When people think about PTSD treatment, they typically imagine working through traumatic memories in therapy sessions. But what if the most important work happens not in your thoughts, but in your body? Research consistently shows that trauma doesn’t just live in your mind—it becomes encoded in your physical body through chronic pain, digestive problems, cardiovascular symptoms, and other somatic complaints. A comprehensive review found that PTSD is associated with a preponderance of cardiovascular, respiratory, musculoskeletal, neurological, and gastrointestinal disorders across multiple studies (Gupta, 2013). Among combat veterans with PTSD, these physical symptoms translate into significantly more sick calls, missed workdays, and lower overall health ratings—even after accounting for physical injuries sustained during deployment (Hoge et al., 2007). Understanding why your body holds onto trauma, and how to address these physical manifestations, can be the key to finding relief that talk therapy alone may not provide.
Your Nervous System Stuck on High Alert
The connection between PTSD and physical symptoms isn’t psychological—it’s neurological. Your autonomic nervous system, which controls everything from heart rate to digestion to immune function, can become dysregulated after trauma.
Think of your nervous system like a car alarm. After a traumatic event, the alarm gets triggered and sometimes never fully turns off. Even when the danger has passed, your body continues operating as if the threat is still present.
This chronic activation has real physical consequences. Your heart rate stays elevated. Your muscles remain tense, preparing for action that never comes. Your digestive system shuts down because your body prioritizes immediate survival over long-term functions like digestion.
The symptoms feel completely unrelated to trauma. Many people with PTSD develop chronic headaches, back pain, stomach problems, or chest tightness without realizing these symptoms stem from their nervous system’s inability to return to a relaxed state. You might visit multiple specialists trying to find the cause of your physical pain, only to be told “everything looks normal” on medical tests.
Research on veterans returning from Iraq demonstrated this pattern clearly—those with PTSD reported significantly higher rates of physical symptoms across all body systems, independent of whether they’d been physically injured during deployment (Hoge et al., 2007). The trauma itself, not physical wounds, was driving their somatic complaints.
Common Physical Manifestations of PTSD
Understanding which physical symptoms commonly appear with PTSD can help you recognize patterns you might have dismissed as unrelated medical problems.
Chronic pain shows up frequently. Muscle and joint pain, particularly in the neck, shoulders, and back, affects many people with PTSD. This isn’t “just tension”—it’s your muscles maintaining a defensive posture long after the threat has ended. Some people develop fibromyalgia or other chronic pain conditions that resist traditional pain management approaches.
Cardiovascular symptoms create real concern. Racing heart, chest tightness, difficulty breathing, or feeling like you’re having a heart attack are common PTSD symptoms. Your cardiovascular system remains in a heightened state of arousal, preparing for fight-or-flight responses that your conscious mind isn’t even aware of.
Gastrointestinal problems disrupt daily life. Irritable bowel syndrome, chronic nausea, stomach pain, or changes in appetite frequently accompany PTSD. When your nervous system prioritizes survival, it essentially shuts down non-essential functions like normal digestion. Over time, this pattern can become chronic.
Neurological symptoms cause confusion. Unexplained dizziness, tinnitus (ringing in ears), blurry vision, or numbness can all be manifestations of nervous system dysregulation. These “medically unexplained” symptoms often lead to extensive testing that reveals no physical cause (Gupta, 2013).
Sleep disturbances compound everything else. Difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or feeling rested even after sleeping are hallmark PTSD symptoms. Your body can’t relax enough to enter deep, restorative sleep stages when your nervous system believes you’re still in danger.
At Minnesota Ketamine & Wellness Institute, our team recognizes these patterns because we’ve seen them countless times in our own healthcare careers. With over 40 years of combined experience in mental health and anesthesia services, including work in level-one trauma centers, we understand how trauma manifests physically in the body.
Why Traditional Talk Therapy Sometimes Isn’t Enough
Many people with PTSD work diligently in therapy, processing their traumatic memories and developing coping strategies, yet their physical symptoms persist. This isn’t because therapy failed—it’s because trauma affects brain regions that don’t respond to cognitive interventions alone.
Trauma gets stored below conscious awareness. The parts of your brain that hold traumatic memories—the amygdala, brainstem, and other subcortical structures—don’t process language the way your thinking brain does. You can intellectually understand your trauma without your body getting the message that it’s safe now.
Your body has its own memory system. Procedural memory, which includes automatic physical responses, operates independently from the narrative memory you access in talk therapy. Your muscles, nervous system, and organs remember the trauma through physical patterns and responses.
Cognitive approaches work top-down. Traditional therapies target your prefrontal cortex, the thinking and reasoning part of your brain. But in PTSD, the problem often lies in the more primitive brain structures that control automatic survival responses. Trying to think your way out of physical symptoms is like trying to lower your blood pressure through willpower alone.
Bottom-up approaches complement cognitive work. Treatments that start with the body and physical sensations—working from the brainstem and limbic system upward—can access trauma in ways that purely cognitive approaches cannot. This doesn’t replace traditional therapy; it enhances it by addressing the full spectrum of how trauma affects you.
Rebecca Hanson, one of our therapists at Minnesota Ketamine & Wellness Institute, brings 25 years of experience in mind-body wellness and is certified as a Somatic Psychedelic Facilitator. Her expertise in somatic interventions reflects our commitment to addressing trauma comprehensively, recognizing that healing requires integration of both psychological and physiological processes.
The Science Behind Body-Based Trauma Treatment
Research increasingly supports the effectiveness of trauma treatments that incorporate body awareness and physical sensation. These approaches don’t ignore psychology—they add a crucial physical dimension.
Somatic interventions show significant results. A randomized controlled trial of body-oriented trauma therapy demonstrated large effect sizes for PTSD symptom reduction, with Cohen’s d values ranging from 0.94 to 1.26—considered strong clinical effects (Brom et al., 2017). These treatments work by helping people change the interoceptive and proprioceptive sensations associated with traumatic experiences.
The mechanism involves nervous system regulation. Body-based approaches help your autonomic nervous system complete defensive responses that got interrupted during the trauma. When a deer escapes a predator, it physically shakes and trembles to discharge the accumulated stress activation. Humans often suppress these natural discharge mechanisms, leaving the activation trapped in the body.
Interoception becomes a therapeutic tool. Interoception—your ability to sense internal bodily states—often becomes impaired with PTSD. You might feel disconnected from your body or overwhelmed by physical sensations. Body-oriented treatments help you rebuild this connection gradually, learning to tolerate and eventually regulate physical sensations.
Integration happens across brain systems. As you work with physical sensations and bodily responses, you’re essentially helping different parts of your brain communicate more effectively. The survival-oriented brainstem regions can finally send “all clear” signals to the higher reasoning centers.
Results vary by individual, and the effectiveness of any treatment approach depends on multiple factors including trauma type, symptom severity, and personal circumstances. However, the growing evidence base suggests that addressing the body’s role in trauma can significantly enhance recovery outcomes.
Recognizing When Your Body Needs Attention
How do you know if your physical symptoms are trauma-related rather than purely medical? Several patterns can provide clues.
Medical tests come back normal. You’ve seen multiple specialists for your chronic pain, digestive issues, or cardiovascular symptoms. Extensive testing reveals no physical cause, yet your symptoms persist and significantly impact your quality of life.
Symptoms worsen with stress or reminders. Your back pain intensifies when you encounter situations similar to your trauma. Your stomach problems flare during anniversary dates. Physical symptoms seem connected to emotional states in ways that don’t make logical sense.
Standard treatments provide limited relief. Pain medications, digestive aids, or other symptom-focused treatments help temporarily but don’t resolve the underlying problem. You keep cycling through different doctors and treatments without lasting improvement.
Physical symptoms appeared after trauma. You didn’t have chronic pain, digestive problems, or other somatic complaints before your traumatic experience. The timing suggests a connection even if medical professionals haven’t identified one.
Your body feels foreign or threatening. Beyond specific symptoms, you feel disconnected from your physical body, or alternatively, hyperaware of every sensation in an anxiety-provoking way. You’ve lost trust in your body’s signals.
These patterns don’t mean your symptoms are “all in your head”—they mean your nervous system dysregulation is manifesting through physical channels. The symptoms are real, even when medical tests don’t reveal structural damage.
Integrating Physical Awareness Into Recovery
Addressing the body’s role in PTSD doesn’t require abandoning other treatment approaches. Integration works best for most people.
Start where you feel safe. If you’re disconnected from your body or overwhelmed by physical sensations, gentle reconnection matters more than intensity. Simple practices like noticing your feet on the ground or your breath moving in and out can begin rebuilding body awareness.
Movement helps nervous system regulation. Physical activity—whether yoga, walking, swimming, or dancing—can help discharge some of the accumulated stress activation. The key is finding movement that feels manageable rather than overwhelming or retraumatizing.
Body-based therapy complements other treatments. Approaches that incorporate attention to physical sensations, breathing patterns, and bodily responses can work alongside medication management, traditional psychotherapy, or other interventions. At Minnesota Ketamine & Wellness Institute, we offer integrated care that addresses both psychological and somatic aspects of trauma.
Professional guidance supports safe exploration. Working with practitioners trained in somatic approaches helps you navigate physical sensations without becoming overwhelmed. They can help you titrate—working with tolerable amounts of sensation and gradually expanding your capacity.
Expect the process to take time. Your body learned these patterns over months or years of living with dysregulated threat responses. Retraining your nervous system to recognize safety requires patience and consistency, not willpower.
Our team’s diverse backgrounds—from trauma center nursing to psychiatric mental health to somatic facilitation—allow us to support this integrative approach. We understand that effective PTSD treatment often requires addressing multiple dimensions of how trauma affects you.
What Body-Oriented Treatment Actually Looks Like
If you’re considering treatment that addresses physical symptoms, understanding what to expect can reduce apprehension.
Sessions focus on present-moment awareness. Rather than extensively discussing traumatic events, much of the work involves noticing what’s happening in your body right now. A therapist might ask “Where do you feel that in your body?” or “What sensations are you aware of?”
Small shifts matter more than dramatic breakthroughs. Body-oriented work often progresses through subtle changes—a slight softening in your shoulders, a deeper breath, a sense of your feet connecting more firmly with the ground. These small shifts accumulate over time into significant nervous system changes.
You maintain control throughout. Unlike exposure therapy that requires facing traumatic memories directly, somatic approaches let you work at the edges of your comfort zone. You can slow down, pause, or redirect attention whenever sensations become too intense.
Physical responses are welcomed, not suppressed. If you start shaking, tearing up, or experiencing other spontaneous physical responses during sessions, these aren’t problems to fix—they’re signs your nervous system is beginning to discharge stored activation. Trained practitioners help you work with these responses safely.
Integration happens between sessions. The work continues as your nervous system processes and integrates changes. You might notice shifts in how you sleep, move through your day, or respond to stress between formal treatment sessions.
For some people, medications that work on different neural pathways can support this body-based work by helping create the neurological conditions for healing. Our medical director, Dr. Sujit Varma, brings 26 years of psychiatric experience to understanding how pharmacological and somatic approaches can work together effectively.
The Role of Ketamine in Addressing Somatic Symptoms
Research on ketamine for PTSD increasingly recognizes its effects on both psychological and physical symptoms. Understanding how this fits into a comprehensive approach matters.
Ketamine affects multiple symptom domains. Beyond its rapid effects on mood and suicidal ideation, ketamine appears to influence physical symptoms associated with PTSD, including chronic pain. Its mechanism of action on NMDA receptors and promotion of neuroplasticity may help reset dysregulated nervous system patterns.
The dissociative quality can facilitate body work. Ketamine’s ability to create temporary distance from ordinary consciousness may help people access and process somatic sensations that feel too threatening in normal awareness states. This can complement somatic therapy by creating a window for nervous system reorganization.
Integration remains crucial. Ketamine sessions create opportunities for change, but lasting transformation requires integration work—processing and anchoring insights and sensations into your daily life. This is why we emphasize ketamine-assisted psychotherapy rather than infusions alone.
Results vary significantly. Some people experience dramatic relief of physical symptoms after ketamine treatment, while others notice more gradual changes. Individual factors including trauma type, chronicity, and overall health all influence outcomes. We work with each person to understand their specific response patterns.
Our founder, Christy Hatcher, brings 20 years of experience as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist from a level-one trauma center, ensuring that ketamine administration occurs with deep understanding of both its medical and therapeutic potentials.
Breaking the Mind-Body Split
Perhaps the most important shift in understanding PTSD involves moving beyond the artificial separation between psychological and physical symptoms.
Your body and mind aren’t separate systems. The nervous system that controls your heartbeat, digestion, and muscle tension is the same system processing emotions and trauma memories. What affects one necessarily affects the other.
Physical symptoms deserve the same attention as psychological ones. Chronic pain, digestive problems, and cardiovascular symptoms aren’t secondary issues to address after you’ve “fixed” the psychological trauma. They’re primary manifestations of how trauma lives in your whole organism.
Healing happens through integration. The most effective PTSD treatment often involves working simultaneously with thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. This integrated approach recognizes you as a whole person rather than a collection of separate symptoms.
Your body holds wisdom about your trauma. Physical sensations, movement impulses, and somatic responses contain important information about unprocessed aspects of your trauma. Learning to listen to and work with your body’s signals becomes part of the healing process.
In the Twin Cities area, many people seek treatment for PTSD focusing only on the psychological symptoms, not realizing that their chronic pain, stomach problems, or other physical complaints might be trauma-related. This partial approach can leave significant suffering unaddressed.
Taking Action This Week
If you’re recognizing that physical symptoms may be connected to your trauma, here are three steps you can take immediately:
- Start tracking symptom patterns. Keep a simple log noting when physical symptoms intensify and what was happening (stressful situations, trauma reminders, sleep quality). Over two weeks, patterns often emerge showing connections between psychological state and physical symptoms. This information helps treatment providers understand your specific manifestation of trauma.
- Practice one body awareness exercise daily. Choose something simple: feeling your feet on the ground for 30 seconds, noticing your breath without changing it, or doing a brief body scan. The goal isn’t relaxation—it’s beginning to rebuild connection with physical sensations in a non-threatening way. Start with just 30-60 seconds if longer feels overwhelming.
- Schedule a consultation to discuss integrative treatment. If you’ve been working on PTSD symptoms through traditional approaches but physical symptoms persist, consider discussing body-oriented or integrative options. At Minnesota Ketamine & Wellness Institute, we offer free consultations where you can explore whether our approach—which combines ketamine therapy, medication management, psychotherapy, and somatic awareness—might address both psychological and physical aspects of trauma. Call (612) 394-8717 to schedule.
Understanding Insurance and Treatment Access
Physical symptoms from PTSD often lead to extensive medical testing and specialist visits, creating significant healthcare costs. Understanding coverage for comprehensive trauma treatment can help you make informed decisions.
Mental health parity laws apply. Federal requirements mean that insurance coverage for mental health conditions, including PTSD, must be comparable to coverage for physical conditions. This extends to evidence-based treatments that address both psychological and somatic symptoms.
We accept multiple insurance plans. Minnesota Ketamine & Wellness Institute works with Aetna, BlueCross BlueShield, United Healthcare, Medica, Humana, HealthPartners, and Minnesota Medical Assistance. Coverage varies by specific policy and service type, but many plans now recognize ketamine therapy and integrative approaches as appropriate PTSD treatments.
Flexible scheduling supports your life. We understand that dealing with PTSD symptoms—both psychological and physical—already disrupts your daily functioning. Our Maple Grove clinic offers evening and weekend appointments, and we provide telehealth options for medication management, reducing the logistical barriers to accessing care.
HSA and FSA funds can be used. Health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts typically cover mental health treatment, including innovative approaches that address somatic symptoms. This provides another payment option if insurance coverage is limited.
Free consultations eliminate initial cost barriers. Before committing to treatment, you can discuss your specific symptom pattern—including physical manifestations—in a free consultation. This allows you to understand potential treatment approaches and expected costs before making financial commitments.
Your Body’s Capacity for Healing
The relationship between PTSD and physical symptoms can feel discouraging—as if trauma has hijacked both your mind and body. But understanding this connection actually opens pathways to more complete healing.
Your nervous system has remarkable plasticity. The same neurological systems that learned dysregulated responses after trauma can learn new, healthier patterns. The physical symptoms that developed over time can improve as your nervous system regains its ability to recognize safety and regulate appropriately.
Addressing somatic symptoms often improves psychological ones. When your body begins to release stored trauma activation and return to more balanced functioning, psychological symptoms frequently improve as well. The mind-body connection works in both directions.
You don’t have to choose between approaches. Effective PTSD treatment increasingly recognizes the value of integrating multiple modalities. You can work with a psychiatrist for medication management, engage in traditional psychotherapy, and incorporate body-based approaches—all as part of a comprehensive treatment plan.
Small changes in body awareness compound over time. Beginning to notice physical sensations, learning to regulate your nervous system through breath or movement, and gradually expanding your tolerance for body awareness creates cumulative benefits. What feels like minor progress early on builds toward significant shifts.
The people we work with at Minnesota Ketamine & Wellness Institute in Maple Grove often arrive having tried multiple treatments for their PTSD symptoms. Sometimes they’ve made progress with psychological symptoms but physical complaints persist. Other times, they’ve spent years addressing physical symptoms through medical channels without recognizing the trauma connection. Our integrative approach—drawing on our team’s diverse expertise in anesthesia, psychiatric nursing, psychotherapy, and somatic work—allows us to address both dimensions.
Moving Forward With Your Whole Self
PTSD treatment that acknowledges your body’s role in trauma doesn’t make recovery more complicated—it makes it more complete. Your physical symptoms aren’t obstacles to psychological healing; they’re valuable information about how trauma affected your whole organism.
When you work with practitioners who understand the mind-body connection in trauma, you’re not splitting your treatment between a therapist for psychological symptoms and doctors for physical ones. Instead, you’re working with an integrated team that recognizes these as different manifestations of the same nervous system dysregulation.
If chronic pain, digestive problems, cardiovascular symptoms, or other physical complaints have accompanied your PTSD symptoms, addressing these somatic manifestations as part of your treatment plan may be key to finding lasting relief. The body that learned to hold trauma can also learn to release it—but that requires treatment approaches that work with physical sensations, not just thoughts and memories.
At Minnesota Ketamine & Wellness Institute, our approach recognizes that you’re seeking relief not just from intrusive memories or emotional distress, but from the full range of ways trauma has impacted your life—including the chronic physical symptoms that limit your daily functioning. With our team’s combined expertise in trauma medicine, psychiatric care, and body-oriented therapy, we can support your whole-person recovery.
If you’re ready to explore treatment that addresses both the psychological and physical dimensions of PTSD, contact us at (612) 394-8717 to schedule a free consultation. We serve the Twin Cities metro area including Maple Grove, Minneapolis, and St. Paul with evening and weekend availability to accommodate your schedule.
References
Brom, D., Stokar, Y., Lawi, C., Nuriel-Porat, V., Ziv, Y., Lerner, K., & Ross, G. (2017). Somatic experiencing for posttraumatic stress disorder: A randomized controlled outcome study. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 30(3), 304-312. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5518443/
Gupta, M. A. (2013). Review of somatic symptoms in post-traumatic stress disorder. International Review of Psychiatry, 25(1), 86-99. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/09540261.2012.736367
Hoge, C. W., Terhakopian, A., Castro, C. A., Messer, S. C., & Engel, C. C. (2007). Association of posttraumatic stress disorder with somatic symptoms, health care visits, and absenteeism among Iraq war veterans. American Journal of Psychiatry, 164(1), 150-153. https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/ajp.2007.164.1.150