Why Stress Shows Up in the Body and What Breathwork Can Offer

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Why Stress Shows Up in the Body and What Breathwork Can Offer

You’ve thought about it. Talked about it. Perhaps you even understand exactly where the pattern began. But the next time something stressful happens, your body reacts before you have time to reason with it.

Your chest tightens. Your stomach drops. Your breathing becomes shallow. You struggle to speak clearly, retreat into yourself or start replaying everything in your mind.

Logically, you know you are safe. So why doesn’t your body seem to know it too?

Stress isn’t experienced only through our thoughts. It also shapes our breathing, muscle tension, energy and automatic reactions. 

When we experience something stressful, painful or overwhelming, the impact isn’t always held only as a story we remember. Psychiatrist and trauma researcher Dr Bessel van der Kolk helped popularise the understanding that difficult experiences can affect our bodies as well as our thoughts and emotions.

This doesn’t mean that every uncomfortable reaction is evidence of trauma. It means that some of our responses are automatic. The body can detect a familiar tone of voice, expression, situation or feeling and react as though it needs to protect us even when our rational mind knows we are safe.

You might tell yourself, “There’s nothing to worry about,” while your heart continues to race. You might know that your partner isn’t the person who hurt you in the past, yet still feel yourself preparing for rejection. You might understand that making one mistake at work won’t ruin your career, but your body responds as though the stakes are enormous.

Insight is only one part of change

Talking about our experiences can be somewhat helpful. It can allow us to understand what happened, recognise patterns and give language to feelings we may have carried alone.

Subconscious work like hypnotherapy can help us work with the beliefs, associations and automatic responses operating beneath conscious thought. It offers an opportunity to explore why certain patterns continue, even when we consciously want to change them and gradually rewire them.

But not everyone wants to talk about their feelings. Sometimes we don’t have the words. And sometimes we have already analysed an experience so thoroughly that we feel exhausted intellectually.

This is where working with the body can offer a different point of entry.

What does transformational breathwork offer?

Transformational breathwork invites us to move away from constantly asking, “Why am I feeling this?” and begin noticing, “What is happening inside me right now?”

During a facilitated breathwork session, you are guided to use a conscious connected breathing pattern, pay attention to sensations, emotions and changes within the body and let go.

You don’t need to arrive with a perfectly defined problem. You don’t need experience with meditation or any particular style of breathwork, and you won’t be expected to tell the group your personal story.

For people who spend much of their lives thinking, analysing, planning or looking after others, breathwork can provide a rare opportunity to pause and reconnect with themselves.

Every experience is different. Some people notice emotions or physical sensations. Others experience unexpected insights, a feeling of spaciousness or a sense of deep rest. There is no particular response you need to produce, and the aim isn’t to force a dramatic breakthrough.

It is an opportunity to become curious about what your body may be communicating and to experience yourself beyond your usual thoughts and patterns.

Experience group breathwork in Balmain

If you have spent a long time trying to understand your way into feeling better, you may be ready to experience a different approach.

Join Natalia, our in-house Clinical RTT Hypnotherapist and Breathwork Coach for a facilitated group breathwork session at Beattie Street Health Studio in Balmain:

Sunday, 11 October
4:00–5:30 pm

No previous breathwork experience is needed. You will be supported throughout the session, and you can participate without sharing your private experiences with the group.

Come as you are and give yourself the space to step out of your head, reconnect with your body and discover what becomes possible when you don’t have to think your way through everything.

Book your place in the group breathwork session. Book a one-to-one session with Natalia at Beattie Street Health Studio