Why does your body feel physically unwell after going through emotional trauma?
In: Biology
When you experience emotional trauma, your body reacts immediately by activating what we call the “fight-or-flight” response. This is your body’s way of preparing to deal with stress. It releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, which can cause your heart to beat faster, your muscles to tense up, and your breathing to become quicker. These are natural, immediate responses to stress.
You may also notice other physical reactions, such as an upset stomach or nausea, as stress can affect your digestive system. Headaches can occur because the tension in your muscles can build up around your neck and head. Additionally, you might find it difficult to concentrate or think clearly, as your mind is preoccupied with dealing with the stress.
In the short term, these reactions are your body’s way of coping with trauma. However, if the stress persists over a long period, it can lead to more chronic issues, such as ongoing pain, digestive problems, a weakened immune system, and sleep disturbances. But in the immediate aftermath of emotional trauma, these physical symptoms are your body’s way of responding to and managing the stress.
At a certain basic level, stress is stress is stress. Your nervous system doesn’t always differentiate between kinds of stress in as much depth as we might think. Most stress responses are designed to protect us in situations of physical stress / trauma. Classic example: running away from a tiger; your body does things like increase adrenalin / cortisol and moves blood to your arms and legs to help you run faster, downshifts long-term housekeeping functions because they’re not as important in a crisis and it doesn’t want to waste energy on them; etc.
Running away from the tiger not only potentially saves your life; it also “uses up” the stress hormones/ shifts in circulation/ etc because that’s what the response was designed for.
However, when we have an emotional trauma, we have very similar physiological and hormonal reactions; stress is stress. But now we’re not “using up” the response physically, instead it’s sitting around in our bodies, where those stress hormones, redistributed blood flow and downshifting of basic functions can make us feel terrible.
TLDR: Even very gentle physical activity (walking, stretching, massage) is helpful to “undo” the stress response, as are all the actions that help invoke its opposite “housekeeping” response: companionship, safety, rest, mindfulness, etc.
in addition to the former explanations: our gastro-intestinal system is not only also a neurological system, like a primitive brain that communicates with our brain, but also produces seretonin. this is one reason to why our mental state often affects our stomach. in some cases, some people with intestinal problems, even without depression, have improved thanks to antidepressants.
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