How the Body Keeps the Score in Your Work Life
Broken Lego figure depicting how stress directly impacts the body.
Written by Steven Urban and Kat Cox
In 2014, Bessel Van Der Kolk released his book The Body Keeps the Score. In it, he argued that trauma was more than something that happens in our brains. Instead, according to Van Der Kolk, our bodies use traumatic experiences to train us to see danger at every turn. This expectation of danger can cause damage to our internal organs, nervous systems, muscles, bones, immune systems, and entire bodies through inflammation and anxiety.
While psychologists, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists have expressed skepticism about his theory, noting that they believe the brain still controls these responses in the body, the book and the theories in it have had widespread appeal. Millions of people have used the text as a catalyst to try to feel their feelings physically in order to address them.
As a consulting managing director and executive coach with over two decades of experience, I’ve seen first-hand how constant stress can take a toll on the body. I’ve developed ways to teach my clients to recognize where they feel negative emotions in their body and how this recognition can help them address issues as they arise, before they take a toll. I’ve also been able to teach clients to recognize and maximize positive bodily feelings to make them better workers.
Learn more about how the body keeps the score in our daily work lives and how you can use this knowledge to prevent chronic stress or negative feelings from sabotaging your ability to focus and thrive.
Fight, Flight, or Freeze in Your Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
Often in our work, especially in knowledge-based professions, we champion our brains and how they work. Team members are praised for their problem-solving skills, their ability to think through issues, and their ability to focus on work to complete tasks. We rarely talk about how good they are at listening to their guts or expressing their emotions. But these are important aspects of successful careers. I ask my clients: “When you listen to parts of your body other than your brain, what are they telling you?”
When I talk to my clients about issues they’re having at work, I often ask where they feel the problem. For example, one client told me that she dreaded a task she had to complete every month and when she thought about it, she would feel a pit opening in her stomach. Another client told me that interactions with another colleague would leave him feeling hot-headed, literally warm to the touch in his face because he was so angry.
These bodily sensations are important indicators that something is wrong. The anger and heat my client felt over interactions with his coworker was telling him that his boundaries or values were being violated. Moreover, it was telling him that it was time to speak up and address the issue. With my help, he was able to identify the communication breakdowns that occurred with his colleague and proactively mend them.
The woman who felt the pit in her stomach and dreaded the repetitive task was also facing a value violation. The task was meaningless to her and the method of completing it was opaque. She was able to discuss the issue with her manager and find a tool that would automate the process, leaving her free to do work she found valuable while still completing the task for the team.
Feeling Joy in Our Bodies
The body can also let us know when it’s time to celebrate. Feeling a weight taken off your shoulders is one example of when something is going right. There’s also the pleasure of feeling a little bit sore in your muscles after a hard day’s physical labor or when you’re tired (in a good way) from exerting yourself by using your brain to its fullest to learn something new.
Moreover, these feelings can tell us how we want to be treated. How do you feel when your supervisor tells you that you did a good job? Do you feel radiant and glowing? Or do you feel embarrassed and red in the face? Some people feel proud and happy when they’re called out publicly for good performance. Others feel embarrassed by public admiration and would prefer quieter, more humble tokens of appreciation.
The physical sensations of our bodies can guide us to find joy in our work and our lives. When we listen to these pleasant feelings, we can find more ways to incorporate what brought them to us into our work.
Your Body Will Address Your Stress If You Don’t
If you don’t listen to your body, it will tell you when it’s had enough. I know this from experience. Working too much and not giving myself a rest drove me to burnout. This awful experience reached a head when my body shut down entirely through a panic attack that lasted hours and scared me.
You’ve probably experienced physical problems from stress, like not being able to sleep or having racing thoughts. People who experience chronic stress also face a higher risk of stroke or heart attack, elevated cholesterol levels, and depression and anxiety. The fact is: you have to listen to your body when it tells you something quietly or it will shout until you hear it.
Listening to Your Body is an Important Aspect of Success
We learn from a young age to listen to our bodies: when we’re hungry, we should eat; when we’re tired, we should sleep. In the corporate world, we have to learn to listen to other signals: when our stomachs hurt from anxiety, we need to find what boundary is being violated; when we feel our shoulders loosening and our smiles beaming, we need to identify the source and get more of it.
In my coaching, I help my clients learn to identify their physical indicators of both positive and negative issues. Once we’ve named a feeling, we can find its source, and from there, work out what needs to change to reduce or increase its impact.
Book an appointment with Build Your Alliance to help you learn how to incorporate the mind-body connection into your daily work life. We’ll help you avoid burnout, maximize joy, and be more productive by leveraging your body’s feelings to work with your brain.