2

Skip to main content
September 26, 2026

Where is Trauma Stored in the Body?

Ami G. Risinger

Conversations about trauma’s effect on the body often focus on bruises, broken bones, and other physical injuries. But psychological trauma can also have an impact on the body. For many people, true healing involves answering two important questions: Where is trauma stored in the body, and what can you do to release it?

At Time Wellness Tennessee, our approach to trauma treatment is built on an unwavering commitment to individualized care, patient safety, and personal empowerment. 

Learn more about trauma treatment in Tennessee or verify your insurance now.

What Is Trauma?

From a mental health perspective, trauma refers to the intense emotional distress that people often feel after one or more particularly distressing or terrifying experiences. 

Generally speaking, the types of experiences that can lead to trauma are ones that cause a person to fear that they or someone else may be about to die, and that they are helpless to intervene or protect themselves.

Potential causes of psychological trauma include:

  • Abuse and/or neglect during childhood
  • Physical attacks
  • Sexual assault
  • Emotional abuse
  • Automobile accidents
  • Natural disasters
  • Serious illnesses
  • Military combat
  • Acts of terrorism

Trauma can develop when a person directly experiences a distressing event, witnesses it happen to someone else, or repeatedly encounters its aftermath, as EMTs and firefighters often do.

Where Is Trauma Stored in the Body?

When a person’s brain perceives a threat, it activates the sympathetic nervous system. This is commonly referred to as the “fight or flight” response, and its effects can include increased blood pressure, elevated heart rate, rapid breathing, vision changes, and a tightening of muscles.

Once the threat has passed, the parasympathetic nervous system (or the “rest and digest” response) should calm the body down and return these functions to their normal levels. But sometimes, trauma can cause a person’s sympathetic nervous system to become stuck in the on position. 

The psychological impact of this can include persistent anxiety, panic, paranoia, and hypervigilance, or the sense of being perpetually under attack. The physical effect of this dysfunction is sometimes described as storing trauma in the body. 

The Areas Trauma is Stored

  • Neck, jaw, and shoulders: In these areas, trauma can manifest as frequent clenching of the jaw or grinding of the teeth. Persistent tension in the neck and shoulders, which may be related to your body believing you are under continued threat, can cause pain in these areas as well as frequent headaches.
  • Chest: Trauma can cause a tightening in the chest as well as increased heart rate. People who develop panic attacks in the aftermath of trauma can experience such severe chest pain that believe they are having a heart attack and are about to die.
  • Abdomen: The impact of stored trauma in the abdomen can include frequent stomach aches, nausea, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
  • Immune system: Untreated trauma and other sources of overwhelming stress can contribute to immune system dysfunction. This, in turn, can put you at increased risk of several infection-related health problems.
  • Lower back and pelvis: Psychological trauma can affect your lower back and pelvis in a manner similar to what occurs in your neck, jaw, and shoulders. When your body goes into a state of trauma-induced hypervigilance, the sustained activation of your sympathetic nervous system can cause painful tension in this area of your body as well. 

How Does Trauma Affect Your Mental Health?

The mental health impact of untreated trauma can include symptoms such as:

  • Intrusive memories 
  • Vivid, disturbing nightmares
  • Low confidence and self-esteem
  • Inappropriate shame or guilt
  • Sense of detachment from others
  • Difficulty focusing and concentrating
  • Hypervigilance
  • Diminished capacity for trust
  • Thoughts of self-harm and/or suicide

Trauma can also increase the risk of several mental health disorders, including:

How Can You Release Stored Trauma?

In many cases, the best approach for releasing stored trauma involves a combination of self-care strategies and professional treatment

Self-Care

Here are seven types of self-care that can help you release trauma and improve your mental health:

  • Diet: Having one good meal won’t magically cure your trauma. But following a healthy diet plan can help you maintain the strength and clarity you need to effectively deal with your challenges. Several research efforts, including an August 2022 Frontiers in Nutrition study and a June 2020 report in The BMJ, have documented the connection between eating habits and mental health.
  • Exercise: The many benefits of moving your body on a regular basis include managing stress more effectively and releasing trauma.  
  • Mindfulness: This is the practice of being fully present in the moment, accepting your thoughts and emotions without feeling the need to suppress or reflexively react to them. 
  • Breathwork: Breathwork is closely associated with both mindfulness and meditation. In addition to helping you remain present and grounded, various breathing exercises can help you release tension and reestablish a healthy mind-body connection.
  • Journaling: Whether recording your current feelings or reflecting on experiences from your near or distant past, journaling invites you to step back and view your circumstances from a slightly different perspective. An August 2023 post on the CPTSD Foundation website features a variety of prompts and techniques to help you get started.
  • Being creative: Drawing, painting, playing music, and other creative endeavors can be excellent ways to express difficult emotions without needing to put them into words. 
  • Staying connected: Trauma can cause you to feel detached from other people. Whether you are spending time with family and friends or participating in a peer-led support group, staying connected with others can be an essential component of the healing process.

Therapy

Depending on how stored trauma affects you, self-care alone may not bring the relief you’re seeking. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is perhaps the best-known form of trauma therapy, but other approaches can help, too.

Additional therapies and services that can be effective elements of a comprehensive trauma treatment plan include:  

Find Trauma Treatment in Tennessee

Time Wellness TN offers a full continuum of personalized care to help adults whose bodies and minds continue to be affected by untreated trauma.

Treatment options at our centers in Taft and Chattanooga, TN, include residential care, partial hospitalization program (PHP), intensive outpatient program (IOP), outpatient program (OP), and virtual (online) rehab. 

Call 423-413-6195 today to learn more or verify your insurance now.