The woman in front of me at the café keeps rolling her shoulders. Every few seconds, she lifts them towards her ears, lets them drop, then presses her fingers into the back of her neck as if trying to erase something buried there. Her laptop is open, emails flashing, but her eyes are somewhere else. You can almost feel the knot between her shoulder blades from across the room.
The barista hands her a chamomile tea “for relaxation.” She smiles politely, then checks her phone again, jaw clenched. Her body is screaming one thing. Her mind is pretending nothing is wrong.
Psychology has a name for this silent argument between muscles and emotions.
When your body says what your mouth won’t
Some tensions feel physical but behave like unfinished conversations. The tight throat when you “swallow” your anger. The stone in the stomach before a difficult call you keep postponing. The nagging back pain that flares every Sunday night before work.
On paper, it looks like bad posture or too many hours on a chair. Under the skin, it’s often something far less visible: worry you never speak, grief you never touched, stress you learned to normalize. The body doesn’t forget what the mind avoids.
Psychologists see this every day in people who say “I’m fine” while their shoulders say “I’m exhausted.”
A study from Harvard Medical School has shown how chronic stress changes muscle tone, breathing, even digestion. Not just during a panic attack. Quietly, day after day. Muscles stay slightly contracted, like a car engine left idling all night.
Think of Mark, 38, who arrived in therapy for “mysterious chest tightness.” All his cardiac tests were normal. His doctor finally said, “Talk to a psychologist.” During sessions, a pattern appeared. The chest pressure spiked every time he had to “stay calm” for his family, listen to everyone else’s anger, and never show his own. His ribcage was basically holding its breath.
Once he started naming his fear of disappointing people, the chest symptoms gradually loosened. The body relaxed as the story found words.
This connection is not mystical. It’s biology. Emotional arousal — fear, rage, shame, deep sadness — activates the same nervous system that contracts your muscles when you hear a sudden noise. When emotions are felt, expressed, and metabolized, the body completes that cycle and returns to baseline.
When they are blocked, minimized, or shamed away, the nervous system never fully switches off. Muscles stay partially in “brace mode.” The tension becomes chronic, like a background app draining a phone battery. *Unresolved emotions turn into postures, habits, and pains that feel physical but speak a psychological language.*
**Your body is not betraying you. It’s repeating a message you didn’t get to say out loud.**
How to start listening to what your tension is trying to tell you
One simple method used by many therapists is a short “body scan with a question.” You take two minutes, sit or lie down, and slowly move your attention from your forehead to your toes. The goal isn’t relaxation. It’s curiosity. Where does it pull, sting, squeeze, burn, or feel like armor.
Then you ask that specific spot one question: “If you could talk, what would you say right now?” You don’t overthink. You just write the first sentence that appears. “I’m scared.” “I’m tired of pretending.” “I miss her.”
This small ritual doesn’t fix years of tension. It does something else: it reconnects the bodily sensation with its emotional twin, the way a child finally finds the parent’s hand in a crowd.
Many people try to fight chronic tension with willpower alone. They stretch harder. Book another massage. Change their pillow. All useful things, of course. Yet the tension returns as soon as the old email tone pings, or that one person’s name appears on the screen.
We’ve all been there, that moment when your neck locks during a “nice family dinner” that is anything but relaxed. The common mistake is thinking, “My body is malfunctioning,” instead of, “My body is reacting to something real.” Let’s be honest: nobody really does this every single day.
Pausing to ask, “What emotion am I not allowing right now?” feels awkward at first. It also prevents your nervous system from living forever on red alert.
Psychologist and trauma specialist Bessel van der Kolk famously wrote, “The body keeps the score.” In plain language, he means our tissues remember what our minds try to erase.
- Notice your signature tension zone (neck, jaw, gut, lower back).
- Track when it spikes: which situations, which people, which thoughts.
- Label the feeling in one word: anger, fear, sadness, shame, loneliness.
- Allow a tiny expression: a sigh, a few tears, a firm “no,” a written rant.
- Support the body at the same time: warm shower, gentle stretch, slower breathing.
**You don’t have to choose between “it’s all in my head” and “it’s purely physical.”** The body and mind are on the same team, even when they argue.
Letting tension guide you instead of quietly exhausting you
Once you start seeing chronic tension as emotional information, your relationship with your own body shifts. The tight jaw before a meeting isn’t just annoying anymore. It becomes a signal: “Something about this situation feels unsafe or unfair to me.” The pressure in your stomach before visiting a certain friend might reveal that you leave every coffee date feeling drained, not nourished.
This doesn’t mean you must dissect every ache. Some pain is just pain. Some tension is just from carrying heavy bags. Yet there is a quiet power in asking, from time to time, “Is this tightness trying to protect me from something I’m not acknowledging?” That question alone can soften the grip.
Your body is often faster than your thoughts at noticing what hurts emotionally. Listening is a skill, not a talent. It grows with practice, mistakes, and a bit of courage.
| Key point | Detail | Value for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Chronic tension often mirrors unresolved emotions | Muscles stay in subtle “brace mode” when emotional cycles are incomplete | Helps reframe pain as meaningful feedback, not just a random defect |
| Simple daily check-ins connect body and feelings | Two-minute body scan plus the question “If you could talk, what would you say?” | Offers a concrete, doable tool for self-understanding and relief |
| Listening to tension can guide life choices | Tracking when and where tension spikes reveals stressful patterns and relationships | Gives readers clues for setting boundaries and making healthier decisions |
FAQ:
- Question 1How do I know if my tension is emotional or just physical strain?Start by checking context. If your pain appears or worsens in specific situations, conversations, or thoughts, there’s likely an emotional layer. Physical strain tends to match clear efforts (sports, lifting, long sitting), while emotional tension often shows up around certain people, places, or memories.
- Question 2Can unresolved emotions really cause long-term health problems?Chronic stress and emotional suppression are linked to sleep issues, digestive problems, headaches, and higher inflammation. They don’t “cause everything,” but they can lower your body’s resilience and make existing conditions harder to manage.
- Question 3What if I start listening to my body and feel overwhelmed?Go slowly. You don’t have to unlock everything at once. Focus on one area, one feeling, a few minutes at a time. If strong memories or distress appear, that’s a good moment to involve a therapist or trusted professional to hold the process with you.
- Question 4Do I have to revisit past trauma to release tension?Not always. Sometimes what the body needs is safer present-moment habits: more rest, clearer boundaries, less self-criticism. For deeper trauma, working gently with a trauma-informed therapist helps so you’re not reliving pain, but processing it with support.
- Question 5What’s one small thing I can start today?Tonight, before bed, place a hand on the most tense part of your body and simply say, in your own words, “I see you. I’m listening.” Breathe a little slower for one minute. It sounds almost too simple, yet this kind of soft attention is often where real change begins.
