How Anxiety Shows Up in the Body and What It’s Trying to Tell You

Have you ever felt anxious but couldn’t find the words for it?

Maybe your chest tightens for no reason, your stomach feels twisted, or you just can’t shake that “on edge” feeling. In the Rio Grande Valley, we often call it nervios, a word passed down by parents and abuelos to describe what we feel when our body is stressed. But nervios isn’t just “in your head.” It’s your nervous system trying to get your attention.

The Body Keeps the Story

Anxiety is more than racing thoughts, it’s a full-body experience. When your brain senses danger (real or imagined), your nervous system releases adrenaline and cortisol. Your heart beats faster, your breathing gets shallow, and your muscles tighten. This response helped our ancestors survive, but when it stays “on” too long, we start to feel stuck; restless, irritable, or physically drained.

In therapy, we often talk about the mind-body connection. Your emotions have physical roots.

• Headaches or jaw pain? Your body might be holding tension from unspoken worry.

• Stomach issues (empacho, nausea, appetite changes)? That’s often the gut-brain axis reacting to stress.

• Tired all the time? That can be the “crash” after being in fight-or-flight too long.

When your body feels unsafe, it sends signals. Not to punish you, but to protect you.

“Nervios” Has a Story Too

In South Texas and across Latinx families, nervios often becomes a catch-all for emotional distress, anxiety, grief, exhaustion, even trauma. Many of us grew up hearing “échale ganas,” “no te preocupes tanto,” or “it’s just stress.” But what those phrases sometimes miss is that nervios is real.It’s the body saying, “I’m overwhelmed.”

Therapy helps translate those body messages. Instead of ignoring your nervios, you start to listen to it. What if your body isn’t betraying you, it’s trying to guide you back to balance?

Somatic Awareness: Listening Without Judgment

At Sage Healing Counseling Services in McAllen and Edinburg, we use somatic (body-based) approaches to help clients notice what their bodies are saying. This might include:

• Grounding: Noticing the feel of your feet on the floor or the temperature of your surroundings.

• Breathwork: Learning to breathe in ways that calm your vagus nerve and shift you from panic to presence.

• Body mapping: Identifying where you feel emotion in your body and what sensations come up.

This isn’t about “fixing” symptoms, it’s about rebuilding a relationship with your body so you can respond instead of react.

What Therapy Can Help You Discover

Through somatic therapy and mindfulness, clients often uncover deeper truths beneath anxiety:

• “I’ve been in survival mode for years.”

• “My body never got to feel safe.”

• “I thought I was lazy, but I was just exhausted.”

As you start to understand the body’s language, you can begin to meet yourself with compassion. Therapy helps you regulate your nervous system, not by suppressing emotion but by learning that safety can be felt again.

A Gentle Reflection

When was the last time you checked in with your body, not to judge it, but to listen? You might try asking yourself:

“If my body could talk right now, what would it say?”

Maybe it needs rest. Maybe it needs to cry. Maybe it just wants to be noticed.

Healing Starts Here in the 956

If anxiety has been showing up as tension, headaches, or nervios, you’re not alone. Therapy can help you understand what your body’s been holding and how to find calm again.

At Sage Healing Counseling Services, we provide bilingual, trauma-informed therapy throughout the Rio Grande Valley, including McAllen, Edinburg, Mission, and online across Texas.

Healing in the body is healing in the soul.You don’t have to keep holding it all alone.