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Psychosomatics of the Nervous System: When the Body Presses the "Alarm" Button, and We Still Try to Be Normal
Author: Dmytro Telushko, MriyaRun
This material is educational and self-reflective in nature. It does not replace a consultation with a doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, psychotherapist, neurologist, or other specialist. If you experience panic attacks, fainting, severe pain, breathing difficulties, a sharp deterioration in your condition, traumatic experiences, depressive symptoms, thoughts of self-harm, or any symptoms that frighten you, please seek professional help. Psychosomatics does not cancel out medicine. It adds another, significantly broader question: what happens to a person as a holistic system while the body is desperately trying to protect them, sometimes using entirely uncomfortable methods to do so?
Introduction: The Nervous System Doesn't Dramatize, It Protects
There are people who are genuinely surprised by their own state and mentally tell themselves, "Why am I reacting like this? Nothing terrible happened". And at that very moment, their heart is already beating a drum roll at the speed of a sprinter at the finish line, their breathing has become short and shallow, their shoulders have risen almost to their ears in a protective reflex, their stomach has treacherously clenched, and their brain has solemnly opened an internal emergency headquarters, declaring the highest threat level. From an evolutionary perspective, our brain still lives somewhere in the savanna, where any rustling bush meant a saber-toothed tiger. The problem is that today, the role of the tiger is successfully played by a message from the boss at 9:00 PM or an incomprehensible look from a partner over dinner.
On the outside, everything might look almost normal, creating an illusion of complete calm. A person sits at an important meeting, calmly replies in a chat, drives a car on a busy highway, politely smiles at relatives at a shared table, or is focusedly trying to choose the ideal buckwheat in a supermarket. But inside, the nervous system has already received a lightning-fast signal: "Danger. Mobilization. Everyone to their stations". This system consumes a colossal amount of energy to prepare us for a battle that will never happen in the real physical world.
And here it is extremely important not to shame yourself, not to scold yourself for this invisible internal panic. The nervous system is not a dramatic actress from a cheap soap opera who stepped onto the stage uninvited just for attention. She is your most devoted bodyguard, a kind of internal security detail that can sometimes be a bit paranoid. Her most important, basic job is to keep you alive at all costs, not to make you convenient, rational, logical, or photogenic during stress. The psychosomatics of the nervous system begins exactly where we stop looking at our own body as a broken and annoying mechanism, and start seeing a deep, albeit sometimes outdated, protective process. A symptom is not always an insidious enemy that needs to be urgently destroyed with pills. Very often it is a bright, neon-like signal that the system has been working at the absolute limit of its capabilities for far too long. It held the balance for years, held back tears, adapted to a toxic environment, survived crises, endured endlessly, froze in conflicts, ran relentlessly inside itself, and then one fine day simply said: "That's it, I can no longer pretend that everything is normal. We are switching to emergency mode".
The Nervous System in Simple Words: The Director, Couriers, and Automatic Mode
To understand these processes, it's worth diving into a bit of anatomy, but without complex medical jargon. Anatomically, the nervous system is often divided into central and peripheral. The central nervous system is our brain and spinal cord. Relatively speaking, this is the main office of the "Your Body" corporation, where strategic decisions are made. The peripheral nervous system is a multitude of nerves and nerve ganglia that branch out and transmit signals from the center throughout the body down to the tips of your fingers. This is a high-speed courier service, only it works without delays, without weekends, and without the ability to write in the app, "please leave the package at the door, I don't want to talk to anyone".
Functionally, this incredible network can be imagined through two large, parallel lines. The first is the somatic nervous system. It is directly connected to our voluntary, conscious movements. Thanks to it, we consciously walk through the park, talk with friends, actively gesticulate to emphasize a point, turn our head toward a sound, pick up our favorite cup of coffee, tightly hug a loved one, or, conversely, defiantly do not hug someone who is unpleasant to us, because personal boundaries also have a very clear muscular shape and require physical reinforcement.
The second line is the autonomic, or vegetative nervous system, our brilliant autopilot. It regulates all those vital processes that do not require our conscious micromanagement: heartbeat, depth of breathing, digestive peristalsis, blood vessel tone, the coordinated work of all internal organs, and complex metabolic processes. We are not forced to tell our heart every second: "Alright, darling, let's go three beats faster now, because the boss just messaged 'we need to talk seriously'". The heart understood everything perfectly well on its own from our reaction. And, perhaps, it started beating even too fast, just playing it safe.
Within the autonomic nervous system itself, scientists traditionally distinguish the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions, which work like the gas and brake pedals in your car. The sympathetic system is the gas pedal. It activates at lightning speed when you need to act: mobilize maximally, run fast, fight hard, answer confidently, guarantee survival, think extremely fast, and maintain a sharp focus of attention. The parasympathetic system is the brake pedal, which is responsible for vitally necessary recovery. Its domain is deep rest, calm digestion (which is why in stress you either don't want to eat or, conversely, start binge eating uncontrollably), sound sleep, muscle relaxation, and a smooth return to homeostasis, that is, internal balance. This calmness is managed by the famous vagus nerve—the longest nerve of the vegetative system, which is the main conductor of the "stand down" command.
Normally, in an ideal world without deadlines, these systems work like perfect dance partners: one helps you energetically engage in work, the other helps you gently return home and relax. But real problems begin exactly when the organism seems to live with its foot pressed to the floor on the gas pedal and the handbrake pulled up tight at the same time. You urgently need to run and do something, but physically or socially you cannot. You need to relax before bed, but your internal radar screams that it is dangerous. You need to clearly say "no," but the fear of rejection paralyzes you. You need to let out your emotions and cry, but a strict "hold on, you're strong" sounds in your head. You need to get quality rest on the weekend, but the internal anxious manager has already opened an Excel spreadsheet in your head titled "What else is critically unfinished and why we are behind schedule".
"Fight or Flight": When the Body Is Already Saving You, and You're Still Looking for the Right Words
The famous "fight or flight" response is not a psychological metaphor, but an ancient, powerful, chemically justified survival mechanism that we inherited from our distant ancestors. When the brain evaluates the current situation as threatening, it does not hold a democratic roundtable with a detailed discussion and a forty-eight-slide presentation on the pros and cons of different strategies. It acts instantly, bypassing the logical centers of the cerebral cortex.
The process is launched with lightning speed. Our sensory organs gather and transmit information about a potential danger. The brain's amygdala—our emotional sentinel and smoke detector—reacts in fractions of a second, often before we even realize what exactly happened. The hypothalamus takes the baton and triggers a chain reaction of the autonomic nervous system. The adrenal glands receive the command and generously release a cocktail of adrenaline and noradrenaline into the blood, with cortisol joining in a little later. As a result, the heartbeat rapidly accelerates to pump blood, breathing becomes significantly faster and shallower for extra oxygen, blood sharply drains from the digestive organs and skin (which is why we turn pale) and actively flows to the large skeletal muscles. The body turns into a compressed spring; it is fully ready to act—to hit the attacker or run as far as possible.
All of this makes deep evolutionary sense if you are facing a real, physical danger. But the modern nervous system is far from always able to distinguish contexts: is a predator rushing at you, or did someone simply write "got a minute for a call?" in the work chat, or did your mom look at you with "that specific look" from childhood, or did your partner unexpectedly fall silent for three whole hours, or did you just open a news feed, after which your poor body decided: "Local end of the world again, excellent, just super, and I was just planning to get some sleep today".
During the unfolding of the "fight or flight" reaction, a person may develop very specific physical manifestations. This includes a rapid heartbeat, which sometimes echoes in the ears, and shallow or extremely fast breathing. Very often, a strong muscle tension arises in the jaw, neck, shoulders, and arms—the body is literally preparing for a blow. All this is frequently accompanied by a fine trembling of the limbs and profuse sweating. Psychologically, a person falls into tunnel vision, when it is impossible to see a broader perspective, and experiences an acute desire to scream, argue until hoarse, immediately flee the room, or urgently decide at least something. As a consequence, there is a sharp, uncontrollable irritation over trifles and a persistent, frightening feeling that "I'm going to get completely overwhelmed right now".
And therapeutically it is important to understand: this is absolutely not a weakness of character, not hysteria, and not bad manners. This is pure neurotransmitter physiology. The problem is not that this protective reaction arose. The real problem and the beginning of psychosomatics starts when this powerful energetic wave does not end in action, but remains blocked in the body as an incomplete, interrupted movement.
Let's look at a classic example from everyday life. A person receives an extremely harsh, unfair comment from their manager. The body instantly reacts and wants to defend itself: answer loudly, emotionally explain its position, defend its psychological boundary, simply slam the door and leave, that is—physically move. But the rigid social situation, corporate ethics rules, and fear of losing a job strictly say: "Sit straight, smile politely, breathe, and be an adult, professional person". And the person sits. They force a smile. They type on the keyboard: "thank you very much for your constructive feedback, I will take it all into account". And their body at that very moment is choking on adrenaline, painfully clenching its shoulders, raising blood pressure, and confusedly thinking: "Wait, I don't get it... Were we saving ourselves from a tiger or not? Why did we freeze? Why is no one running anywhere and hitting anyone?". Thus, drop by drop, accumulated chronic tension is born and cemented.
"Freeze": When the Brain Decides That Moving is Dangerous
Besides active reactions, there is another extremely important and often misunderstood stress reaction—deep freezing. It automatically turns on when the most ancient structures of the brain scan the situation and, in milliseconds, evaluate it as one where successfully fighting will not work, and escaping is physically impossible. Then the most advantageous biological strategy is to play dead so the predator loses interest, or to minimize the pain of the inevitable blow. This is categorically not a conscious choice of a so-called "weak" or "spineless" person. This is a lightning-fast, automatic, and deeply instinctive defense mechanism of the nervous system, associated with the so-called dorsal complex of the vagus nerve (according to Stephen Porges's polyvagal theory).
Subjectively, freezing can look and feel like total physical and emotional numbness. A person faces the inability to utter even a word—their voice seems to vanish, and a lump stands in their throat. Often a strange, frightening feeling arises: "It's like I'm not here, all this is happening to someone else," accompanied by a viscous slowing down of time and a feeling of cottony, disobedient legs. A ringing emptiness forms in the head, thoughts disappear. This is a state of severe detachment from one's own body, which specialists call derealization or depersonalization. After the event passes, an incredibly strong, crushing fatigue sets in. But the worst part is that subsequently comes a burning shame and ruthless self-blame, which sounds like a broken record: "Why did I stand like a statue and do nothing?".
This last point is especially painful and toxic. A huge number of people, after surviving complex conflicts, attacks, or traumatic situations, torture themselves for years with ruthless questions: "Why was I silent then?", "Why didn't I turn around and leave?", "Why didn't I answer in kind?", "Why didn't I defend myself when I could?". But the truth that everyone must hear is that at the moment of acute freezing, the person was not sitting in a cozy cafe with a notepad choosing from a menu: "yes, perhaps, in this situation I will choose the option to better do nothing". Their autonomic nervous system simply took control and automatically chose the strategy that in that specific millisecond seemed the most effective and only chance for physical or mental survival.
This is so important that it is worth repeating directly and as loudly as possible: freezing is never your fault and not a sign of cowardice. It is a brilliant and very old survival reaction of your organism. In therapeutic work with such consequences, it is often not at all necessary to "gather your will into a fist" and scold yourself. On the contrary, the task is to very gently and gradually return the lost contact with the body, restore the sense of basic safety, unfreeze the blocked movement, and get your voice back. You need to develop the ability to distinguish contexts: yes, then I was powerless and could not react, but now I am safe, I have grown up, and now I already have the strength to notice discomfort, speak about it aloud, leave unpleasant situations, ask for help, and build strong boundaries.
Why the Stress Response Needs to be Completed
Another common illusion is that a stress reaction is just some unpleasant emotion or an obsessive thought in our head that can simply be "let go" by an effort of will. In reality, this is powerful blood chemistry, it is tense muscles, it is altered breathing and heartbeat, it is a surge of hormones, different blood flow, narrowed attention, and specific behavior. If your whole body, down to the last cell, has prepared for an active action, but this action did not happen for social or other reasons, the massive tension simply has nowhere to go and can remain in the system for a long time, creating chronic blocks.
Imagine a massive scene: an urgent evacuation was unexpectedly announced in a large city. Sirens wailed, all cars simultaneously drove onto the roads, traffic lights switched to blinking yellow, police blocked the main streets, organizing green corridors. And then suddenly someone says into a megaphone: "No, never mind, we made a mistake, nothing happened, go home". But thousands of cars are already standing on the highway with their engines running. Narrow roads are packed tight. People in the cabins are incredibly nervous. And if you do not start slowly, systematically, and competently untangling this gigantic traffic jam, directing the traffic, it will not magically disappear from a simple phrase by the mayor to "calm down and breathe evenly".
With our body, the situation works on an absolutely similar principle, because we are biological creatures. If the nervous system has already mobilized and allocated energy for rescue, it needs a specific, physical path to the logical completion of this cycle. This path can be active physical movement or sports, conscious deep breathing with a necessarily longer exhalation, which activates the parasympathetic system, as well as natural shivering or soft shaking of the whole body (like dogs do after they bark at each other). Energetic walking in the fresh air, intuitive dancing to loud music, or a slow, thoughtful stretch helps. Vocal channels of discharge are extremely important: the sound of your own voice, sincere crying, which removes stress hormones through tears, or even a loud, discharging laugh. You should never underestimate a warm, safe physical or verbal contact with a loved one. And for independent work, written reflection and various mindfulness techniques—returning wandering attention to the sensations of the present moment—are ideal.
The thing is, our body very often does not believe our logical, rational explanations in the style of "everything is fine, we are already home". It believes exclusively in lived experience. If after acute stress we just lie on the couch and spin anxious thoughts in circles for hours, but do not let our physical body perform an action and complete the stress cycle, our complex system can remain in the "attention, danger is still near, do not relax" mode for weeks. Here, a very simple biological logic works perfectly and flawlessly: you must not persuade or convince yourself with words that everything is already normal, but through actions help your own body at the physiological level to feel that right now, in this second, it is already safe.
Chronic Stress: When "Temporarily Enduring" Became a Lifestyle
It is important to understand that short-term, acute stress can actually be useful: it perfectly trains the system, makes us focused, mobilizes resources to solve complex tasks, and even improves immunity in the moment. But constant, exhausting chronic stress is a fundamentally different story with a completely different impact on our health. Our species is evolutionarily simply not designed to live for months or, even more so, years in a state of constant heightened combat readiness.
Moreover, modern stress most often does not look at all like one bright, large, clear event, such as running away from a predator. It acts like Chinese water torture—drip by drip, unnoticeable, but relentless. It consists of daily financial uncertainty and fear for tomorrow, an endless stream of disturbing news on the smartphone, background tension from war, and complex, tangled relationships that drain strength. Added to this is inadequate work pressure and deadlines, quiet family conflicts, and the heavy daily care of sick loved ones. And also—deep internal loneliness even among people, chronic sleep deprivation that destroys neural connections, a rigid internal belief that "I must handle everything myself," and the paralyzing inability to rest for even a day without a gnawing sense of guilt. Scientists call this state a high allostatic load—the wear and tear of the body from constant adaptation.
Our nervous system has a huge margin of safety and can hold on for a very long time. Sometimes surprisingly, fantastically long. In this state, a person no longer fully lives, but rather automatically functions, like a robot with a dying battery, but on the outside, they still keep up appearances and look like a great "achiever". They answer emails on time, work a lot, help friends, plan vacations, rescue everyone around them, carry a bunch of projects, systematically devalue their own boundless fatigue, and habitually brush it off: "Well, everyone has it like this now, no need to complain". They resemble that very frog that is slowly boiled in a pot, while it thinks it is taking a warm bath.
But resources are not infinite, and then loud symptoms inevitably arrive. It all starts with insomnia or very shallow, anxious sleep that does not bring cheerfulness. Background, causeless anxiety and flashes of sharp irritability over trifles increase. A feeling of total exhaustion appears, frequent tension headaches (as if a hoop is tightening around the head), constant dull tension in the neck and back muscles. The body reacts with digestive problems (irritable bowel syndrome, etc.), sudden attacks of rapid heartbeat, and an unpleasant feeling of a squeezing lump in the throat. On an emotional level, there is a complete loss of motivation, sudden emotional breakdowns happen over small things (for example, a spilled coffee), a deaf apathy sets in, and the scariest part—an absolute inability to recover and feel fresh even after a long rest or a weekend.
And in this state, a person really wants to find a magic button on the back of their head called: "quickly fix nerves". But our nervous system is not a smartphone that can simply be turned off, rebooted, and put on a fast charge by the bed while we sleep. Although, you must admit, the idea sounds simply wonderful and tempting. You put yourself in airplane mode and "do not disturb" status for the night, and in the morning you wake up—battery charge 100%, the latest psyche updates successfully installed, all bugs fixed, and the inner critic permanently deleted from memory as a malicious program. Unfortunately, in real biology, it doesn't work that way yet.
What works is something completely different, slower, but more reliable: a gradual, painstaking reduction of daily load, a conscious return to a natural rhythm of work and rest. Regular bodily practices work, deep psychotherapy if necessary to untangle old knots, and qualified medical help according to doctor's indications. Crystal honesty with oneself regarding one's capabilities works, as well as building ironclad personal boundaries, prioritizing quality sleep, daily feasible movement, seeking warm support, and constant, honest work with one's own emotions.
Here it is worth making a careful but important medical accent: in popular psychological materials and blogs, there is very often talk about the so-called "adrenal fatigue". It is worth knowing that in evidence-based medical practice and endocrinology, this term is highly debatable and is not officially recognized as a diagnosis. Therefore, you should categorically not self-diagnose such a verdict after reading articles. But as a vivid, understandable metaphor for a total system overload, this term is very accurate: if you continuously live in a harsh mobilization regime for years, the body inevitably begins to lose its vital resources and fail. Therefore, the most important rule is not to wait until an exhausted organism simply forces you to stop due to illness or acute symptoms.
Muscle Armor: When the Body Became the Character's Armor
In modern body-oriented psychotherapy, one of the most important places is occupied by the concept of "muscle armor" (or "character armor"). This idea is historically and inextricably linked with the name of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a student of Freud, who was the first to draw attention to the fact that our psychological defenses have a physical embodiment. Speaking in simple and understandable language, chronic, imperceptible muscle tension in our body can be not only a consequence of bad posture or an uncomfortable chair, but also a specific, year-long cultivated way of our psyche to hold, block, and control dangerous or forbidden emotions. Imagine that the fascia and muscles literally preserve unreacted experiences within themselves.
How does it work in practice? When a person in childhood or adulthood is often forced to hold back crying, their jaw gradually gets used to being constantly clenched. When a situation demands screaming from pain or outrage, but it is socially dangerous, the throat can reflexively constrict and spasm. When a person is simply afraid to deeply and fully feel their life and their experiences, their chest can become rigid, restricting breathing to a minimum. When showing anger is forbidden under the threat of punishment or rejection, the shoulders and arms can accumulate and hold colossal tension for years, ready for a strike that will never happen. When a person is ashamed to desire something for themselves or to show sexuality, their pelvis can become rigid and blocked. When you have to be on guard all the time and totally control everything around you, the small muscles of the eyes and forehead can be in a state of constant, exhausting tension.
Of course, this does not mean that absolutely every physical clamp has one simple, linear, and universal "psychological cause". A living human is much more complex than a primitive esoteric table from the internet, which says "the right knee hurts — it means you have a hidden resentment against your second cousin". Injuries, genetics, and lifestyle also matter. But our body, its plasticity, and tone really remember incredibly accurately all our ways of surviving and adapting to the world.
In his time, Reich described in detail several conditional bodily segments of this muscle armor, which form like rings of armor on our body. He included the area of the eyes and forehead, then came the segment of the mouth, jaw, and nape, then the area of the throat and neck, behind them the wide area of the chest, shoulders, and arms, lower down was the diaphragm, below it the area of the abdomen and lower back, and the foundation was the segment of the pelvis and legs. It is very useful to view these classic Reichian segments not as an instruction for rigid self-diagnosis, but as a convenient, structured map for soft self-observation. It is needed in order to ask yourself an honest, calm question: exactly where has my body been living in heightened security mode for so long that I have even stopped noticing the weight of this armor?
Eyes and Forehead: Control, Scanning, "I Must Foresee Everything"
Chronic tension in the area around the eyes and in the muscles of the forehead very often faithfully accompanies a state of constant, relentless control over reality. A person with this type of tension resembles a radar that seems to constantly and continuously scan the environment for threats. Their brain is constantly processing a multitude of questions: who just looked at me and how, what was really meant by that phrase, where can danger fly in from, what will happen next in an hour or tomorrow, didn't I accidentally make a mistake yesterday, and do I need to urgently redo and fix everything right now.
On a physical level, this can vividly look like a heavy, tense, or "glassy" gaze, a feeling of sand in the eyes, and severe eye fatigue towards the end of the day. This is a constantly wrinkled, frowning forehead, frequent headaches in the area of the eyebrows and temples, and a great difficulty to "unfocus" and simply contemplate the world without judgment. Psychologically, behind this bodily block very often lives an unshakable internal attitude: "if by some miracle I can foresee and calculate everything, the world will not catch me by surprise and I will not be hurt".
A soft practice for this segment does not require much time: try several times a day to consciously look away from your computer or phone screen. Slowly, effortlessly move your eyes right-left, up-down. It is very useful to simply look at and notice objects of different colors in the room or outside the window. You are doing this not for a magical instant healing from all anxieties, but only so that your overheated nervous system receives a simple visual signal: the surrounding world is much wider, more voluminous, and safer than that one threat on which you are currently so strongly focused.
Jaw and Mouth: Unspoken Anger, Crying, and "I Will Keep Silent"
A rigidly clenched jaw and teeth grinding (bruxism) is an absolute classic of the psychosomatic genre called "I am strong, I will endure everything and will not break". It is precisely in this small but powerful group of chewing muscles that unspoken, boiling anger very often hides for years. Here also hides restrained, swallowed crying, a strict internal ban on asking for help, and a long-standing habit of swallowing hurtful words and pretending that everything is normal.
Sometimes it happens that a person never says aloud "I am hurt by your words," but at the same time clenches their teeth until they crunch in their sleep. They politely do not say "I am very angry at this situation," but instead zealously chew on their internal imaginary monologue with the offender for the third day in a row, grinding it into dust. They do not allow themselves to cry openly, considering it a weakness, but their throat and jaw work tensely as flawless, severe guards of this huge emotional warehouse.
Therapeutic humor here can be very simple, but effective: if your long-suffering jaw has been working in this mode around the clock, without lunch breaks, then perhaps it's long past time to pay it double salary for hazardous working conditions. Or finally give it a well-deserved weekend and the official right to no longer be an armored safe for all your unspoken, sharp phrases and grievances.
Soft practices for this area include a wide, deliberate yawn with sound, free singing of favorite songs in the shower or in the car, cautious, relaxed movements of the lower jaw in different directions, and a drawn-out pronunciation of vowel sounds. Expressive writing on the topic "what I never said" and safe, ecological expression of your accumulated anger on the pages of a paper diary helps a lot. It is for such deep and correct work that our special workbook "About Emotions. Anger: How to Understand and Live It" can be extremely relevant. It helps to see that anger is not at all necessarily a destructive hysterical scream or aggression. Very often it is a healthy, vitally necessary signal from the system that your personal boundaries, important needs, or deep values have just been rudely touched.
Throat and Neck: Voice, Truth, and the Fear of Speaking
The throat area in body therapy very often becomes that narrow bottleneck where our truth literally gets stuck. The well-known symptom described as a "lump in the throat" is not just words, but an extremely accurate physical and bodily image. This feeling appears when something very important inside us desperately wants to come out in the form of words or sounds, but a harsh internal censor does not give permission for this, blocking the path with a spasm.
It is exactly in this bodily segment that things such as paralyzing fear of telling one's truth and being misunderstood, a strict ban on loud screaming (even screaming for help), and a deep shame for the sound of one's own voice most often live and accumulate. The fear of open conflict also nests here, which forces silence, a toxic habit of always agreeing with everyone to preserve the illusion of peace, the word "no" unsaid and swallowed many times, as well as an ocean of unwept, chronic pain that suffocates from the inside.
Anatomically, the neck connects our smart head and sensitive body, being a bridge between ratio and emotio. And very often a situation arises when the rational head says: "I, as an adult, perfectly understand and forgive everything," and the honest body from below categorically replies: "And I do not accept this mockery and have no intention of forgiving". Chronic tension and pain in the cervical region can be a vivid bodily metaphor for this painful internal conflict between cold rational control and a sincere, lively human reaction.
For deep and systematic work with this difficult topic, our Diary of the Mistress of Her Boundaries is perfect. It is created with the understanding that healthy boundaries most often do not start with a grandiose, loud speech from a podium or a scandal. They start with a very quiet, but confident inner voice that finally allows itself to admit: "you know, this doesn't suit me at all," "I'm not ready for this right now," "I want to be treated differently".
Chest, Shoulders, and Arms: Breathing, Responsibility, and Unused Action
The chest, together with the shoulder girdle, is an extremely important center that is anatomically and emotionally connected to the breathing process, heart function, and the state of our arms and shoulders. Psychologically, this is the zone responsible for our ability to freely take from the world what we need, generously give, resolutely push away what harms us, warmly embrace those we love, protect our territory, and actively act in the environment.
When a person is forced to suppress their true emotions for a long time and methodically, their breathing very often becomes tight and shallow, the so-called clavicular breathing. This happens as if their frightened body is mentally saying: "If I allow myself to take a deep breath of air right now, this armor will crack, and I will immediately feel too much pain and anxiety that I won't be able to handle". As a result, the shoulders automatically rise up and squeeze the neck to protect the throat, the rib cage visually shrinks or caves inward, and the arms can become either constantly tense and ready for a blow (clenched fists) or, conversely, hang alongside the body like completely powerless and dead whips.
In this large and important segment of the body, heavy internal stories and beliefs most often live and leave their mark, such as the mantra "I am obliged to bear all this on my shoulders" or the fear "I can never show others my weakness". Here lives the prohibition "I have no moral right to be openly angry at my loved ones," the creepy illusion "if I relax for even a second and let go of control, my whole life will instantly fall to pieces," and the heavy cross of the rescuer "I am the one who must be the unshakable stone pillar for all the weak people around me".
In such exhausting states, a person might quietly tell their friends: "you know, I'm just a little tired lately". But if their body could speak, it would definitely loudly add: "We are not just a little tired. We have been working for several years as a round-the-clock emergency rescue service without a single lunch break and weekends, and our resources are approaching zero".
Soft practices to unblock this segment are quite simple. They include a conscious longer exhalation, which calms the heart. A smooth, mindful opening of the chest (for example, stretching) will be useful, but it must be done very carefully and without any physical violence against yourself. Sweeping, careful arm movements, energetically throwing a tennis ball at the wall or on the floor, and intensively shaking tense wrists are helpful. A very useful practice is therapeutic writing on a specific topic: "in exactly which situations do I desperately want to actively act, but constantly restrain and block myself?".
Diaphragm and Abdomen: Fear, Control, and Unfinished "I Cannot Digest This"
The diaphragm is a large, dome-shaped muscle that separates the chest and abdominal cavities and is the main, most important participant in the process of deep breathing. When under the influence of anxiety it becomes tense and spasmed, our breathing inevitably can become much shorter, shallower, or even held on the inhale. Our abdomen, where a huge number of nerve endings are concentrated (it is often called our "second brain"), also reacts extremely sharply to any stress: it painfully clenches, twists, something boils and rumbles in it. Metaphorically speaking, it literally refuses to "digest" complex or shocking events of the outside world.
In the language of body psychotherapy, the abdominal zone is very strongly connected to the feeling of our basic, profound safety in this world. It accumulates a primal animal fear, the issue of trust in life as a whole, and the ability to gently accept and assimilate (digest) new, sometimes difficult life experiences. But here we must again make a very important remark: classic medicine always comes first, and only then—beautiful psychological metaphors. If you have constant pain or disturbing symptoms in this area, you must absolutely get them checked by a gastroenterologist or other specialized doctor.
And only after medical problems have been ruled out can you sit in silence and honestly ask yourself: what exactly in my current life am I categorically unable to "digest" and assimilate right now? Where, in what situations or near what people do I literally curl up and shrink into a ball out of fear? What processes am I trying to keep under rigid, paranoid control because otherwise I would have to face an unbearable feeling of my own powerlessness? Where exactly is my body pleadingly asking for a long time to slow down and live a little slower?
For such delicate and deep work, our Body Diary "Conversation with Oneself" is simply perfect. It carefully helps a person not to run away from alarming bodily signals by ignoring them, and not to be frightened by them into a panic, but step by step learn to listen and understand their own body—calmly, with interest, and, most importantly, without destructive self-blame.
Pelvis and Legs: Support, Movement, and the Right to Take Up Space
The lower segment of our body, which includes the pelvis, legs, and feet, is inextricably linked with our ability to feel firm support under our feet (grounding). This is the base for any physical movement forward, the center of our sexuality, the repository of vital life energy, and, metaphorically, our fundamental right to firmly stand our ground and take our rightful place in this world. When a person is forced for long years to live in toxic shame, paralyzing fear, chronic freezing, or under the yoke of a strict prohibition on the expression of their own desires, the entire lower part of their body can become cold, rigid, and seem completely separated from the overall vitality of the organism.
Sometimes this specific block vividly manifests as a great difficulty to even feel your legs below the knees. People often describe this as a strong internal instability, chronic, viscous tension in the pelvic area, general stiffness of movements when walking, and a very unpleasant, anxious feeling "I seem to be flying in the clouds and completely not standing with both feet on solid ground".
Soft practices for returning contact with this zone are very grounding. This is an ordinary, slow mindful walk, where you pay attention to every step. This is a slow, meditative transfer of your body weight from one leg to the other. Intuitive dancing alone helps a lot, necessarily without a mirror, to turn off the inner critic. It is important to practice focusing on the feeling of your feet standing firmly on the floor and to take a warm, relaxing shower. And you can end the day with a therapeutic entry in the diary on an important topic: "what exactly in my life do I want and can I reliably lean on right now?".
And again, let us remind you of the important thing: if you have physical injuries, acute or chronic pain, neurological symptoms, or serious gynecological or urological problems—you absolutely need professional medical help. Psychosomatics is an important and powerful tool of self-discovery, but it should never become a convenient excuse to postpone a visit to the doctor and high-quality medical diagnostics for years.
How to Quickly Help Yourself in the Moment: Not Heroically, but Practically
There are situations when the nervous system has already brightly activated, your pulse is beating in your temples, and anxiety is flooding your head. In such moments, logical, empty phrases from the outside like "just calm down" or "stop being so nervous" do not help at all. Frankly speaking, the phrase "don't be nervous" sometimes could quite deservedly receive a separate international award for its unique ability to make a person even more nervous, driving them to a white heat. Therefore, in an acute moment, you must put aside philosophy and work exclusively with the body and its physiology.
The practice of a prolonged exhalation begins with understanding the main rule of breathing under stress: an inhale always activates the nervous system, but a long exhale flawlessly calms it down. Therefore, try to do a few conscious cycles where you inhale through your nose for a count of three or four, and then very slowly exhale through your mouth for a count of five to seven. You should do this very softly, without the slightest violence to your lungs. If during the counting you suddenly feel uncomfortable or the anxiety intensifies, immediately stop and simply return to your normal, comfortable breathing rhythm.
Returning attention to the real body helps you break out of the whirlpool of panic thoughts through grounding. Do a simple practice to engage your senses. Name aloud or mentally five specific objects that you see around you right now. Then identify four different sounds that you can hear in the room or outside the window. After that, find three clear bodily sensations, for example, how clothing touches your skin or how your feet press on the floor. Find any two smells near you. And finally, do one small, very simple physical action that you can perform right now, for example, drink some water. This algorithm perfectly and quickly helps your brain understand: I am currently located not only inside my cocoon of anxiety, I am also physically present in a safe, real space.
Movement as a way to remove the block is vital if a powerful adrenaline mobilization has occurred. Your body needs at least some movement to burn off stress hormones. A long walk at a brisk pace, intense shaking of your wrists as if you are shaking water off them, a series of squats, expressive dancing to music, fast walking, energetic cleaning of the apartment, swimming in the pool, or slow stretching. Any physical movement adequate to your condition and capabilities can significantly help the nervous system logically complete the suspended stress cycle.
Returning your voice is sometimes extremely necessary in a state of stupor. It is quite enough to simply quietly but confidently say to yourself aloud: "Yes, I am here right now. This is just my body's normal reaction to an abnormal event. Right now, I will take a deep breath and take one tiny, safe step". The sound of your own voice incredibly effectively returns to a person the lost sense of presence and control over themselves.
The therapy of three short sentences involves taking your diary or simply opening notes on your phone and continuing the phrases. Write: "Right now my body very clearly feels...", then add "I understand that my nervous system is trying to protect me from...", and finish the thought with "One small way that I can support myself right now is...". The main rule is that this entry does not have to be literary beautiful or correct. It must be strictly honest with yourself.
MriyaRun Self-Reflection: "What Is My Nervous System Trying to Protect?"
When the acute state passes, it will be time for calm exploration. Take a clean sheet of paper, your favorite diary, or open your notes. Write very briefly and to the point. Remember that a tired nervous system really doesn't like it when people immediately try to make a big scientific dissertation out of its protective reactions.
First, you should investigate your signal. Ask yourself what specific physical symptom or emotional state you notice in yourself most often. Analyze in exactly what situations or near what people it sharply intensifies. Remember what exactly was happening in different areas of your life immediately before this symptom became so bright and noticeable.
Next, look at your typical reaction. Try to answer honestly: in moments of crisis, are you personally more inclined to attack and fight, quickly run away and avoid the conflict, or fall into a stupor and freeze? What exactly does this choice look like in your real daily behavior? And the most important thing—what do you then, when it's all over, think about yourself and how do you evaluate yourself?
After that, pay attention to your body. Investigate exactly where in your body the strongest tension chronically lives. Imagine, if this clenched zone suddenly gained a voice and could speak, what would it be screaming to you right now or quietly begging for? Try to feel: is this tension in the muscles more about hidden fear, about suppressed anger, about toxic shame, about endless exhaustion, about an old grudge, or about total powerlessness to change anything?
Then move on to finding your unfinished action. Ask yourself what you wanted very strongly to do in one situation or another, but never dared to do. What did you passionately want to say to the offender or to the circumstances, but silently swallowed along with your tears? Think about what very small but absolutely safe movement or action can help you partially or completely release this tension stuck in your body today.
And finally, focus on support. Think very pragmatically: what exactly right now can realistically reduce your daily life load by at least a tiny five percent? Which of the real people in your environment can you turn to for help or just to talk? What specific personal boundary do you critically need to establish tomorrow? And what self-care will not be some beautiful, Instagram-perfect, and "ideal" one, but a real, everyday one that is possible for you right now?
This deep, step-by-step practice of self-exploration can and should be combined with work in the EQ Emotion Diary, in the empathetic Diary of Acceptance, or, if we are talking about somatics, with our Body Diary. The choice of tool depends entirely on what exactly in your state right now is begging for attention the most: a raging emotion, harsh external reality, or an exhausted body.
The Nervous System and Boundaries: Sometimes the Symptom Says "Enough" Before We Do
Very many of our incomprehensible bodily reactions and symptoms are directly connected not only with external acute stress, but also with chronic, systematic violations of our personal boundaries. A person can be perfect, convenient, and patient for years, never saying the word "no" aloud, but their exhausted body has already been loudly saying this "NO" in its own way for a long time: through constant stiffness, insurmountable fatigue, muscle squeezing, migraines, tension headaches, sudden physical disgust towards certain people, chronic insomnia, or even a subconscious, frightening desire to simply dissolve into thin air and disappear.
It is important to understand that psychological boundaries are categorically not about rudeness, aggression, or fencing oneself off from the world with a concrete wall. This is exclusively about a healthy, adult regulation of the load on the system. If in a normal house you constantly plug all powerful appliances into the old electrical grid at the same time and overload it, the point is not at all that the wiring has become "selfish" or "bad". It simply, according to the laws of physics, cannot pull this voltage endlessly, so it automatically blows the fuses so that a fire does not happen.
A living human works the same way. If we constantly and mindlessly agree to all proposals, remain silent in response to injustice, rush to save everyone to our own detriment, tolerate discomfort for years, eternally explain other people's actions, and endlessly adapt to the mood of others, then our faithful nervous system sooner or later may begin to rigidly protect us precisely through a symptom, forcing us to finally lie in bed and shut down.
Therefore, in any deep work with stress, it is always extremely important to stop and honestly ask yourself: where exactly right now am I stubbornly living against myself? In which situations is my polite, social "yes" actually just a cover-up, and means a sad "I am just very afraid to say no and be rejected"? Where am I again out of habit taking absolutely someone else's responsibility and someone else's problems onto my shoulders? In what areas of life do I have absolutely no personal space and time for banal recovery of strength? And where has my suppressed but perfectly justified anger been standing at the doors of my consciousness for a very long time, politely coughing, hinting that it is time to finally let it in and listen to it?
It is precisely for such difficult but vital questions that it is very appropriate and effective to work with our Diary of the Mistress of Her Boundaries and, of course, with the practical workbook "About Emotions. Anger". Because practice shows that our overexcited nervous system most often calms down and relaxes not when we have read a smart book and "understood everything with our head," but exclusively when clear, visible, and protected boundaries finally appear in our real, daily behavior.
Acceptance: It Is Not Resigning, but Stopping the War with the Fact
In the large and complex topic of psychosomatics, the concept of acceptance is not just desirable, it is absolutely key and vitally necessary. But a big trap hides here: acceptance is categorically not the same as passively saying "well, that's it, I give up, now I will forever remain so sick and miserable". It also does not mean a toxic-positive "I really like what is happening to me right now". And it is 100% not about cruel self-punishment in the style of "I am to blame for everything myself, it serves me right, I should have thought earlier and been less nervous".
True, therapeutic acceptance is a calm, adult, and very honest recognition of the objective fact that currently exists in reality. This is the ability to say to yourself: yes, right now my nervous system is reacting exactly like this, and I cannot change this in a second. Right now, my body is giving me a loud and very unpleasant signal. Right now, I am dealing not with some abstract philosophical idea from a book, but with a very alive, real, physiological process in my own organism.
And the most important paradox is that it is exactly when we finally accept the fact of our vulnerability and our symptom that we unexpectedly gain the resource and the chance to start acting constructively. As long as we stubbornly and exhaustingly fight with the fact of our anxiety or fatigue, we only waste the last remnants of our strength on a ruthless internal trial against ourselves. We constantly spin destructive thoughts in our head: "there is clearly something wrong with me," "I am somehow defective and weak," "I am an adult and should have dealt with all this a long time ago," "look at others—they work more and cope much better," "I absolutely must not react so acutely to such trifles".
This internal tribunal never heals anyone and does not make anyone stronger. It only throws wood into the fire and adds new, massive stress to the already existing one. You get a kind of not very tasty psychological sandwich: at the bottom lies a dense layer of your primary anxiety, on top of it a burning shame for your "weakness" is thickly smeared, and in the middle is a core of your total, chronic exhaustion from this invisible battle with yourself.
Our Diary of Acceptance can become an extremely useful and helpful tool exactly at this difficult stage. It is created not at all to foster passivity or self-pity, but exclusively to gently return a person to a sober, safe contact with objective reality. It helps to calmly analyze the situation: what exactly has objectively happened right now? What am I really feeling in my body and emotions right now? What of this do I have the power to change today? Which processes require just time and patience from me? Where is my real, adult part of responsibility for my state, and where are the circumstances that do not depend on me, and are not my fault?
When You Need a Specialist's Help
Self-reflection, journaling, and other self-help practices are an incredibly powerful and important daily support tool, but they should never become a substitute for professional help where it is objectively necessary. You should definitely consult a specialized professional (doctor, psychotherapist, psychiatrist) if you observe that your physical or emotional symptoms are very strong, unbearable, or constantly repeating. An alarm signal is regular panic attacks that paralyze the will, deeply disturbed, non-restorative sleep, or significant changes in appetite and weight.
Serious manifestations requiring immediate medical attention include sudden fainting, squeezing chest pain, severe shortness of breath, a feeling of lack of air, and a rapid, uncontrollable heartbeat (such symptoms always require ruling out cardiological problems first of all). Help is needed if your history contains unprocessed traumatic experience, PTSD, or if you periodically experience a frightening feeling of the unreality of the world or detachment, as if you are looking at your life from the outside.
An alarm bell is also a situation when you begin to systematically avoid ordinary life, work, or communicating with people specifically because of the fear of manifesting your symptoms. An absolute indication for seeking help are severe depressive states, a feeling of utter hopelessness, or any thoughts of self-harm. And, finally, the main criterion is if you just honestly feel and understand that you yourself can no longer cope in any way with the volume of tension that has fallen on you. Reaching out for qualified help is never a defeat or a weakness. It is an adult, conscious way to finally stop fighting alone in a trench against your own system, which has long been failing and is simply crying out for support.
Conclusion: The Body Hasn't Broken, It's Trying to Return You to Yourself
Your nervous system is not some evil enemy entrenched inside. It has absolutely no insidious goal to purposefully ruin your comfortable life, derail an important meeting, turn a long-awaited date into a disaster, steal your sleep, destroy ambitious plans, or make your Monday morning unbearable. It is simply sincerely, although sometimes somewhat clumsily, trying to protect you by the only methods available to it, which it once learned and remembered.
Sometimes it happens that these old defense methods have long been outdated and have become inadequate to the current reality. Once upon a time, in the distant past, the freeze and disappear reaction really helped you survive in a dangerous environment, but now it rigidly prevents you from speaking freely and declaring yourself at work. Once, total control over everything gave you a saving sense of security in a chaotic family, but now this same habit only drains you to the bottom. Once, a tightly clenched jaw reliably saved you from a dangerous conflict with someone stronger, but now it simply does not give you the opportunity to live out your perfectly legal anger. Once, your body learned to feel nothing so as not to go crazy from pain, and now it quietly but persistently asks you to finally return this lost contact.
True, deep psychosomatics of the nervous system is not at all about finding blame in oneself. It is a great story about a lost and newly found connection. Our physical body, complex psyche, changeable emotions, environment, relationships with people, past events, personal boundaries, quality of sleep, amount of movement, and overall lifestyle—all this does not exist in a vacuum or in separate boxes. This is one large, complex, living garden of your organism. And if in one place of this garden it has critically dried out, in another everything is overgrown with weeds of anxiety, and somewhere on the main alley there has been a dead-end energetic traffic jam for a long time, you should not take a heavy bulldozer and aggressively fight with yourself, trying to level everything to the ground. You should simply take a step back and respectfully look at the system as a whole.
Perhaps the most important, transformational question to ask yourself sounds exactly like this. You should not ask "how can I urgently remove this inconvenient symptom at any cost to become a convenient robot again?", but shift the focus to the request: "what exactly is my loyal nervous system trying to tell me right now, what is it trying to protect me from, or what old, suspended action is it begging me to finally complete?".
And it is exactly from this warm, honest, non-violent place that true, adult self-care begins: timely medical, deep psychological, gentle bodily, conscious emotional, quiet journaling, and simply lively daily support. It will never be perfect and flawless, like in the pictures on the internet. But it will guaranteed be real, reliable, and, most importantly, your own.
MriyaRun Tools for This Topic
So that your reflection does not remain just a theory, we suggest turning to our practical tools, each of which is created for its own specific purpose. The Body Diary "Conversation with Oneself" will become your best guide for daily work with bodily signals, chronic muscle tension, unlived sensations, and building a careful inner dialogue with your own body. The EQ Emotion Diary is ideally suited for the deep development of emotional intelligence, accurate recognition of your emotions, tracking triggers, analyzing obsessive thoughts, and identifying true, unrealized needs. The Diary of Acceptance is developed specifically for soft, therapeutic contact with objective reality, where you learn to live without exhausting self-blame and constant internal struggle. For those who are tired of being convenient, the Diary of the Mistress of Her Boundaries was created—it is indispensable for practical work with your psychological boundaries, overcoming the "convenient person" syndrome, healing from imposed guilt, and defending the right to your own, inviolable space. For more focused work, we advise the Workbook "About Emotions. Anger: How to Understand and Live It", which step by step returns to a person a safe contact with healthy anger as a powerful life energy for protecting boundaries and purposeful action. And for those who love gamification in self-discovery, an excellent find will be the board game RedLines: Emotional Detective, which allows you to fascinatingly and safely explore your own and others' emotions, typical reactions, hidden motives, and boundaries in the format of a psychological detective game.
RedLines: Эмоциональный детектив,
Recommended Internal Links from MriyaRun
This article should be cross-linked with the following key pages and materials on our platform, uniting them into a single ecosystem of self-care. First and foremost, this is the main page MriyaRun: psychological diaries, workbooks, and MAC cards, as well as the general MriyaRun Catalog, where all our tools are collected. For deeper practical work with the themes explored below, we highly recommend the Body Diary "Conversation with Oneself", the foundational EQ Emotion Diary, the therapeutic Diary of Acceptance, and the incredibly important tool for protecting your territory, the Diary of the Mistress of Her Boundaries. Besides the diaries, a wonderful addition will be the Workbook "About Emotions. Anger: How to Understand and Live It", which breaks this complex emotion down into understandable steps, and the fascinating board game RedLines: Emotional Detective. You will also find our Metaphorical Cards Online and themed articles useful, such as Psychosomatics of the Back, Joints, and Support and Emotional Literacy: Authenticity and Racket. And, of course, the fundamental Book "About Emotions. Anger: How to Understand and Live It".