Somatic Healing: how to release stress and trauma stored in the body

Have you ever felt tightness in your chest, a pit in your stomach, or shoulders that refuse to relax — even when your mind tells you everything is fine? That’s your body speaking.

Our bodies hold onto unprocessed emotions, stress, and experiences, often long after our minds have “moved on.” This is where somatic healing comes in — a practice that helps you reconnect with your body, process stored tension, and restore a deep sense of safety and balance.

What Does “Somatic” Mean?

The word somatic comes from the Greek word soma, meaning “body.” In wellness, somatic refers to practices that focus on the felt sense of the body — your internal physical experience — rather than just thoughts or emotions.

Where traditional therapies often focus on the mind, somatic healing works directly with the nervous system, tissues, and stored memory in the body. It’s based on the understanding that the body remembers what the mind forgets.

What Is Somatic Healing?

Somatic healing is an integrative approach to wellness that works with the mind-body connection. By tuning into sensations, breath, and subtle cues within the body, somatic practices help release patterns of stored stress and trauma.

Science shows that trauma and chronic stress are stored not just in the brain but also in the muscles, fascia, organs, and nervous system. This is where the phrase “issues become tissues” comes from — when emotions and unresolved stress aren’t processed, they can quite literally embed themselves in the body.

It’s important to note: this isn’t just about “big T” trauma — like accidents, abuse, or major life events. Our bodies can also store experiences from “little t” moments from the present or the past that we might not even think about, such as:

• Feeling rejected by a friend in elementary school

• Being embarrassed when called on in class

• A painful breakup

• Repeated experiences of not feeling seen or heard

  
  

Even small, seemingly insignificant moments can leave an imprint on the nervous system if they weren’t fully processed at the time.

What Does It Mean to “Fully Process” an Emotion?

When something difficult happens, many of us push down our emotions rather than allowing ourselves to feel them. We tuck them away, convince ourselves they’re insignificant, or avoid them because they feel overwhelming. But unprocessed emotions don’t just disappear — they stay in the body until we give them space to move through.

Fully processing an emotion means creating space to:

1. Pause and be with yourself quietly — no distractions, just presence.

2. Feel whatever arises — notice the sensations in your body. Tightness, tingling, heat, cold, pain, anxiousness etc. Where do you feel it? Your chest, throat, stomach, jaw?

3. Name the emotion — anger, sadness, helplessness, embarrassment, fear.

4. Allow yourself to feel the emotion

5. Let it to flow through you — emotions are energy in motion, and they need a release. This could look like:

   • Dancing intuitively

   • Shaking your body

   • Screaming into a pillow

   • Punching a cushion

   • Humming or chanting

   • Rocking gently to soothe yourself

When we let emotions move through us, we prevent them from being stored in our tissues and nervous system. This is how we complete the stress cycle and return the body to a state of balance.

Why Meditation Isn’t Always the First Step

Meditation is a beautiful tool for calming the nervous system — but when you’re feeling highly activated, anxious, or frozen, sitting still and focusing inward can actually feel impossible.

That’s because when your nervous system is in fight, flight, or freeze, your body is charged with energy. To access a calmer state, you often need to move that energy first before doing something soothing like meditation.

This could look like:

• Shaking your arms, legs, and torso for 30–60 seconds

• Dancing intuitively to release built-up tension

• Taking a brisk walk while focusing on your breath

• Screaming into a pillow or making sound to discharge stuck energy

Once the energy has been released, your body naturally softens, and meditation, breathwork, or stillness practices become much more accessible and effective.

Somatic healing teaches us that regulation comes in layers — first we move, then we soothe.

How Stress & Trauma Get “Stuck” in the Body

If we don’t fully process experiences in the moment — either because we can’t, don’t know how, or dismiss it as unimportant — the body holds onto that response.

Over time, this unprocessed tension can manifest as:

• Chronic muscle tightness or pain

• Digestive issues and gut imbalances

• Hormonal dysregulation

• Sleep disturbances

• Heightened anxiety or hypervigilance

Somatic healing provides the tools to complete these unfinished stress cycles and teaches the body how to return to a regulated, balanced state.

Benefits of Somatic Healing

Somatic practices support whole-body wellness and beautifully complements functional medicine. Benefits may include:

• Nervous system regulation → reduced anxiety, better emotional stability

• Improved digestion → less stress-related gut dysfunction

• Better sleep quality → deeper, more restorative rest

• Enhanced emotional resilience → capacity to process and release emotions

• Stronger mind-body connection → feeling grounded, safe, and present

Somatic Healing Practices You Can Try Today

Here are a few gentle, science-backed techniques to reconnect with your body and release stored tension:

1. Grounding (Earthing)

Place your bare feet on the earth — grass, sand, or soil. Feel the sensations under your feet, the temperature, and the texture. Close your eyes, and BREATHE. This simple act regulates the nervous system and draws you into the present moment.

2. Breathwork for Regulation

Try box breathing:

• Inhale through your nose for 4 counts

• Hold for 4 counts

• Exhale slowly through your mouth for 4 counts

• Pause for 4 counts

• Repeat for 3–5 minutes to calm the stress response and lower cortisol.

3. Somatic Shaking

Have you ever noticed when an animal shakes? It’s how they discharge built-up energy. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and gently shake your arms, legs, and shoulders for 30–60 seconds minimum. This simple practice can reset your nervous system and release stored stress.

4. Ecstatic Dancing

Ecstatic dance is a powerful way to move stuck energy and reconnect with your body’s natural rhythm. Put on music that makes you feel alive, close your eyes if it feels safe, and let your body move intuitively — without choreography, judgment, or expectation.

5. Body Scanning

Sit or lie down comfortably and slowly bring awareness to each part of your body, from your toes up to your head. Notice sensations without judgment — warmth, tingling, tightness, or ease. This enhances interoception, your ability to feel and respond to your body’s cues.

When to Seek Deeper Support

While self-guided somatic practices are powerful, working with a somatic therapist, trauma-informed coach, or functional medicine practitioner can help you:

• Explore root causes of stored stress and trauma

• Process unresolved experiences safely

• Build a personalized nervous system regulation toolkit

Somatic healing can be especially supportive if you’re navigating chronic stress, burnout, anxiety, digestive issues, hormonal imbalances, or autoimmune challenges — all of which are directly influenced by nervous system health.

Final Thoughts

Healing isn’t about “fixing” yourself — it’s about listening.

Somatic healing invites you to tune into your body’s wisdom, process what’s been stored, and restore a deep sense of safety and wholeness. When we listen to the body, we unlock pathways to transformation the mind alone can’t reach.

“Your body whispers before it screams. Somatic healing is learning to listen.”