Oct 19, 2025
We often talk about trauma as a story, something that happened historically, something we remember- as if it is over. But trauma doesn’t just live in memory. It takes up residence in the body.
When someone has experienced prolonged stress, their nervous system can get caught in survival mode, shifting constantly between hyperarousal (fight or flight) and shutdown (freeze). Even when life becomes “safe,” the body might not get the message. Heart rate stays high. Muscles remain tense. Sleep feels light or restless.
As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk describes in The Body Keeps the Score, trauma isn’t about what happened, it’s about what continues to live inside us when the body never gets to complete its stress cycle.
When the body perceives danger, the amygdala fires like an alarm bell, alerting us to potential threat. The hippocampus, which helps us determine whether something is happening now or has already passed, can become less effective. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for logic and regulation, can temporarily shut down to conserve energy for survival.
This is why trauma survivors often describe feeling both “on edge” and “numb” as if the body and mind are operating on two different channels.
For many, endurance sports (like long-distance running, hiking, or cycling) become an unexpected way home to themselves. Not as a way to escape, but as a way to regulate. It’s not about competition. It’s about rhythm, breath, and repetition; the same elements that help a nervous system relearn safety.
Rhythmic, repetitive motion (think of footsteps or pedal strokes) sends cues of safety to the brain. The predictability allows the body to settle, lowering stress hormones like cortisol and increasing serotonin and dopamine, chemicals linked to calm and connection.
Trauma often makes people feel detached from their physical selves, as if their body is something that “happens to them.”
Through movement, survivors can begin to experience their body as an ally again; capable, responsive, trustworthy.
Endurance sports provide an environment where discomfort is chosen and managed, not imposed. Feeling fatigue, breathlessness, or muscle burn becomes a way to reclaim agency; to feel, endure, and complete what once felt impossible.
Exercise supports neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new connections. Repeated engagement in self-chosen, safe challenges helps the prefrontal cortex (our regulation centre) strengthen, while calming the amygdala’s overactivation. Over time, the brain learns that effort and calm can coexist.
During trauma, the mind lives in the past; during endurance training, the mind must be here, with the breath, the step, the heartbeat. That focused awareness offers brief but powerful experiences of safety and presence; moments when the nervous system can finally rest.
At VOX Mental Health, we help clients understand the body’s language, find safety in connection, and build tools for long-term nervous system regulation.
If you’ve experienced trauma, and you’re beginning to notice your body’s signals (the tension, the restlessness, the need to move), we would be honoured to support you. Whether your healing involves movement, conversation, or stillness, we’ll help you find what works for you.
Reach out today at www.voxmentalhealth.com
