Why Anxiety Shows Up in the Body: 7 Somatic Signs of Stress You Shouldn’t Ignore
Updated April 2026 | By Chloë Bean, LMFT
Chloë Bean, LMFT is a licensed somatic trauma therapist based in Los Angeles specializing in anxiety, burnout, trauma, relationship issues, and nervous system healing for high-achieving women. Her work integrates somatic therapy, EMDR, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) to support lasting healing, self-trust, and emotional regulation. Her insights have been featured in publications including Forbes, HuffPost, SELF, Real Simple, and Bustle.
If you have ever told yourself “I know I’m stressed, but why does it feel so physical?” you are not alone. Anxiety doesn’t just live in the mind. It shows up in the body first through tension, stomach/digestive issues, brain fog, chronic pain, shallow breathing, overthinking, or the feeling that you cannot fully settle. As a somatic trauma therapist in Los Angeles, I help clients understand through somatic therapy for anxiety that stress isn’t just something experienced in the mind. It’s something their nervous system has been holding for a while. This is especially true for burnout in high-achieving women, overwhelm, or the pressure to keep functioning on the outside no matter how exhausted they feel on the inside.
Table of Contents
Why Anxiety Shows Up in the Body
7 Somatic Signs of Stress You Shouldn’t Ignore
1. You Feel Tight, Restless, or Like You Can’t Fully Relax
2. You Keep Second-Guessing Yourself and Looking for Reassurance
3. You Feel Foggy, Distracted, or Mentally Checked Out
4. You Rely on “Safety” Items or Rituals to Feel Okay
5. Stress Shows Up in Your Throat, Chest, Stomach, or Breathing
6. Travel, Crowds, or Confined Spaces Make You Feel More Activated
7. You Feel Better When You Slow Down, but Struggle to Let Yourself
Why These Signs Matter
How Somatic Therapy Helps With Anxiety and Nervous System Dysregulation
FAQ: Somatic Signs of Anxiety
Start With a Gentle First Step
More Anxiety and Nervous System Healing Resources
Key Takeaways
Anxiety often shows up in the body, not just the mind.
Somatic signs of stress can include tension, brain fog, reassurance-seeking, digestive issues, and trouble slowing down.
Many high-achieving women overlook these symptoms because they are used to pushing through.
Small sensory tools can sometimes help regulate anxiety in the moment, but deeper healing often requires nervous system work.
Somatic therapy in Los Angeles can help you understand and shift the deeper patterns keeping your body stuck in stress.
Why Anxiety Shows Up in the Body
Anxiety is commonly understood as being primarily a mental health issue, but it’s also your nervous system’s experience. When your body perceives stress, threat, uncertainty, or emotional overwhelm, it can move into survival responses like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. That can show up as physical symptoms even when there is no immediate danger.
For many people, especially high-achieving women, chronic stress becomes so normalized that they stop recognizing the stress itself. They just see themselves as overthinkers, highly sensitive, bad sleepers, or people who always have to be “on.” This is part of a bigger pattern of ambient stress building quietly in the background, even when life looks manageable from the outside. But the body still keeps score. When anxiety energy gets stuck in the nervous system, it can show up through patterns like hypervigilance, muscle tension, GI issues, difficulty concentrating, and the constant feeling that it is hard to take a full breath.
7 Somatic Signs of Stress You Shouldn’t Ignore
1. You Feel Tight, Restless, or Like You Can’t Fully Relax
One of the most common somatic signs of anxiety is chronic tension. You may notice tight shoulders, jaw clenching, shallow breathing, a racing mind, or a body that always feels slightly braced.
Many people think this is just their personality. But often, it is a sign that their body has adapted to prolonged stress by staying on high-alert.
This can look like:
feeling “wired but tired”
trouble falling asleep even when exhausted
difficulty sitting still
irritability or feeling easily overstimulated
always waiting for the next thing
A lot of high-functioning people are so used to feeling tension that relaxing can actually feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable at first.
2. You Keep Second-Guessing Yourself and Constantly Look for Reassurance
Anxiety doesn’t only affect the body physically, it also shapes the way you relate to your inner voice.
If you constantly replay conversations, ask other people what they think before making decisions, or struggle to trust your instincts, that can be a sign of nervous system hypervigilance. When the body is on alert, it often becomes harder to feel grounded in your own knowing.
I recently shared in Real Simple that “sense-checking” can become a form of reassurance-seeking when anxiety is running the show. Instead of helping you feel clearer, it can actually keep you disconnected from yourself.
This can look like:
overthinking simple decisions
repeatedly asking for reassurance
scanning for signs you got it wrong
feeling disconnected from your gut instincts
needing certainty before you can relax
This kind of self-doubt can overlap with anxious attachment in adults, especially when anxiety gets tied up with relationships, fear of abandonment, or a habit of looking outside yourself for certainty
3. You Feel Foggy, Distracted, or Mentally Checked Out
Brain fog is another common somatic sign of stress that people often dismiss. It can actually be a sign of functional freeze, where the nervous system becomes overwhelmed and starts conserving energy rather than staying fully engaged.
This doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It can simply mean your nervous system needs a break.
When the body is spending so much energy managing stress levels or staying prepared for danger, there is less capacity for clear thinking, focus, and executive functioning.
I recently shared in Real Simple that certain daily habits can worsen brain fog when the nervous system is already stretched thin. Chronic overstimulation, lack of rest, and always being in go-mode can make it harder for the mind to function at its best.
This can look like:
trouble focusing
forgetting simple things
zoning out during conversations
difficulty making decisions
feeling mentally detached or checked out
Shutting down emotionally more easily
4. You Rely on “Safety” Items or Rituals to Feel Okay
Highly-anxious women tend to develop small rituals or use comforting items to help them feel more prepared, grounded, or safe. This is actually a very supportive choice and makes a lot of sense from a nervous system perspective!
I recently shared in Bustle why something like an “anxiety bag” can feel so comforting. When people carry grounding tools like mint gum, sour candy, lip balm, water, or a familiar scent, it can create a sense of support and predictability in moments of activation.
These tools may help because they give the body something sensory to orient to when anxiety starts to spike.
This can look like:
needing water, gum, or mints nearby
always checking where exits are
bringing familiar items when you travel
relying on certain rituals before stressful situations
These tools are not a problem in themselves. But if you feel panic and are unable to self-soothe without these resources, it may be worth getting curious about what your body is trying to manage underneath. Approaches like Somatic Experiencing therapy can help you build more internal regulation so you are not relying on external resources alone.
5. Stress Shows Up in Your Throat, Chest, Stomach, or Breathing
Stress shows up in the body in subtle ways. You may notice a tight chest, lump in your throat, nausea, butterflies, shallow breathing, or the feeling that you can’t get a full breath.
I recently shared in Bustle that physical sensations someone is experiencing can reveal a lot about their nervous system and what it needs. Sometimes stress shows up before the mind has caught up to what is happening emotionally.
Common body-based anxiety symptoms include:
tightness in the throat
chest pressure
nausea or digestive upset
shallow or rapid breathing
dizziness or lightheadedness
a racing or pounding heart
These sensations can feel scary, especially if you’re not used to understanding them through a somatic and physiological lens. When symptoms are connected to older experiences, Trauma & Complex PTSD Therapy may be more relevant than symptom management alone. Along your healing journey, it can be comforting to remember your body is trying to take care of you and get you back to safety.
6. Travel, Crowds, or Confined Spaces Make You Feel More Activated
Certain environments can heighten anxiety because they reduce your sense of control or increase sensory overwhelm. Airplanes, crowds, long lines, bright lights, loud noises, unfamiliar places, or confined spaces can all be very activating and overstimulating.
I recently shared in Bustle that even a small sensory tool, like a mini fan in a plane bag, can help support regulation during flight anxiety. Sometimes it’s not about the item itself, but about giving your body something familiar, orienting, and stabilizing when the environment feels disorienting.
This can look like:
feeling trapped or panicky on planes
becoming more anxious in crowds
getting overstimulated while traveling
feeling intensely relieved once you get home
needing more recovery time after overstimulating experiences
If overstimulating environments tend to spike your anxiety, getting support through Somatic Therapy in Los Angeles can help you understand what your body is reacting to and build more capacity over time.
7. You Feel Better When You Slow Down, but Struggle to Get There
Sometimes one of the clearest signs of stress is how hard it feels to let yourself rest.
You may notice that slowing down helps for a little while, but you still resist it. Maybe you feel guilty when you rest, anxious when you’re not being “productive”, or you feel uncomfortable when things get quiet. A lot of high-achieving women learned to live in constant motion so it makes sense that stillness can bring up feelings that have been avoided.
I recently shared in AOL about the “Nonna-maxxing” trend and how simple, grounding rituals can support mental health. From a nervous system perspective, slowing down is not laziness. It is often part of how the body begins to come out of survival mode.
This can look like:
feeling guilty when resting
always needing to be productive
struggling with unstructured time
feeling calmer after slower routines
craving simplicity but not knowing how to allow it
The body often needs more spaciousness than the mind thinks it does. You can start by taking short resets to help you move out of burnout.
Why These Signs Matter
These signs matter because they are easy to dismiss, especially if you are used to functioning well on the outside. Many people keep pushing through anxiety until the symptoms become impossible to ignore.
But these patterns are not random.
They are often signals that your nervous system has been carrying more than it can comfortably hold.
When you start recognizing anxiety as something happening in the body, not just the mind, it becomes easier to respond with more compassion and more effective support.
How Somatic Therapy Helps With Anxiety and Nervous System Dysregulation
Somatic therapy helps people understand and work with anxiety through the body, not just through insight alone.
Instead of only talking about stress intellectually, we pay attention to how anxiety shows up physically through breath, tension, activation, shutdown, and patterns of overwhelm. Over time, this can help you build more capacity to stay present, trust yourself, and feel safer in your own body.
In my work as a somatic trauma therapist in Los Angeles, I often support high-achieving women who are tired of looking put together on the outside while feeling anxious, foggy, burnt out, or disconnected underneath.
Somatic therapy can support healing with:
anxiety and panic
chronic stress and burnout
trauma and nervous system dysregulation
relationship anxiety and overthinking
self-trust and emotional regulation
In my practice, I integrate somatic therapy for anxiety in Los Angeles, EMDR therapy for trauma and anxiety, and IFS therapy for deeper healing to help clients understand both the symptoms they are experiencing and the deeper patterns driving them.
FAQ: Somatic Signs of Anxiety
Q: Can anxiety really cause physical symptoms?
Yes. Anxiety can affect the whole body and may show up as tension, digestive issues, shallow breathing, chest tightness, dizziness, brain fog, or trouble sleeping.
Q: Why do I feel anxious in my body even when I know I’m okay?
Because the nervous system does not always respond to logic in the moment. Your body may still be reacting to stress, overwhelm, or old survival patterns even when there is no current danger.
Q: What are common somatic signs of stress?
Common somatic signs of stress include tight muscles, jaw clenching, stomach discomfort, brain fog, racing heart, shallow breathing, restlessness, reassurance-seeking, and trouble slowing down.
Q: Are grounding tools bad if I rely on them for anxiety?
Not necessarily. Grounding tools can be helpful supports. But if you feel like you cannot function without them, it may be worth exploring the deeper anxiety underneath with a therapist.
Q: Can somatic therapy help with anxiety?
Yes. Somatic therapy can help you understand how anxiety shows up in your body, build more nervous system regulation, and shift the deeper patterns driving chronic stress.
Next Steps
If anxiety tends to show up physically for you, the first step is not judging yourself for it. It is noticing.
Notice where your body tightens. Notice when your mind starts scanning for certainty. Notice what helps you feel more grounded, and what leaves you more activated.
Sometimes those small moments of awareness are where healing begins.
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Chloë Bean, LMFT is a somatic trauma therapist in Los Angeles who specializes in anxiety, burnout, narcissistic abuse recovery, relationship trauma, and nervous system healing for high-achieving women.