by Tiffany Hooton, LMFT.

When people think about anxiety, they usually imagine constant worrying or thoughts looping on repeat. However, anxiety, like all emotions, is not a purely cognitive experience; it also lives in the body. Tight shoulders, unexplained nausea, a racing heart, or restless nights can all be signs of stress you’re carrying without realizing it.

This connection between mind and body matters, especially in a world where stress feels increasingly inescapable. Many people are living with not just personal worries but also collective fears tied to politics and questions of safety. For LGBTQ folks, immigrants, and others navigating discrimination, uncertainty, and threats of violence, the weight of these pressures can show up as chronic stress. Paying attention to how anxiety affects the body can be a first step toward understanding what you’re going through and can offer some concrete strategies to care for yourself even when so much else feels out of your hands.

How the Body Reacts to Stress

Anxiety is closely tied to the nervous system. When we feel threatened, our body triggers what’s called the acute stress response, sometimes known as the fight-flight-freeze response: heart rate speeds up, breathing changes, muscles tense, and stress hormones like cortisol flood the system. This reaction is designed to help us escape immediate danger.

The problem is that modern stressors rarely resolve quickly. A hostile work environment, financial insecurity, political threats to basic rights; these don’t switch off at the end of the day. The nervous system stays activated, and the body begins to carry the weight. Over time, this prolonged state of stress can affect nearly every system: digestion, sleep, immunity, even cardiovascular health (American Psychological Association, 2024).

For people in marginalized communities, this constant need for vigilance may be further amplified by experiences of social prejudice and systemic discrimination, or what’s sometimes referred to as minority stress, which has been known to result in significant mental and physical health disparities. In other words: if you feel exhausted and worn down, it may be a sign that your body is responding exactly as it was designed to in the face of ongoing strain.

The Physical Side of Anxiety

Anxiety doesn’t look the same for everyone, but there are patterns that show up again and again. Some of the more common physical signs include:

● Muscle tightness, especially in the shoulders, back, or jaw

● Stomach pain, nausea, or digestive changes

● A pounding heartbeat or feeling short of breath

● Headaches or lightheadedness

● Restlessness, fatigue, or difficulty sleeping

While it’s always important to rule out possible medical causes, sometimes these symptoms appear without any obvious origins, which can make them even more unsettling. Even if we don’t think of ourselves as anxious people, our bodies carry the evidence nonetheless.

Listening to the Body

One of the simplest ways to interrupt the cycle of anxiety, once you know what it is, is to pause and notice what your body is telling you. It can feel strange at first, especially when many of us are accustomed to pushing through discomfort, but small check-ins can help build our awareness.

Try this:

Take a slow breath and scan your body.
Notice where you feel tightness or tension.
See if you can soften just one area—drop your shoulders, unclench your jaw, release your hands.

Note, this isn’t about “fixing” the anxiety. It’s about reconnecting with yourself in a gentle way, showing your body that you’re paying attention.

Grounding in the Short-term

Grounding practices can help shift the nervous system out of overdrive. A few options to experiment with:

● Progressive muscle relaxation: a stress-reduction technique that involves systematically tensing and then releasing different muscle groups in the body. The idea is simple: by deliberately tightening a muscle and then letting it go, you become more aware of the difference between tension and relaxation.

Here’s how it works:

Find a comfortable position — usually sitting or lying down. If you can, let both feet be fully supported on the ground.

Start at one end of the body and work your way up.

Tense each muscle group for about 5 seconds (for example, curl your toes tightly).

Release the tension and notice how the muscles feel when relaxed.

Move to the next group (calves, abdomen, arms, shoulders, jaw, etc.) until you’ve covered the whole body.

The practice usually takes 10–20 minutes.

● Box breathing: inhale for a count of four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. Repeat several times.

● Counting breaths: sit in a comfortable position with eyes closed or a soft gaze and count each breath on the exhale up to 5. When you get to 5 or lose count, simply start over. Remember, it still counts if you keep getting distracted. It’s what our brain is designed to do!

● 5-4-3-2-1 technique: notice five things you see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, one you can taste.

These strategies don’t erase anxiety, but they give your body a chance to settle, even briefly. With practice, they can become reliable tools to reach for when stress builds and lower your overall baseline of stress.

Anxiety is more than our thoughts

Anxiety lives in the body, in the tension of your muscles, the rhythm of your heartbeat, and the exhaustion that lingers after restless nights. For people living under chronic social and political pressure, the body carries an even heavier load.

Doing deep breathing won’t counteract the very real stressors you may be living with. But building a regular practice of paying attention to your body’s needs can help build resilience to it.

By noticing what your body is telling you and practicing ways to ground yourself, you can begin to loosen anxiety’s grip. And you don’t have to do this alone. Therapy can be a place to explore both the personal and systemic sources of stress, and to learn skills that support mind and body together. If you’re struggling, consider reaching out. Your body deserves relief, and you deserve care that sees you fully.

Read more about therapy for anxiety here.

Read more about therapy with Tiffany here.