How Trauma Affects the Body: Understanding the Lasting Impacts on the Nervous System
“I didn’t expect trauma to affect my body this much.”
This is a common and understandable reaction. For decades, mainstream medicine focused on trauma as a psychological issue, overlooking its full impact on the body. But that’s changing.
There’s now a growing body of research confirming what many trauma survivors, therapists, and somatic practitioners have long known: trauma affects the nervous system, often leaving behind lasting physiological effects that don’t resolve through insight alone.
Trauma Changes the Nervous System, Even Long After the Event
Your autonomic nervous system (ANS) manages survival. It governs your heart rate, digestion, breath, circulation, and stress responses, functions that run automatically, often outside conscious awareness.
When trauma overwhelms your capacity to cope, especially in the absence of safety or support, the nervous system can become dysregulated. It adapts to protect you, bracing for danger, limiting sensation, over-activating alert systems. These adaptations can linger long after the threat has passed.
What Trauma Can Feel Like Physically
Even if you’re not actively thinking about a traumatic experience, your body may still be shaped by its effects. Some common signs include:
• Tension in the jaw, shoulders, or chest
• Irregular or shallow breathing
• Restlessness or difficulty falling asleep
• Digestive issues or appetite changes
• Feeling “on edge” or easily startled
• Exhaustion that feels hard to explain
• A sense of shutdown, numbness, or fog
These aren’t random symptoms. They’re often physiological echoes of past overwhelm,ways the nervous system adapted to survive when things felt unsafe.
Why Cognitive Insight Isn’t Always Enough
You can understand your trauma story, reflect clearly, and still feel dysregulated.
That’s because trauma impacts more than just memory or emotion, it affects how the nervous system functions. Many clients come to us after years of traditional talk therapy. They’ve done the work. But their body still feels stuck in patterns of shutdown, vigilance, or overwhelm.
This is where body-based therapy becomes essential.
Therapies That Address Trauma’s Physiological Effects
At Tidal Trauma Centre, we integrate therapies that honour both the psychological and physiological impacts of trauma, including:
• Somatic Therapy: Supports nervous system regulation through movement, breath, and body awareness
• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Helps restore connection between body and mind
• EMDR Therapy: Uses bilateral stimulation to process traumatic memories and reduce physiological activation
• Internal Family Systems (IFS): Works with inner protective systems shaped by past pain
• Online Counselling: Offers nervous system-aware therapy across British Columbia
These therapies are trauma-informed, paced with care, and designed to support regulation first, then reflection and change.
The Body Keeps the Score
This phrase, coined by trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, reminds us: trauma doesn’t just affect thoughts or emotions. It leaves a trace in the body and brain, altering how we process information, react to stress, and experience safety.
Healing often requires more than talking. It requires building new patterns of internal safety, once the nervous system can trust.
That’s why at Tidal, we don’t force disclosure or push for emotional “breakthroughs.” We help your system unlearn the patterns of protection it no longer needs, and gently practice new ones that support connection, rest, and presence.
How Nervous System-Informed Therapy Helps
When therapy includes the body, clients often experience:
• Decreased chronic tension and muscle pain
• Greater emotional regulation and resilience
• Improved sleep, digestion, and energy
• Reduced startle response and anxiety
• More capacity for intimacy, rest, and joy
• A deeper sense of feeling grounded and at home in their body
These shifts take time. But they’re possible, especially in a space that honors the complexity of your system and its wisdom.
You Don’t Need to Be Fixed. You Need Space to Heal.
Your nervous system adapted to help you survive. Those changes may still be shaping how you think, feel, and respond, but healing is possible.
With the right support, your system can begin to unlearn patterns of protection and relearn safety, connection, and rest.
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Yes. Trauma often impacts the nervous system even without clear memory,especially if it occurred in early childhood or during dissociative states.
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No. Somatic therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that involves body awareness and nervous system tracking,not touch. You remain fully clothed and in control.n text goes here
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No. Our therapists are trained to work with your system’s pace. Some clients benefit without ever telling the full story.
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Yes. We offer online therapy across BC. Many clients find that doing nervous system-informed work from home helps them feel safer and more open.
Related Resources
Blog Posts:
Regulating the Nervous System: Tools for Stress, Burnout, and Overwhelm
How Trauma Affects the Nervous System (and What Therapy Can Do)
From Surviving to Thriving: The Power of Trauma-Informed Therapy
Service Pages:
Disclaimer: The content on this website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, psychological, or mental health advice. It is not a substitute for professional care. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider for diagnosis and treatment.