7 Common Problems You Didn’t Realise Were Caused by Stress (And What to Do About It)
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
You might think you’re just “not coping as well as you should,” sickly, anxious, unmotivated, or even outright incompetent. But, what many people uncover is that a number of erroneous symptoms appear when your nervous system is simply responding to perceived danger. What would it mean to you if it could be reversed? That’s what many of my clients are grateful to discover.
In clinic I often see many of the symptoms people try to fix with willpower, productivity hacks, or mindset work are actually physiological. When the nervous system is dysregulated, it changes how you think, feel, behave, and even how your body functions.
Understanding this can be the difference between constantly fighting your way through quicksand and finally feeling like you again.
What is Stress?
Your nervous system is constantly scanning for safety or threat. This process happens automatically, outside of conscious awareness. Neuroscientist Stephen Porges, who developed Polyvagal Theory, describes this as a moment-to-moment evaluation of whether you are safe or in danger.
When your system is not processing any major perceived threats, you feel calm but alert, focused, emotionally steady and able to respond rather than react. When it’s dysregulated, your body can get stuck in survival states, even when your life looks “fine” from the outside.
Following are some covert ways stress manifests which you probably have never connected to stress.
1. You Experience Physical Symptoms Without Clear Cause
This might include:
Headaches
Digestive issues
Muscle tension (which can lead to joint issues or chronic injury)
Premature aging
Digestive distress
Difficulty swallowing
Broken sleep
Fatigue
Hormonal imbalances
As Dr Gabor Maté writes, “The body says no when we cannot.”
The body often expresses what has not been processed emotionally or physiologically, but it’s not just “woo-woo.” For example, neck issues are often a manifestation of the body’s reflexive protection strategy. Our jaws are a vulnerable point, if we are struck by a predator there we will often be knocked out. If we sense danger we reflexively contract the Jaw muscles and posterior neck muscles, attempting to spare ourselves being incapacitated and devoured, leading to pain tension and dysfunction.
Another example is that premature aging is accelerated because collagen has to compete with stress hormone cortisol for available Vitamin C, therefore chronic stress degrades our skin elasticity.
2. You Overthink Everything
Your mind loops, analysing conversations, decisions, and future scenarios excessively.
This is your nervous system attempting to create control and predictability in a state that feels unsafe. Many people understand this state is uncomfortable, but the truth is it costs you way more than your precious moments in the long run. The sad truth is we can’t engineer all the risk out of life 100%, and if we attempted it we would exclude ourselves from alot of rewards. Low risk = low reward. For example we may not send that text or say yes to the date that could lead to the love of your life because of fear of rejection. In addition, being preoccupied with the outcome and fearful sends powerful biological messages to other’s ‘animal bodies’ as in the instinctive, perceptive part which analyses tone, vocal stress, scent and body language etc. Others sense our hesitation as weakness, disinterest or incompetence, excluding us from opportunities and empowerment in connections. On top of everything overthinking degrades your energy to rise to challenges. Overthinking is actually devastating.
Overthinking is usually the byproduct of suppressed emotional pain from the past that we are sensitised against feeling again (because we never came to a place of feeling resolved or invulnerable to the past painful experience.) A huge portion of my sessions involve age recession and working with unprocessed pain to free people from overthinking anxiety and excessive risk-aversion.
3. You Struggle to Relax
Even when you stop, your body is vigilant.
You might notice:
tension in your shoulders or jaw
difficulty sitting still
guilt when resting
The body has learned that slowing down is not safe. Every living thing needs rest. When your system gets stuck in vigilance it has a cascade of negative impacts on your health.
4. Small Tasks Feel Overwhelming
Things that should be simple feel disproportionately difficult.
You may procrastinate, avoid, or feel paralysed.
This is often a sign your system has moved into burn-out or a freeze, aka: ‘dorsal vagal’ state.
In the case of burn-out, extra support is often required, such as lifestyle and nutritional adjustments. Many of those is freeze also benefit from private sessions guided by a practitioner to first escalate back into fight/flight, in a held container, to then come back to baseline.
5. Your Breathing Is Shallow or Tight
Your breath may sit high in your chest or feel restricted.
Breathing patterns both reflect and reinforce nervous system state. When breath is shallow, the body receives signals that something is wrong.
6. You Feel Wired but Exhausted
You’re tired, but you can’t properly rest.
You may:
feel alert late at night
struggle to switch off your thoughts
wake up feeling unrefreshed
This often reflects a system stuck in a low-grade stress response, where cortisol remains elevated.
7. You Feel Emotionally Reactive or Numb
You may swing between:
feeling easily triggered or overwhelmed
feeling flat, disconnected, or shut down
Both are signs of a nervous system trying to protect you.
Why This Happens
Nervous system dysregulation can develop from:
chronic stress
unresolved emotional experiences
ongoing pressure without recovery
high-functioning lifestyles that override body signals
dysfunctional breathing patterns
Many high achievers I see become very skilled at pushing through, but not at coming back to baseline.
Over time, the system forgets how to feel safe.
The Cost of Ignoring It
When dysregulation is left unaddressed, it can contribute to:
burnout
anxiety and low mood
chronic health issues
relationship strain and inability to empathise or be vulnerable with others
loss of clarity and direction
Many of the high-achieving people I see say they ‘lose themselves’ and their function or freedom when the body carries too much, for too long.
How to Begin Regulating Your Nervous System
The key that practitioners on the forefront of stress resilience are now teaching is this:
While mindset is important you cannot only think your way into regulation. Stress is a bodily response, You can accelerate your results when you mindfully work with the body as well as the mind and emotions. Leveraging somatic and regulating exercises can send a message to your body that you are safe. This is why I studied holistic Kinesiology and complementary modalities like Breathwork to complement the emotional work that makes up the majority of my practice.
Here are four simple, evidence-based tools you can practice right now..
Before Getting Started
Before practice simply scan your body and note your energy, mood and stress out of ten.
1. The Physiological Sigh
This is one of the fastest ways to reduce stress in the moment ( maybe skip this if you experience anxiety from focussing on your breathing.)
Research highlighted by Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman shows that this breathing pattern helps rapidly lower stress by improving carbon dioxide and oxygen balance.
How to do it:
inhale through the nose
take a second short inhale on top
slowly exhale through the mouth while sighing ‘’ahhhh.’’
Repeat 2 to 5 times.
This can quickly down-regulate the nervous system without requiring long meditation practices.
2. Coherence Breathing
Inhale into the lower ribs and abdomen through the nose for a count of five and out the nose for five, focus on making the breath smooth, gentle, consistent gradual. Repeat for five minutes.
3.Orienting to Safety (Non-Breath Tool)
For some people, focusing on the breath can feel activating rather than calming. In these cases, external awareness is often more effective.
Try this:
look around your environment slowly
notice 5 things you can see
4 things you can feel
3 things you can hear
Let your eyes move gently. Take your time.
This practice signals to the nervous system that you are safe in your surroundings.
It shifts you out of internal overwhelm and back into present-moment awareness.
4. Sing or Tone
Why this works
The vibration of your voice stimulates the vagus nerve, which sends messages of calm and safety in the body
Sound naturally lengthens your exhale, helping shift you out of stress
It provides a safe way to release and process emotion without needing to “figure it out”
How to do it
Sit comfortably or lie down
Pick any song to compliment your mood or choose to work with tones. (see below)
Inhale gently as you exhale, make a soft humming or vowel sound (mmm, oh, ah)
Keep the sound slow, steady, and unforced
Feel the vibration in your chest, throat, or face
Continue for 1–3 minutes
Let the sound carry your breath rather than trying to control it.
Adjust the sound depending on how you feel
If you feel anxious or overwhelmed
Use a low, slow hum. Keep your tone soft and steady, Focus on long, extended sounds
If you feel flat, stuck, or low energy
Use a slightly higher pitch. Add gentle variation or melody. Let the sound be a little more expressive
If you feel emotional or need release
Let your sound change naturally. Allow sighs, tone shifts, or more volume. Follow what your body wants to express.
If you want to feel grounded and safe
Keep a steady, repetitive tone. Place a hand on your chest while humming. Focus on the vibration in your body
Let yourself go. This isn’t about singing well or worrying how you sound.
Closing Snapshot
Scan your body again and note your energy, mood and stress out of ten, compare this to when you started. What gets measured gets mastered. The overwhelming feedback from using practices like these is that it reduces stress, and boosts energy and mood, aids people to be their best, improves productivity, creativity, clarity and self confidence.
A Simple Daily Reset
Once or up to three times per day:
Pause for 1–2 minutes and evaluate your stress, mood and energy out of 10.
Practice the physiological sigh 3-5 times
2 mins coherence breathing
Orient to your environment
Put on a song and belt it out
Re-evaluate your stress, mood and energy out of 10.
Consistency matters more than intensity.
Small, repeated signals of safety begin to retrain the system over time.
When to Seek Support
If you’ve been feeling this way for months or years, your system may need more than self-guided tools. This is where deeper professionally supported work becomes important.
Regulation is about more than calming down. I love guiding people to resolve their bodies' default reactions through a variety of tools like Aromatherapy, tapping, counselling, breathwork nutrition and more. If you recognised yourself in this, it just means your wonderful body has been trying to protect you and it’s time to connect with it to unwind.
With the right support, your nervous system can learn a new way of being. One that includes calm, clarity, and capacity.
Work With Me
I help people to regulate their nervous systems, resolve stress and emotional patterns, and reconnect with a sense of calm and direction.
If you’re ready to feel like yourself again, you can:
attend an upcoming Breathwork event or Learn Functional Breathing
Register for a free 15 minute telehealth to explore what support might look like for you
Yours in Health and Happiness
E xx
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