The 5 Hidden Ways Emotions Impact Your Body
Feelings and anxiety can affect your physical body in unexpected ways
By Lacuna Clinical Psychology · Published 2025 · 5 min read
Does your body seems to have a mind of its own when you’re anxious or overwhelmed? Maybe you feel sick to the stomach, experience tension in your muscles, get headaches, or you get dizzy and lose the ability to think clearly at times of stress. These experiences aren’t random—they’re often your body’s way of experiencing emotions that you might not even realise are there.
When we avoid and suppress our emotions it is like putting them in a box and closing the lid. Sometimes we are so effective at avoiding our emotions we don't even realise we've been doing it our whole life. This can be effective for a period of time, but what happens when the box is too full?
Repressed emotions can appear in our body as tension headaches
Our emotions don’t simply disappear when ignored. Instead, they often find their way into our physical body. Here are some common physical ways anxiety and emotions might show up:
1. Tight Muscles and Chronic Tension
Do you frequently experience tension in a sore neck, clenched jaw, aching shoulders or tension headaches? This can be a sign that you are bottling your emotions over a long period of time, if your emotions have no release valve you might experience chronic tension. This pattern likely started in your childhood and continues to impact your adult life. Learning to process emotions is like installing a permanent release valve. It will allow you to go through life without bottling up your emotions, and without the impact of that physical and mental tension on yourself, your work life and your relationships.
A panic attack is a warning sign that we are having a spike in anxiety and we need to regulate our anxiety and body
2. Chest Pain and Shortness of Breath
Panic attacks are not random, they are a sign that we have had a significant spike of emotions, we just don’t understand what those emotions are or what they are all about. Instead of our emotions building tension over time, the tension comes in a quick burst. This can lead to a tight chest, shortness of breath, increased heart rate, sweating and a sense of panic - your nervous system thinks your emotions are dangerous. Booking a session with one of our Clinical Psychologists can help you to look carefully at the triggers of your panic attacks to understand the underlying emotional stimulus. When we learn to listen to our underlying emotions, our body no longer treats them as dangerous and our fight or flight system is no longer triggered.
High levels of anxiety can be channeled into our digestive system, leading to stomach issues and nausea
3. Digestive issues
Your stomach might churn, feel knotted, or even get nauseous. This happens when our underlying emotions trigger high levels of anxiety that get channelled into our gut. This pattern of physical anxiety often coincides with critical and self-doubting thought patterns, a helpful analogy is that we are internalising our emotions. Therapy with one of our psychologists can help you to stop your emotions from turning in on you, both mentally and physically. Learning to regulate your anxiety, understand the emotional triggers and gradually process the underlying emotions can provide relief, but it is important to take it slow because anxiety regulation is crucial to successfully processing your emotions.
Constant anxiety drains our nervous system, making us feel fatigued at all times of the day
4. Unexplained fatigue
There are a couple of common emotional patterns that lead our bodies to feel fatigued in the face of emotions. One situation is that our emotions make us so anxious and stress our nervous system so much that we eventually feel drained and tired. Another common pattern is that instead of feel overwhelmed by emotions, our body tries to protect us by shutting down straight away. Learning to access and process emotions with regulated anxiety can help overcome patterns of shutting down and fatigue. Therapy can help people turn against this pattern of shutting down and help you to access your emotions - this will provide you with energy and motivation to face life and its challenges.
Working with a psychologist can help you learn to regulate your anxiety to alleviate its symptoms
5. Dizziness and Difficulty Thinking
You may experience unexplained symptoms in your heads that can include dizziness, blurry or tunnel vision, blocked hearing or ringing in the ears and difficulty thinking. These are all symptoms of high anxiety that are triggered by underlying emotional conflicts. It is common for these types of symptoms to be fairly chronic but some people only have this experience when there is strong emotions, such as times of conflict. Many people with these symptoms suffer from this type of anxiety without recognising that they are anxious at all. When anxiety is high, the first step is always to learn effective anxiety regulation and to experience a sense of safety. Working with one of our psychologists can help you to understand the triggers for high anxiety and how to regulate your anxiety; eventually you will experience lower levels of anxiety and be better able to process emotions without such uncomfortable symptoms.
Make a booking at Lacuna Psychology
Your body’s signals are like messages, urging you to pay attention. The good news? You don’t have to decode them alone. Therapy can help you explore these connections, regulate your nervous system, release suppressed emotions, and find relief. If you’re ready to take that step, we’re here to help.