Your brain is always looking out for you, working tirelessly to keep you safe. When emotional distress feels overwhelming, whether it’s sadness, shame, unresolved past experiences, or persistent stress, your brain finds a way to protect you. Instead of letting you sit with those difficult emotions, it redirects your attention elsewhere. Maybe it shows up as migraines, back pain, digestive issues, anxiety, or insomnia. Maybe it manifests as tension in your shoulders, skin flare-ups, or unexplained sensitivities. Your brain isn’t malfunctioning, its actually just doing it’s job by adapting. Unfortunately, sometimes this adaptation is a maladaptation and your brain misinterprets sensory information as danger causing it to send you danger signals: pain or anxiety.

Pain and anxiety, or it’s short-term cousin fear, are not inherently bad. If you sprain your ankle, pain is helpful as it tells you that you need to rest your ankle. Likewise, if you see a snail on a hiking trail, your brain immediately perceives a potential threat, triggering a surge of adrenaline that heightens your awareness and prepares your body to react and jump back. Sometimes, however, our brain learns to react with pain or anxiety to neutral sensory information or emotional stress and puts your nervous system into a constant state of high alert.