The Brain-Body Connection in Stress and Anxiety

Learn how to rebalance your nervous system naturally to improve mood, reduce anxiety, and increase overall well-being.

Our brains and bodies are inextricably intertwined by way of neural pathways throughout the nervous system. They share a common chemical language of neurotransmitters and hormones, constantly communicating with each other whether we know it or not. It has been said that thoughts are the language of the brain and feelings are the language of the body but it’s important to understand the interplay between the two that shapes our overall sense of well-being.

Most people don’t realize that our thinking influences how we feel and in turn, those feelings further influence how we think. Sometimes this process creates an incredibly powerful feedback loop that can keep us stuck in negative thought patterns, leaving us feeling anxious and stressed out. It may start with either a feeling or a thought but it’s often a feeling or sensation we aren’t even aware of inside the body that unknowingly kicks off this cascade of chemical events.

Let’s say there is tension in your shoulders from working too long, an increased heart rate from one too many cups of coffee, or even “butterflies” in your stomach when you see you have 100 unread emails. Your brain is paying close attention to these signals. This literal sense-making machine has evolved over a millennium to help keep you safe. To do that, the brain not only scans your environment for danger, it also plays a key role as the master interpreter of your senses. What transpires next is where the magic happens.

Within milliseconds and often without conscious awareness, your brain senses that feeling of tension, increased heart rate, or butterflies and starts to compare it with other times you felt this way. It’s looking for a match so it knows what to do and how to mobilize your nervous system for action if necessary. Suddenly that increased heart rate from your third cup of coffee is interpreted as danger and before you know it, your system is flooded with the stress hormone cortisol. You didn’t have to even think about it and now you are primed to run or even fight if you have to.

The challenge here is that it was actually the coffee (or the tension or the butterflies) that created this feeling, not a real threat. And now we feel anxious without realizing why. It’s important to understand that our brains have been hard-wired through evolution to pay more attention to the negative, even if that sometimes means overreacting to stimulus. After all, quickly registering and responding to threats helped to keep the species alive!

It’s a pretty good system – at least it used to be. However, in today’s fast-paced modern lifestyle of “always on” with social media/news at our fingertips, little separation between work and home life, and device notifications pinging endlessly, our nervous systems quickly become overwhelmed. When this happens, our brain often incorrectly interprets the bombardment of signals as a threat and quickly starts the chemical cascade. Once the stress hormones are released into the body, the brain again registers the change and begins to think thoughts equal to that stressful feeling. These thoughts then intensify our feelings and before you know it, the body is hijacked and pumping out even more chemicals to make you feel stressed and anxious. We’ve all been there.

In response, many of us attempt to employ a “top-down approach” by thinking our way out of it. We apply logic to the situation, hoping to banish the stress by convincing ourselves there is no apparent reason to feel this way. While I’m all for positive thinking and embracing a growth mindset to empower a state change, often this is not enough. By taking a “bottom-up approach”, starting first with the body to calm the nervous system, we can often stop this vicious cycle, or better yet, prevent it from happening in the first place.

What’s the first step you ask? Simply becoming aware of the brain-body connection, why it’s happening, and embracing the fact that you have some control over the process is half the battle! Consider checking in with yourself a couple of times throughout the day by paying close attention and asking yourself the following questions:

  1. How are you feeling? (happy, anxious, content, sad, irritated, etc.)
  2. Where do you feel it in your body? (heart, belly, throat, shoulders, head, etc.)
  3. What does it feel like? (constriction, opening, lightness, heaviness, flutter, etc.)
    Just acknowledge this without judgment and notice what happens once you check-in. The more in tune we are with our bodies and how we feel, the more present and peaceful we become.

Another great way to reduce stress is through the breath. Most people who know me will tell you that I’m a huge fan of the 4-7-8 breathing technique. This breathwork with ancient roots in pranayama or yogic traditions, was popularized by Integrative Medicine specialist, Dr. Andrew Weil, MD in 2015. It can be used when we feel anxious, to help with sleep, or better yet to proactively calm the nervous system. I practice this method faithfully and have noticed positive changes not only in how I feel but also in my ability to respond more thoughtfully during challenging situations.

By consistently implementing simple brain-body awareness techniques, breath work, meditation, or even mindful movements such as yoga and Tai Chi, we can relax and rebalance our nervous system naturally. As a result, we improve mood, reduce anxiety, and increase overall well-being. What’s not to like about that? Don’t just take my word for it, go ahead and give it a try yourself. You’ll be glad you did!

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