Understanding Anxiety Through the Body: A Nervous System Perspective

by Orly Arviv, PHD

Anxiety can feel overwhelming, even all-consuming. But at its core, anxiety is a signal—a message from your body’s built-in danger detection system. Understanding this system is the first step toward managing anxiety more effectively, not just through thoughts, but by working with your body.

The First Question That Changes Everything

When clients tell me about their anxiety, the first question I ask often surprises them:
"How do you know it’s anxiety?"

At first, this might seem like an odd question. After all, isn’t the discomfort obvious? But asking this question does something powerful: it activates the amygdala, the brain’s emotional processing center. The amygdala is often thought of as the brain’s “alarm system” for fear (Porges, 2011), but it’s also key in switching on the brain’s noticing network—the part responsible for observing with curiosity rather than reacting with judgment.

This shift from reacting to noticing begins to calm the nervous system. It signals to the brain, “We’re paying attention here, and that means we’re safe enough to observe.”

I might ask:

• “Do you feel anxiety in your mind? If so, how?”

• “What does it feel like in your body?”

• “Where do you notice it—tightness in your chest, a racing heart, nausea, shallow breathing?”

• “How’s your vision? Your hearing? Your body temperature?”

These questions are more than diagnostic—they’re therapeutic. The simple act of observing anxiety with curiosity engages the amygdala in a different way, sending safety signals to the nervous system and reducing the intensity of the anxiety.

Why Anxiety Feels So Overwhelming

Anxiety symptoms—racing thoughts, chest tightness, dizziness—are signs that your sympathetic nervous system has been activated. This is the fight-flight-freeze response, designed to protect us from danger. It constantly scans our environment (and sometimes our internal sensations) for threats (Porges, 2011).

For some people, especially those with past trauma or highly sensitive nervous systems, this response becomes easily triggered. Their ability to manage stress effectively depends on what’s known as the window of tolerance.

🌱 What Is the Window of Tolerance?

Coined by Dr. Dan Siegel (1999), the window of tolerance refers to the optimal zone of arousal where you can function and process emotions effectively. In this window, you feel balanced—you can handle stress, reflect on your experiences, and respond rather than react.

When you move outside this window, you experience either:

• Hyperactivation: This is when your nervous system is in overdrive. You might feel anxious, panicked, overwhelmed, or emotionally flooded. Your heart races, your thoughts speed up, and your body prepares for fight or flight.

• Hypoactivation: This is the opposite—when your system shuts down. You might feel numb, disconnected, fatigued, or emotionally flat. This is linked to the freeze response, where the body conserves energy because it feels helpless or unsafe.

For people with trauma histories or chronic stress, the window of tolerance can become narrow, meaning even small stressors push them into hyper- or hypoactivation.

The Role of Movement in Calming Anxiety

When anxiety feels trapped in the chest, I encourage clients to imagine that energy spreading outward through the arms and legs. Large, expansive movements—stretching your arms wide, walking briskly, or even shaking out your limbs—can help “move” the anxiety.

From a polyvagal perspective, introduced by Dr. Stephen Porges (2011), this makes sense. The body is designed to release stress through action:

• Fight response: Energy moves through the arms.

• Flight response: Energy moves through the legs.

However, many people freeze when they feel anxious, either panicking about their sensations or disconnecting from their bodies entirely. This freeze response traps the stress, making it feel even more overwhelming.

Uncoupling Thoughts from Body Sensations

One powerful way to manage anxiety is to uncouple the physical sensations from the thoughts that accompany them. No, this isn’t the Gwyneth Paltrow kind of “conscious uncoupling.” This is about shifting focus:

Instead of getting caught in the story—“What if this means something is wrong?”—bring attention directly to the raw sensations. Notice the tightness, the fluttering, the heat, without assigning meaning.

The sensations might still be uncomfortable, but without the mental narrative amplifying them, they often become more tolerable. Even brief moments of this kind of awareness can create space for calm.

Why Modern Life Makes Anxiety Worse

Our nervous systems are ancient. They evolved to help us survive threats like predators or natural disasters. But today’s “threats” are different: deadlines, social dynamics, financial stress, and constant digital stimulation.

Unlike animals, who shake off stress after a threat passes, humans tend to hold stress. Our sophisticated brains—capable of memory, imagination, and analysis—keep us stuck in loops. We ruminate, we worry, and we disconnect from our bodies.

Over time, this chronic activation of the stress response wears down the nervous system, making it harder to feel safe, even when we are.

The Good News: You Can Retrain Your Nervous System

The nervous system is remarkably adaptable. Just as it learned to respond to stress, it can learn to return to safety. This is the foundation of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, developed by Pat Ogden, Ph.D. (Ogden & Fisher, 2015), a body-based approach that helps clients:

• Regulate their nervous systems

• Release stored survival energy

• Heal from trauma

But it goes beyond just managing anxiety. Sensorimotor Psychotherapy also addresses attachment dynamics—the ways our early relationships shape how we connect with others and regulate emotions. Many patterns of anxiety, disconnection, or emotional overwhelm are rooted in these early relational experiences.

By integrating body awareness with attachment-focused therapy, clients can:

• Develop healthier relational patterns

• Rewire automatic stress responses

• Expand their window of tolerance

• Build resilience for lasting change

📚 Further Reading:

• Siegel, D. (1999). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are.

• Porges, S. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation.

• Ogden, P., & Fisher, J. (2015). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment.

• Lyon, I. SmartBody SmartMind™ Course (for more on nervous system regulation and releasing traumatic stress).

In the next post, I’ll share body-based tools you can start using right away to calm anxiety in the moment.