Understanding Trauma's Impact on Your Mind and Body

Embrace holistic methods to address and heal both mental and physical ailments.

• Many mental health issues stem from early trauma and chronic stress.

• Emotional pain often shows up in the body—as fatigue, gut issues, or chronic pain.

• Healing happens when we treat the mind and body together.

During Mental Health Awareness Month, I would like to address some common misconceptions. First and foremost, it is essential to remember that many of the conditions we treat in mental health do not arise out of nowhere—they are deeply rooted in early life experiences. With the adverse childhood events (ACEs) research, we now recognize that many mental and chronic physical illnesses originate from traumatic events and prolonged stress. This difficult yet powerful insight shows us that many of the conditions we treat in mental health—such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD—are not simply isolated brain dysfunctions. They are, in part, adaptive responses to early experiences of trauma and stress that affect the functioning of the whole being: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

These experiences leave their mark not only on memory but also on how a person understands the world, relates to others, and even quite literally inscribe themselves into the body. Chronic, unresolved emotional pain can becomes somatized—that is, it finds ways to express itself through the body. This may manifest as insomnia or fatigue, but also as migraines, panic attacks, anxiety, digestive disorders, and more. Often, people living with these symptoms don’t know that what they’re experiencing has deep roots in the past—and that there are, in fact, paths to healing.

The Mind-Body Connection: A Key to Understanding Mental Health

This invites us to broaden our perspective: mental health cannot and should not be understood or addressed in isolation from the body, the environment, or the past. In my clinical practice, this becomes especially evident when I observe the connection between the digestive system and emotional states. The gut-brain axis, also known as the second brain, reveals how gut health is closely linked to mental balance. I have noticed, time and again, that where there is mental distress, there is often digestive dysfunction. When we restore digestive health, we provide a solid pillar for improving mental well-being. Digestion requires the nervous system to be in a parasympathetic state—that is, a state of rest, safety, and connection—precisely the state that trauma tends to disrupt.

When I first began my practice, I treated people who came in with intractable physical pain. As they relaxed on the table, they would speak to me about their lives, and it became clear that there was a connection between the source of their physical pain and the content of their words. Over the years, I have also come to understand the immense power of somatic, energetic, and body-based therapies. These work along a wide spectrum—from gradual trauma exposure to activating internal pathways of self-regulation. These tools allow us to access layers of experience that don't fall within the realm of language but can be felt, inhabited, and, over time, transformed.

Many ancient cultures intuitively understand something that modern neuroscience is only beginning to confirm true health is not merely the absence of illness, but a deep state of balance between body and mind. For these cultures, learning to regulate the body—particularly the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which governs functions like breathing, heart rate, and the stress response—is an essential part of spiritual life and medicine.

Healing Beyond Symptoms: A Personalized and Holistic Path

It is difficult to find a balance between practices that must be evidence-based and what is instinctively felt. For many years, while living in the jungle in Mexico and learning from indigenous science and medicine, I did not concern myself with the limitations of biomedicine or the constant need for scientific validation. What I was living was deeply human reconnecting with pain, the Earth, and with others. The Western mental health system favors the standardized and quantifiable, often overlooking something I consider just as important: the individualized therapeutic relationship—the one-on-one connection, where each body and each person has a unique way of healing. Healing must be done holistically, aiming to see the full picture rather than just the symptoms.

In the context of this awareness month, I invite you to view mental health as a holistic process. This doesn’t mean rejecting science, but rather expanding our understanding of what counts as knowledge and what can lead us to genuine healing. One of the core goals of our work is to help people understand that many of their health symptoms may be linked to past experiences of stress or trauma. This is not a reductionist view, but rather a recognition that the body holds memory, and that many physical manifestations were once adaptive survival responses.

Exploring these connections takes time, but it can transform the way you understand what you’re going through. Maybe you’ve asked yourself why something always seems off, why a new symptom appears as soon as one resolve, or why there are physical discomforts that no one can fully explain. That feeling of being out of sync or not finding clear answers is more common than you might think.

So, I want to tell you something important: you are not broken, and you are not alone. Many of these symptoms begin to make sense when we start to see the body and mind as an interconnected system, rather than separate parts. From a holistic perspective, instead of seeking isolated solutions for each symptom, we look at the full picture—your story, your body, your emotions.

This act of integration is healing.

Leslie Korn, Ph.D., - Website - Blog -