Your Body Isn’t Overreacting | How to Find Calm When You Feel Stuck
Have you ever wondered why calm feels uncomfortable? You crave peace, but the moment things slow down, your body tenses, your mind races, and you feel restless or uneasy.
That reaction isn’t a flaw, it’s your nervous system trying to protect you.
For many trauma survivors and highly stressed individuals, safety and calm can feel unfamiliar. The body, wired for survival, has learned to equate stillness with danger. The truth is simple but profound: your body isn’t overreacting, it’s remembering.
Understanding Your Nervous System
Your nervous system is constantly scanning for cues of safety or threat. It shifts between two main states:
Activation (fight, flight, or fawn): Your body mobilizes energy to protect you.
Rest and repair (ventral vagal state): Your body relaxes, connects, and heals.
When trauma or chronic stress is involved, your system can get stuck in overdrive, or shut down completely. You might find yourself anxious and alert for no obvious reason, or emotionally numb even when life seems fine.
Neither state is wrong. Your body is simply doing what it learned to do to survive.
The Science of Feeling Stuck
Neuroscience shows that trauma reshapes how the brain and body process safety. The amygdala, your brain’s alarm system, becomes hyperactive, while the prefrontal cortex (the part that reasons and reassures you) takes a backseat.
This means your body often reacts before your mind can catch up. You may tell yourself, “I’m fine,” but your nervous system is still braced for impact.
Somatic awareness helps bridge that gap by teaching your body, through experience, that it’s finally safe to relax.
Somatic Practices to Regulate and Reconnect
You don’t need a full hour or perfect environment to begin. Regulation can start in small, simple ways.
Ground through your senses. Name five things you see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, one you can taste. This sensory grounding helps your body anchor in the present.
Soften your breath. Inhale slowly for four counts, exhale for six. Longer exhales signal safety to your nervous system.
Use gentle movement. Shake out your hands, roll your shoulders, or walk slowly. Movement helps trapped stress energy release naturally.
Practice compassionate touch. Place a hand over your heart or on your face and take three deep breaths. This physical reassurance tells your body: You’re safe now.
Consistency matters more than perfection. Each small practice retrains your nervous system toward calm.
Why Compassion Matters in Regulation
So many of us try to “fix” our dysregulation by forcing calm through productivity, numbing, or control. But the nervous system doesn’t respond to pressure; it responds to safety.
Healing happens not when you silence your body, but when you listen to it with kindness. Regulation is not about forcing peace, it’s about creating safety so peace can happen naturally.
Journal Prompt
When do I notice my body feeling most tense or uneasy? What might my nervous system be trying to protect me from?
Affirmation
My body is not my enemy.
It is my ally, always trying to keep me safe.
I am learning to listen with compassion.
Conclusion
Your body isn’t overreacting, it’s remembering. It’s holding years of moments when safety wasn’t certain.
Every time you breathe deeply, ground your senses, or offer yourself compassion, you are teaching your body a new truth: It’s safe now.
You don’t have to force calm. You can simply allow it.
Written by Marcia Blane, LPC, NCC, C.Ht.
Licensed Mental Health Counselor | Trauma-Informed Life Coach | Clinical Hypnotherapist
www.marciablane.com
