Somatic Memory: What Happens When We Suppress Emotions
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I’m sure you’ve heard the news:
(If you haven't - it's the title of a very popular book by Bessel van der Kolk.)
Everyone in my bubble seem to be talking about how unprocessed emotions stay in our bodies. But what's the science behind this?
What does it actually mean to store emotions in our bodies? Can our bodies actually hold onto emotions? And where exactly are they stored?
What are Emotions, Really?
Let's start by explaining what emotions are. This will help make what follows easier to understand.
Emotions are complex responses to internal or external triggers. These triggers lead to physical sensations, which we perceive as pleasant or unpleasant.
What we identify as an emotion, like anger, originates from the sum of physical sensations in our body. We evaluate these sensations based on our situation and past experiences. Our brain then makes sense of all this information. In the end, we mentally label our experience as, for example, "I'm angry" or "I'm sad."
“Emotions interpret the world for us. They have a signal function, telling us about our internal states as they are affected by input from the outside. Emotions are responses to present stimuli as filtered through the memory of past experience, and they anticipate the future based on our perception of the past.” - Gabor Mate
Emotions have a big job:
They prompt us to react quickly to our environment, which increases our chances of success and survival.
They increase the likelihood that we will take an important and potentially life-saving action. When you are angry, you are likely to confront the source of your irritation. When you experience fear, you are more likely to flee the threat. When you feel love, you might seek out a partner.
Emotions also help us interact in social environments. When you interact with other people, it is important to give clues to help them understand how you are feeling. Understanding others' emotions tells us how to respond in a situation.
Also, emotions help us make decisions. Researchers found that people with certain brain damage, which affects their emotions, struggle to make good decisions.
Emotions are essential to our survival, so it's logical that failing to process and express them can have negative effects.
What Happens When We Experience Emotions: The Emotional Process
A trigger happens, and our brain processes the information.
If it decides a response is needed, it sends signals throughout our body, making us consciously aware of what's happening so we can understand it and take action. All this happens in a matter of nanoseconds.emotions are not just abstract feelings or ideas of the mind; they are physiological events and trigger real physiological responses in our bodies.
We often tear up when we are sad, breathe faster when we are afraid, or have a lump in our throat when we are angry.
Every emotion is in response to an experience:
For example, anger is a response to, e.g., boundary violations, injustice, or unmet needs. Grief and sadness are part of the body’s natural response to, e.g., loss, disappointment, or unmet emotional needs.
The nervous system perceives all these experiences as a threat, and so it prompts the body into a stress response, i.e., fight or flight. (If the experience is too overwhelming emotionally, we might shift into a freeze state.)
This triggers a cascade of processes in the body:
The release of adrenaline and cortisol triggers a range of physical changes that help us respond to a situation. Our heart rate increases, breathing intensifies, digestion slows down, and many other major bodily changes occur to mobilize and react.
Activation goes up in specific parts of our brains (e.g., amygdala) and down in other parts (e.g., prefrontal cortex).
Muscles tighten, especially in the shoulders, jaw, face, arms, hands, and fascia harden as a protective mechanism.
The mobilized energy is meant to be released:
Ideally, people express anger healthily through physical activity and verbal boundary setting (e.g. yelling). Sadness and grief are at best expressed through crying, shaking, and toning.
These physical processes allow the nervous system to return to baseline and shift back into a parasympathetic state (rest and digest).
When an emotion is processed, your body completes the mobilization response cycle, and the physiological activation is metabolized.
When uninhibited, emotions work like an energy wave. Their nature is to arise and pass away pretty quickly, like all natural phenomena:
Something triggers an emotional reaction
Activation rises in our body
It reaches a peak
We complete the activation impulse
The activation comes back down to baseline
This entire physiological process is an important part of our evolution and is hardwired into our nervous system.
Watch this video of researchers chasing a polar bear to study how animals respond to stressful experiences.
Alternatively, watch your dog being stressed at the vet and “shake it off” afterwards.
Mapping Emotions
Researchers conducted a study in 2013 to investigate how different emotions are experienced in various parts of the body.
They asked participants to color areas on blank body outlines where they felt increased or decreased activity during specific emotions. The results revealed distinct patterns:
Happiness is felt throughout the entire body.
Love is experienced in the chest and head.
Anger is concentrated in the upper body, especially the chest and arms.
Fear is sensed in the chest area.
Sadness is associated with sensations in the chest and head.
These findings suggest that each emotion triggers specific bodily sensations, which are consistent across different cultures.
"Perception of these emotion-triggered bodily changes may play a key role in generating consciously felt emotions."
Disrupting the Emotional Flow
In contrast to animals or infants, adult humans have learned to suppress or ignore emotions. We do this either unconsciously, which is also known as repression, or consciously by distracting ourselves and shifting our focus.
Because emotions are transmitted from the brain to the body and vice versa, we actually have developed the ability to keep the emotional experience running in the mind, which we call cognitive bypassing. We stay stuck in the stories, unable to drop into our bodies and allow the sensations to be felt and the impulses to be completed.
When people suppress or avoid emotions, the physical impulses get disrupted, and the body doesn’t return to its baseline.
Instead, the HPA axis remains active, keeping cortisol levels elevated and the nervous system in a constant state of low-grade stress, preventing relaxation or recovery.
This means we have open emotional stress cycles constantly running that narrow our window of tolerance, making our nervous system less resilient and flexible. Imagine these open loops as open tabs in a browser, slowing down the whole system.
It’s like pressing the gas pedal while the car is in park—the energy (gas) has nowhere to go.
The big problem is: our bodies aren’t meant to live in an adrenalized state of constant inner charge. They're meant to have the short-term charge to burst free and then regulate and find safety.
When we push down and block something that naturally wants to come out, express, or release, we create internal havoc. It's like a pipe that is blocked and all the water comes back, flooding the system.
In the short term, our body's ability to suppress emotions is smart. It lets us pause emotional processing during stress and return to it later.
In the long term, however, unprocessed emotions (i.e., stress) create wear and tear on the body. We call this allostatic load, or in other words, you accumulate emotional debt.
Emotional debt refers to the accumulation of unresolved emotions, unmet emotional needs, or unprocessed emotional experiences that weigh on a person over time, much like financial debt accrues interest.
Emotional debt often also builds up slowly, through small, unaddressed emotional wounds or patterns, like consistently avoiding conflict, ignoring personal boundaries or chronic people pleasing. In addition, major unresolved events, such as trauma, loss, or rejection, can contribute significantly to this debt.
Avoidance strategies, like overworking, numbing behaviors (e.g., overeating, drinking, or excessive screen time), or denial, often delay addressing emotions but increase the debt.
Emotional debt is like a pressure cooker: eventually, the pressure needs a release.
This often happens via physical and mental health issues because the build-up of allostatic load impacts the body downstream (these are the same effects of chronic stress):
Muscle tension:
Unprocessed emotional stress energies work like contractions in the body, which can lead to decreased oxygen flow into certain areas of the body, resulting in muscle tension and pain.
The body and its muscles stay contracted, which can lead to chronic tightness in areas like the jaw, shoulders, or back, and can lead to chronic pain or postural issues.
Digestive issues:
Under chronic stress, the parasympathetic nervous system (rest-and-digest response) is suppressed, slowing digestion, reducing saliva and enzyme production, and impairing gut motility.
Increased internal stress disrupts the gut-brain connection, causing stomach pain, acid reflux, or irritable bowel syndrome.
Immune suppression:
Elevated cortisol over time weakens the immune system, making the body more vulnerable to illness, inflammation, and autoimmune disease.
Hormonal imbalances:
High cortisol levels negatively impact the production of thyroid hormones, serotonin, dopamine, reproductive hormones, insulin, and melatonin.
This can lead to fertility issues, sleep problems, slower metabolism, disrupted energy regulation, depression, addictions, weight gain, insulin resistance, irregular periods, and more.
Dysfunctional breathing patterns:
Shallow or constricted breathing is a common consequence of holding back emotions, particularly fear or sadness.
A dysregulated nervous system results in overbreathing, which leads to reduced oxygenation of the body and brain, which can also perpetuate stress and emotional disconnection.
Skin problems:
Compromised digestive and immune responses can lead to eczema, psoriasis, and dermatitis.
Anxiety and panic attacks:
Increased levels of sympathetic activation cause dysregulation of the nervous system and a smaller window of stress tolerance, which can lead to hyperarousal.
When we suppress our emotions, we disconnect from our bodies and end up being hyperactive in our minds.
Depression
Suppressing emotions can lead to a chronic freeze response, which can manifest as depressive symptoms over time.
When the Body Says No: Somatization
“Somatization implies a tendency to experience and communicate psychological distress in the form of somatic symptoms and to seek medical help for them.” - Z. J. Lipowski
Somatization is the word we use for the physical (or body) expression of stress and emotions through the mind-body connection.
We all somatise. In fact, 80% of physician visits are related to socio-emotional challenges, highlighting the significant connection between emotional repression and physical ailments. Somatic symptoms are very real.
Everyone experiences somatization (e.g. back pain when stressed), but, for some people, it gets in the way of everyday life and requires treatment.
With somatization, there are no underlying structural problems. The symptoms are also called TMS (tension myositis syndrome) or neuroplastic pain, pioneered by Dr. John Sarno and Dr. Howard Schubiner.
The theory of Tension Myositis Syndrome is that your mind creates pain symptoms in order to aid in the repression of subconscious thoughts and emotions.
A study in 2021 found that Pain Reprocessing Therapy, which is a psychological treatment that aims to retrain the brain to interpret pain signals differently, is an effective approach to managing and healing chronic pain.
When the Body Armors Itself
Alexander Lowen, the founder of Bioenergetics, extensively explored how suppressing emotions impacts the body. He believed that the body and mind are deeply interconnected, and emotional repression directly manifests in the body through muscular tension, postural imbalances, and chronic physical conditions.
Lowen argued that emotions are forms of energy that need to flow freely through the body. When emotions are suppressed—such as anger, fear, or sadness—this natural flow is disrupted, leading to energetic blockages. These blockages often result in muscular tension, pain, or rigidity in specific parts of the body.
He coined the term "body armor" to describe the chronic tension and rigidity that result from emotional suppression. This "armor" not only protects individuals from feeling overwhelming emotions but also limits their ability to experience joy, vitality, and connection.
Healing, he believed, comes from reconnecting with the body and allowing emotional energy to flow freely.
In relation to Lowen’s ideas, a study from 2015 investigated how sadness and depression are reflected in physical behaviors like posture, gaze, and body movements. Researchers found that people experiencing sadness or depression tended to have a slumped posture, downward gaze, and slower, less dynamic body movements. These physical expressions can reinforce negative emotional states, creating a cycle between emotional and physical experiences.
In simple terms, the way we carry our bodies—like slouching or avoiding eye contact—can mirror how we feel inside, and this connection between body and emotion can impact mental health.
What’s the Science Regarding the Effects of Suppressed Emotions?
Many studies show that suppressing emotions actually endangers your health and well-being, both physically and psychologically.
Emotional suppression (having a stiff upper lip or “sucking it up”) might decrease outward expressions of emotion but not the inner emotional experience.
In other words, suppression doesn’t make the emotion go away; it just stays inside your brain and nervous system, causing more pain.
Here is an overview of some of the studies that are out there:
One study found that suppressing emotions, especially in stressful situations, can have immediate and lasting effects on blood pressure responses. People who tried to hide or control their emotions showed a stronger blood pressure reaction to stress compared to those who expressed their emotions freely. These effects were seen whether the emotion was anxiety or anger. Overall, this suggests that trying too hard to suppress negative emotions can increase the body’s stress response, which has implications for managing stress and emotional health.
Another study looked at how trying to hold back anger affects the way people feel pain. The results showed that people who tried to suppress their anger while doing a frustrating task while being harassed felt more intense pain.
This study found that suppressing emotions can lead to increased aggression. Participants who were instructed to hide their reactions while watching disturbing scenes from the films "The Meaning of Life" and "Trainspotting" exhibited more aggressive behavior afterward compared to those who expressed their emotions freely. This suggests that bottling up emotions may heighten aggressive tendencies.
Another study highlights the link between emotional tendencies and immune function, showing that individuals with a more negative emotional style tend to have higher right-prefrontal brain activity. These individuals demonstrated a weaker immune response to a flu vaccine, suggesting that negative emotions can impair the body's ability to fight infections.
A study from 2018 found that those with PTSD symptoms were more likely to exhibit signs of temporomandibular disorders (tight jaw muscles and teeth grinding). This suggests a significant association between experiencing PTSD and developing jaw-related disorders, highlighting the interconnectedness of mental and physical health.
A study compared Emotional Awareness and Expression Training (EAET) and Relaxation Training (RT) for managing Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Both therapies improved anxiety, hostility, and quality of life, but EAET showed greater reductions in IBS symptom severity. The findings highlight the importance of addressing emotional factors in IBS treatment, emphasizing the role of emotional processing in alleviating physical symptoms.
The study "The Embodied Brain: Towards a Radical Embodied Cognitive Neuroscience" explores how our brain and body work together to shape our thoughts and behaviors. It suggests that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body's interactions with the world, challenging traditional views that separate mind and body.
Lastly, the book "Body Sense: The Science and Practice of Embodied Self-Awareness" by Alan Fogel explores how our physical sensations and internal bodily experiences play a vital role in emotional well-being, decision-making, and relationships. Fogel introduces the concept of embodied self-awareness (ESA), which refers to the ability to sense and connect with our internal bodily states in the present moment.
So Are Unprocessed Emotions Really Stored in the Body?
Your brain keeps the score, your body is the scorecard – you don’t feel things in your brain; you feel them in your body. – Dr. Lisa Feldman
Emotions are technically not stored anywhere. They are not substances that can be accumulated.
They are experienced as though they happen in the body and influence where our bodies hold tension, but technically, they happen in the brain.
“Emotions are stored in the body" really means that we reinforce neural pathways that connect certain emotional states with specific parts of the body. These neural pathways in the brain and body get stronger/faster by repeated exposure and intensity.
They are our subjective sensations of patterns of neuronal firing in certain regions of the brain such as the limbic system, which causes reactions in the body via the ANS (→ stress hormones, breathing, muscle tone, ...). and so every emotion ends up being projected in the body, in large part, through the autonomic nervous system.
This means that emotions are signals communicated by neurotransmitters from the brain to the body.
The larger these neural pathways or the stronger the intensity of the reaction, the more we will respond and identify with those emotions.
So saying "emotions are stored in the body" is a shortcut to explain a more complex phenomenon by which the body holds tensions and felt experiences related to emotions stored in the brain.
It's not technically right to say that emotions are literally stored in the body, but it's a useful, if slightly inaccurate, metaphor for how emotions stored in the brain are experienced in the body and can be worked within the body.
However, there's small but growing evidence that memories (not only visual, explicit ones) are stored in most cells, not only in the brain, and research has found neuron cells all over the body. So our body remembers in a similar way to how our brain remembers.
But Aren’t Emotions and Stress Stored in Muscles?
Knowing what we know now, it all starts to make sense:
When we have open emotional stress cycles running, our brains will keep sending signals to parts of the body to activate and complete the impulse via muscle activation.
For example, the psoas is one major muscle that charges up to run away when in danger and also helps us bend to protect our belly organs.
Our shoulder and neck muscles get activated to protect our neck and spine.
Our jaw muscles tighten when we feel stressed, scared, or angry.
So, for example, having unprocessed fear in the brain can send messages to the body to hold tension in the psoas muscles and shoulders to be ready to rapidly get into a position that protects vital parts of the body for survival (shoulders up to protect neck and psoas for bending over to protect belly organs).
Beyond Western Science
If we expand our horizon, we find at least two more approaches to storing emotions in the body:
In Hindu philosophy, the chakra system originated in India between 1500 and 500 BC and can be thought of as our body's subtle energy system. There are seven chakras, each with a unique meaning about our body, life, breath, mind, intellect, and overall sense of well-being. It is believed that each chakra has a shadow emotion associated with it, and certain asanas can help release the energy that might be trapped in the body as a result of stored emotional pain.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) holds a holistic view of health and believes that emotions are intrinsically linked to the body’s organs, energy (Qi), and meridians. There is no separation between the mind and body, and treating the body can help resolve emotional issues and vice versa: When emotions are suppressed or unresolved, they cause stagnation in the flow of Qi, which can manifest as physical symptoms. In TCM, emotional health is achieved when the organ systems are in balance. Emotional imbalances are treated through a combination of acupuncture, herbal medicine, diet, and lifestyle changes.
A study found that combining chakra acupuncture with TCM's 5-Phase theory offers a holistic approach to understanding and treating the interplay between emotions, personality, and physical health.
There we have it:
Emotions are AND aren’t stored in the body at the same time.
I will forever be amazed at the miracle that is the human body.
In one of my next essays, I will explore the reasons why we suppress emotions in the first place and how we can process buffered emotions and complete open stress cycles.
PS: If you want to learn how to consciously feel and process your emotions, check out my training "Emotional Alchemy".
💌 Get your bi-weekly dose of science-based insights for better mental, emotional and physical health using the power of the breath and the nervous system.
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