Somatic Therapy for Anxiety and Overwhelm: How Body-Based Work Can Help

You know why you feel anxious. You’ve thought about it, talked about it, maybe read three books on it and spent hundreds on different therapies and modalities. And still, your chest tightens before a hard conversation, your stomach drops when your phone buzzes, you freeze before initiating sex, or you feel like you’re bracing for something you can’t name all the time.

If that’s you, nothing is wrong with you. Anxiety isn’t only a thought. It’s also something your body experiences.

Anxiety and overwhelm often live in sensation before they show up as a clear thought or awareness of what's happening beyond "I feel anxious." 

You might notice:

• tension in your jaw, shoulders, neck or belly
• a tight or fluttery chest, or shallow breathing
• restlessness, or a need to keep moving or keep busy
• feeling wired and tired at the same time
• numbness, spacing out or feeling shut down
• a sense of bracing, even when nothing is “wrong”

These are all ways your nervous system responds to stress or threat. Sometimes that response is useful. Sometimes it keeps running long after it’s needed, because the body has learned that staying on guard feels safer. And sometimes we just can't seem to figure out why it's happening or what we're responding to. 

This is where somatic therapy can support you.

Somatic therapy brings the body into the conversation. 

Rather than only talking about what you feel, we notice how it shows up: sensation, breath, tension, impulse and movement. We get curious about what your body is doing and what it might need.

That might look like:

• noticing what happens in your body as you talk about something stressful
• breath and grounding practices that help you orient to the present
• gentle movement, or small shifts in posture
• exploring where you feel safe, where you feel tense, and what changes when you slow down
• reflecting afterwards on how this connects to your daily life

The aim isn’t to force yourself to calm down or to find the “right” way to feel. It’s to develop more awareness, more choice, and more capacity to be with what’s happening as it happens, which is often what people mean when they talk about nervous system regulation.

Many people find this kind of work helps them feel more settled and more in tune with themselves. Everyone’s experience is different, and there are no guarantees.

Approaches like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and other talk therapies focus largely on thoughts, beliefs and behaviours. They can be very helpful, and they’re well-researched for many people with anxiety.

Somatic therapy starts from a different place: present-moment experience in the body. Often it’s less about changing a thought and more about noticing what happens underneath it, so we can stay with the body process and uncover more information about what the body's holding around the story. Think of it like reading between the lines, or the footnotes in a story.

In somatic therapy, the mind and body aren’t in competition. Some people use both, either together or at different times. If you want the longer version, I’ve written about somatic therapy vs talk therapy in more detail.

Here’s a small somatic practice for grounding you can try anywhere. Take it at your own pace, and skip or stop any part that doesn’t feel right.

1. Feel your support. Notice where your body meets the chair, floor or bed. Let yourself be held by it, just for a moment.
2. Find your feet. Press them gently into the floor. Notice the temperature, texture and pressure.
3. Look around. Let your eyes wander slowly and name a few things you can see. This helps your system orient to where you actually are.
4. Lengthen your exhale. Breathe in through your nose, then let the breath out slowly, a little longer than the inhale. There’s no right number of counts, just a gentle softening.
5. Check in. Ask, “What am I noticing in my body now?” It might be more or less ease, tension, no change, or something else. All of that is useful information.

If the practice brings up anything uncomfortable, you’re always allowed to stop, open your eyes, move, or shift your attention to something neutral.

Yes. I work with clients online across Australia and in person in Sydney. 

Online sessions follow the same approach: conversation, noticing, breath, grounding and gentle movement, all guided over video. Many people find it easier to feel settled in their own space, with their own chair, blanket or pet nearby. 

Touch is never part of somatic therapy sessions, and you stay in charge of your pace the whole way through.

Somatic therapy can sit alongside other support, but it isn’t a replacement for medical care or for treatment from a psychologist, psychiatrist or GP. 

If you’re experiencing persistent or severe anxiety, panic, or thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out to a health professional or a crisis service. In Australia, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14. If you’re in immediate danger, call 000.

I offer somatic therapy for individuals and couples, online across Australia and in person in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. There’s no set sequence of exercises. We start with what’s happening for you and go from there.

Not sure whether somatic therapy is right for you? A free 10-minute alignment call is a no-pressure way to ask questions and see if it feels like a fit.

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