How Somatic Therapy Helps Ease Anxiety from the Inside Out

When we talk about anxiety, we tend to focus on the effect it has on our mind—the overthinking, the what-ifs, the mental exhaustion. But anxiety doesn’t just happen in your mind. It also shows up in your body—sometimes in ways that are subtle, and other times in ways that feel impossible to ignore.

You might notice your shoulders always creeping up toward your ears. Maybe your chest feels tight even when nothing’s “wrong,” or you find yourself wired but exhausted at the same time. That’s not all in your head. That’s your nervous system speaking.

Somatic therapy is an approach that helps you listen—and gives anxiety a new context. It becomes something to understand and work with from the inside out, not just something to manage.

Person sitting cross-legged in a meditative pose on a wooden deck at sunrise, with sunlight streaming through palm trees in the background.

What Somatic Therapy Is (And Why It Matters)

“Somatic” simply means “of the body.” Somatic therapy is a body-based approach that helps you explore the connection between your physical experience and your emotional world. It’s grounded in the understanding that anxiety isn’t just a psychological issue—it’s also a physiological one.

In other words, anxiety doesn’t just affect what you think. It affects how you feel, breathe, move, and exist in your body. Somatic therapy helps you work with anxiety—not against it.

One specific approach I often integrate is called Somatic Experiencing®, which focuses on helping your nervous system come out of survival mode and return to a more regulated, steady place. It’s gentle, trauma-informed, and deeply supportive for folks who’ve tried other forms of therapy but still feel stuck in cycles of overwhelm.

How Anxiety Shows Up in the Body

Anxiety activates your stress response—what’s often called fight, flight, or freeze. This might look like:

  • Feeling tense or on edge

  • Holding your breath without realizing it

  • A racing heart or knot in your stomach

  • Restlessness, agitation, or zoning out

  • Trouble sleeping or unwinding, even when you’re tired

When these symptoms becomes chronic, they can start to feel like your default. You might find yourself constantly scanning for what’s next, struggling to feel safe in your body, or swinging between pushing through and burning out.

Somatic therapy helps shift this pattern—slowly, safely, and at your own pace.

What Does Somatic Therapy Actually Look Like?

Somatic sessions tend to move at a slower, more intentional pace. Instead of diving straight into talking, we might start by checking in with your body—what sensations are present, what feels tense or calm, what your breath is doing. From there, we explore with curiosity and presence.

You might be guided to notice where you feel something in your body and track how that sensation shifts. We might try a simple grounding practice, like orienting to your environment or moving your body in a way that feels supportive. And we always go at a pace that feels manageable for your system—no forcing, no pushing through.

It’s not about analyzing everything (which our minds tend to do when we’re feeling anxious). It’s about gently creating more capacity in your nervous system so you can start to feel a little more settled, a little more at home in your body.

How Somatic Therapy Can Help

In somatic therapy, we’d explore how anxiety lives in your body and what it’s trying to communicate. Somatic therapy isn’t about fixing or forcing anything—it’s about noticing, honoring, and gently supporting change through reorganization of your nervous system.

Some of what we might focus on includes:

  • Building awareness of your body’s cues and patterns

  • Practicing grounding and regulation tools that work with your nervous system

  • Creating space to complete stress responses that may have gotten stuck in flight, flight, or freeze.

  • Developing a stronger sense of internal safety and agency

The goal isn’t to make anxiety disappear—it’s to help you feel more resourced, connected, and able to respond to it differently.

Start Somatic Therapy for Anxiety in California or Arizona

It can be frustrating when you’ve already tried the breathing exercises, the mindset shifts, or the thought-stopping techniques, and nothing seems to stick. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong—it just might mean your body is still holding on to something it hasn’t had the safety, space or support to release.

If this approach resonates with you, I’d love to help you explore it further. You can learn more about what working together looks like by scheduling a free consultation where we can talk about whether somatic therapy might be a good fit for you.

Therapy sessions are held in-person in Brea, CA or virtually across CA and AZ, so you can connect from wherever you are—whether that’s Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, or anywhere in between.

Additional Therapy Services at Adaptive Resolutions Counseling

In addition to Therapy for Anxiety, I offer support for a range of concerns including:

My approach integrates somatic therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and psychodynamic work to help you move beyond coping and toward real, lasting change. Contact me today to learn more about me and my therapeutic approach.

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Understanding Social Anxiety: What It Is, Why It Happens, and How to Find Relief

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