The Mind-Body Connection: How Chronic Stress and Anxiety Show Up in the Body
When we think about stress, we often think about significant losses, transitions, or challenges. And while these objective physical constraints do cause significant short-term stress, our nervous system is built for responding to these crises and sudden adjustments. In our modern world, stress more often accumulates through everyday lifestyles, experiences, and relationships that cause a chronic stress response over months, years, or lifetimes. This stress is more subtle and hard to objectively quantify–and that’s what can make it so insidious.
Stress and the stress response are instinctual responses that we have to any perceived threat to our sense of safety or autonomy. The key word here is “perceived”; in our modern world, we are much less likely to encounter predators or other life threatening dangers that we can fight off with strength, agility and speed. But we are faced with perceived challenges to our sense of safety and self throughout our lifetime.
The leading causes of death in our country are heart disease and cancers, followed by other illnesses. But there is a clear link between chronic stress and chronic illness as well as many fatal health problems including cancer.
The stress that we are dealing with now has much more to do with a lack of emotional safety and autonomy than it does physical safety. According to Gabor Maté, three factors have been identified in research to universally lead to stress: uncertainty, the lack of information, and the loss of control. What I would add to this list is the lack of individual, genuine expression and relational acceptance.
Humans need other humans in order to thrive, and that goes beyond physical presence. We have a need to be able to be our most genuine, authentic selves and also feel accepted by important others in this expression. This is what many of us are lacking in our modern world as we have to put on different versions of ourselves for our families, our friends, our workplaces, our children, and our romantic partners.
Of course this is necessary to some degree–and some stress can present as a motivator to excel, but many of us go beyond this without realizing that we’re even doing it, and without sharing it with those that we want to be close to. Without true transparency, authentic connection cannot exist (with ourselves or with others), and without authentic connection we cannot truly establish safety.
When we stifle our true selves over long periods of time - including our thoughts, feelings, and values - we may start to experience disconnection from our own “knowing”, and confusion as to who we truly are anymore. This feeling of disconnection can lead to emotional symptoms such as depression, anger, apathy, anxiety, or panic disorders, but it also causes our bodies to react physically.
When are experience anxiety or chronic stress, we get a host of physical symptoms that come along with it:
Muscle tension
Migraines and headaches
Back, neck, and shoulder pain
Jaw pain and TMS
Insomnia and hypersomnia
Chronic fatigue
Stomach pain and digestive issues, heartburn
Skin problems, rashes, or itchy skin
Inflammation
Sweatiness
Heart palpitations
Shallow and quickened breath
Hair loss
Chest pain and high blood pressure
Constipation and diarrhea
Weight gain or weight loss
Having these symptoms over a long period of time can then lead to more mental health symptoms, which cause more physical symptoms, which can then foster the development of illness and impede our ability to fully recover or take care of ourselves, physically.
Ok - so we’ve established that none of us are immune from the effects of chronic stress and the fallout may result in serious mental and physical consequences. What can we do?
Your Stress Is Valid
Acknowledging your feelings (both emotionally and physically) is key. Stress is commonly thought of as something that can be objectively measured based on lifestyle and environmental factors, but in actuality it doesn’t have to be connected to outside events to be present physiologically in the body, particularly for those who have experienced childhood traumas and adversities. But anyone can have chronic stress built up over time that may not be tied to anything specifically in the present.
If you are experiencing several physical signs of stress in your body, treat it as valid. Do not dismiss the signs that your body is trying to give you. There is no need to have a specific reason to justify what’s going on in your body–it’s real and it deserves your attention.
Be Willing to Engage
Sometimes we get trapped in the loop of trying to talk ourselves out of what’s happening in our emotional experience. Try to be curious and open to considering what your body might be asking for. What’s not working? What needs have I been ignoring? What might my body be saying no to and asking for from me?
The more we push emotions down, the more harm we do to ourselves physically. And these emotions don’t go away, they come out at other times and in other ways–like in physical symptoms or delayed emotional reactions we can’t make sense of.
Vulnerability Is Strength
Consider talking with someone about what you’re experiencing, whether that’s a friend, a family member, a coworker, or a therapist. Isolation and loneliness increases our stress, and feeling that someone else sees our emotional experience and accepts it can be incredibly healing.
If you’re speaking to someone who is not trained in mental health, you might ask them if it’s ok to discuss something you’re feeling and ask that they do not try to talk you out of what you’re experiencing. The better you can identify your needs and express them clearly, the better your chances of being met and held well in your vulnerability.
It’s possible that you may not have someone in your life at this time who can hold your vulnerability well–and that does not mean that you shouldn’t keep trying. A therapist can be a great support until you can find others in your life who have the capacity to meet you in this way. Others may be struggling to meet themselves with vulnerability and not be able to meet you there.
Even if your emotional vulnerability isn’t being validated by others, find ways to validate it and honor it in yourself. Consider listening to some guided meditations or taking a yoga class, journaling, or listening to podcasts that help you to feel seen and understood.
Honor Your Emotions
Emotional suppression over time causes chronic stress, and emotional expression over time leads to better emotional and physical health.
You may not have a choice over your emotional experience (don’t try to talk yourself out of it!) But you absolutely have a choice over how you respond to it and what you choose to do with it. You don’t have to act on your feelings in any particular way.
Your body may just need you to listen and validate what it’s experiencing, or it may need you to share what you’re experiencing with a trusted other. It may be asking for a certain need to be met, like getting more sleep or eating more consistently. It’s possible that it may be asking for a lifestyle change so that you can live more in line with who you really want to be–but this is for you to decide at your own pace. You lead the way, but please know that you are never truly alone.
