When Stress Returns – Listening to the body

In summer 2025 I spent two months away from my employed work – one spent on a bucket list adventure around America, and another recovering from surgery. I expected to feel renewed, recharged, and ready to return for whatever September had in store for me, but as my return date drew closer, I couldn’t help but notice something else creeping back in. My chest would tighten, my sleep grew restless, and I carried a nervous energy about me that I couldn’t quite name, nor shake off.

It wasn’t until the night before that it hit me: it was stress, returning to my body.

For two months, I had been my truest self. Free from deadlines, demands, and the need to put on that “chatty, outgoing” mask. Free from navigating multiple personalities, reading the emotional temperature of every room, or carrying the invisible weight of keeping things calm.

For two months I had simply been resting – reading, getting out for walks in nature, concerts, binging TV shows and being surrounded by people who genuinely love me. I had slowed down enough to hear my body’s natural rhythm, and in doing so, it reminded me what being calm and at peace really felt like.

But the body remembers stress. Cannon writes in Van der Kolks – The Body Keeps the Score, that, “our bodies are the texts that carry the memories.” So even after such a long period of rest, the nervous system can anticipate old patterns the moment we step back into familiar environments. Stress lives not only in the mind, but in the tightening of the jaw, the shallow breath, the racing heart.

Stress isn’t inherently bad; it’s our body’s way of preparing us for challenge. But when stress becomes chronic, unacknowledged, or unprocessed, it can weigh on us. Porges’ Polyvagal Theory describes our nervous system as constantly scanning for safety or threat. In places such as a work environment where we must juggle multiple demands, contain our true emotions, or remain “switched on,” the body often shifts into survival mode, even without any obvious danger.

This is why returning from a holiday, or a long period of time off can feel so jarring. The body, having been accustomed to calm, braces for impact. It remembers what it’s like to endure, to hold tension, to perform.

One of the greatest acts of self-care I encourage the people I work with is to simply check in with ourselves. To ask: How is my body feeling right now? (tight, heavy, restless) What is my breathing like? (shallow, held, open) What does my nervous system need? (movement, stillness, connection) Even pausing for these small reflections can interrupt automatic stress patterns and bring our awareness back into the present moment.

When stress re-enters, our task is not to banish it, but to reset it. Any form of movement, breathwork, getting out in nature, enforcing boundaries – all supports this. Dr. Peter Levine, describes stress release as allowing the body to “complete” what it couldn’t at the time – to finish the movement or expression it had to suppress when stress first occurred. When we let ourselves move, breathe, shake, or sigh, we are literally completing the stress cycle.

My two months away reminded me of something vital: that we are not made only for doing, performing, or producing. We are made for being. For allowing ourselves to rest, to listen, to soften. And when we return to spaces that ask more of us, we carry with us the wisdom of our bodies, noticing when stress begins to build, and choosing to reset before it overwhelms us.

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Stress will return, just as it did for me. But if we learn to listen to our nervous system, we can meet it with awareness, compassion, and care.

Claire.