anxiety is not bad!), allow your eyes to slowly take in your environment.
As your attention lands on different things, try naming what you notice out loud:
Green chair.
White wall.
Sunlight coming through the window.
The sound of a car passing outside.
My feet touching the floor.
There’s no magic number of things you need to find; do this until your body cues you to being finished. The point is to slow down enough to actually notice what is here, and put words to it.
This is a form of orienting.
The purpose isn’t to distract yourself from anxiety or convince yourself that nothing is wrong. You’re helping your nervous system take in more information about your present environment. Naming what you notice can also help anchor your attention in concrete, observable details: This is what I see. This is what I hear. This is where I am right now.
Anxiety tends to narrow our attention toward a possible threat. Orienting invites that lens to widen again, giving your nervous system an opportunity to notice what else is true about the present moment, and re-establish a sense of safety and security.
2. Notice Feeling Supported
Where is your body being physically supported right now?
Maybe your back is against a chair.
Your feet are meeting the floor.
Your legs are resting on a couch.
Your head is against a pillow.
Instead of trying to feel relaxed, see whether you can simply notice the physical experience of support.
You might experiment with pressing your feet gently into the floor or allowing slightly more of your weight to be held by the chair.
Sometimes the most useful somatic intervention isn’t “calm down.”
It’s: Can I notice what’s holding me up?
3. Follow the Impulse in Your Muscles
If you notice tension or sensations, get curious before trying to release it.
For example, if your hands are clenched, you might notice:
How tightly?
Do they want to clench more?
Do they want to push something away?
Do they want to hold onto something?
If you notice an impulse, go with it! Does anything change if you slowly allow the movement to become slightly more complete, without forcing it?
Sensorimotor approaches can pay attention to these physical impulses because defensive responses often involve action tendencies, like moving away, pushing, reaching, protecting, or bracing.
The goal isn’t to invent a dramatic meaning for every muscle twitch.
It’s to become more aware of what your body is already doing, allow your body to fully engage its embodied response, and to do this from a place of choice.
4. Experiment With the Exhale
You’ve probably been told to “take a deep breath” while anxious.
For some people, that helps. For others, deliberately taking a huge breath can actually feel uncomfortable or increase a sense of panic symptoms.
Instead of forcing a deep inhale, first try allowing your breathing to remain relatively natural and begin to just observe your breath as you fully inhale and exhale. Then begin to experiment with gently lengthening the exhale.
No gold medals for enormous breaths! Instead, notice what length feels just a little deeper and easier. Notice whether a slightly slower exhale changes anything, even 2%.
Any small shift counts!
5. Experiment With Connection
Sometimes what helps our nervous system isn’t another technique. It’s connection.
If it feels supportive, experiment with bringing another person (or another living being) into the moment with you.
You might sit close to someone you trust. You may even ask to hold their hand or a for a big, secure hug.
Text a friend and let them know you’re having a hard moment.
Notice the warmth or weight of your dog curled up next to you. Spend a few minutes petting your cat. There’s a reason being around animals can have such a powerful effect on our emotional well-being.
Listen to the voice of someone who helps you feel grounded and more like yourself.
Or, if no one is available, try bringing to mind someone with whom you don’t have to work quite so hard to be okay.
Then get curious about your body.
Does anything change when I feel less alone in this?
Maybe your shoulders drop slightly. Maybe your breathing changes. Maybe you feel a little more present. Maybe nothing changes at all.
You don’t need to manufacture a particular response.
We often talk about regulation as if it’s something we should be able to accomplish entirely on our own. But human nervous systems develop in relationship, and often we find our way toward greater steadiness there, too.
Regulation is often relational.
Start With Curiosity, Not Control
You don’t have to transform your whole body at once. And you don’t need to use these exercises to make anxiety disappear.
Start by noticing.
What happens in my body when I’m anxious?
What helps me feel even 2% more grounded?
What does my nervous system seem to expect? Is that expectation still true right now?
This curiosity is an essential part of the work.
Over time, your body can become something other than a problem you’re constantly trying to fix. It can become another source of information about your patterns, your needs, your relationships, and yourself.
Sometimes your logical mind and your body are simply holding different pieces of the story.
Relational somatic therapy gives us a way to listen to both.
And the goal isn’t perfect regulation. It’s greater flexibility, more choice, and more freedom to be authentically yourself—in your body, your relationships, and your life.
Curious About Relational Somatic Therapy?
Sometimes understanding why you feel anxious is only part of the work.
At Kindman & Co., we integrate relational therapy with somatic approaches to help you understand your patterns, listen to what your body is communicating, and develop more flexibility in how you respond, both to yourself and the people in your life.
If you’re looking for relational and somatic therapy in Los Angeles, learn more about working with us.
