The Science behind the Screams We Swallow: How Emotional Suppression Becomes Physical Distress

There are moments in life when emotions gather inside of us like unfinished sentences. Not spoken, not cried, not fully felt — just sitting there, vibrating beneath the skin. It is not simply sadness, not entirely grief, and not exactly anger. It is a kind of emotional pressure that feels like a scream trapped in the ribcage with nowhere to go. And when you’ve lived long enough with emotional interruption — emotional silencing — you begin to recognize this sensation immediately.

You may say, “I’m fine,” but your body is not fine. Your throat tightens when someone asks you to explain yourself. Your stomach knots when you try to move on too quickly. Your chest heats when you remember a conversation you never got to finish. Your body becomes the place where unfinished emotion fights to survive.

Many of us have been taught that regulating emotion means containing it — not expressing it, not disrupting harmony, not “making it a thing.” But if the emotion never completes its arc, the nervous system does not simply turn off. It stays activated, holding tension, waiting for the release it never received.

Emotion is not only psychological — it is biological.

WHEN THE MIND SHUTS DOWN EMOTION, THE BODY TAKES THE HIT

Neuroscience fundamentally shifted emotional theory when researchers demonstrated that emotions are not just thoughts or stories we tell ourselves — they are embodied physiological events. Emotion originates in brain–body circuitry; it has muscle, breath, temperature, heart rate, and biochemical effects (Damasio, 1994). When emotional expression is blocked — voluntarily or involuntarily — the sympathetic nervous system remains activated longer than it needs to, preparing for emotional completion that never arrives. What does that look like in everyday life? You might want to cry but cannot.You might have words, but they lodge in the throat.You might walk away from an argument looking calm, yet your hands shake and your chest burns. Emotion was meant to move upward and outward — through crying, speaking, vocalizing, exhaling, shaking, or physical gestures of self-soothing. That is its natural cycle. When emotional completion does not happen, the energy sinks into the body. So the scream does not disappear — it relocates.

Clients often tell me, “It feels like something is trying to get out.” That is not dramatic. That is neurobiological reality. The emotional activation is still present, but without a release mechanism, it becomes musculoskeletal tension, visceral discomfort, or autonomic dysregulation.

Your body listens to every emotion your voice was not allowed to express.

THE BODY REMEMBERS WHAT THE MIND LETS GO

When emotional processing is interrupted or minimized, the brain continues to signal threat even after the event has passed (van der Kolk, 2014). The amygdala holds onto emotional activation while the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for logic and meaning-making — believes the issue is resolved. This creates internal conflict: your mind thinks it has moved on, but your body has not.

That is why:

• You can intellectually know you’re over it

• While your stomach churns anytime you hear their name

• Or your chest gets tight when you are asked to “let it go”

The vagus nerve — the longest nerve connecting brainstem to heart, lungs, and digestive organs — carries emotional signals into the gut, diaphragm, and voice channel. According to Polyvagal Theory, the nervous system moves into immobilization, tension, freeze, or fawn states when emotional expression is blocked or unsafe (Porges, 2011). This is the root of the stuck emotional scream.

So you feel it here:

• Chest (tightness, burning, shallow breathing)

• Throat (pressure, constriction, difficulty speaking)

• Stomach (nausea, “knots,” appetite disturbance)

This is not symbolic. It is the body’s somatic language.

THE GUT–BRAIN SYSTEM: WHERE EMOTION AND DISCOMFORT COLLIDE

The gastrointestinal system is heavily innervated and sensitive to stress signals. It is sometimes called “the second brain” because it has millions of neurons communicating continuously with the central nervous system. Emotional stress disrupts gut motility, increases inflammation, alters digestion, and can manifest as reflux, stomach knots, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, or abdominal discomfort (Mayer & Tillisch, 2011; Wilms et al., 2023).

Chronic emotional tension also elevates cortisol, which increases gastric acid production and can exacerbate conditions like reflux or functional dyspepsia. Recent physiology research confirms that sustained stress states are strongly associated with digestive changes and gut dysregulation (Wilms et al., 2023). When emotional activation is unresolved, the body becomes the stage on which stress performs.

Your body is not dramatizing—it is metabolizing what the mind avoided.

WHEN SADNESS CAN’T BE SADNESS, IT BECOMES ANGER

Emotion is relational. When the environment is safe enough to allow sadness to emerge — through tears, shaking, vulnerability, storytelling, or lament — the body completes its emotional cycle and returns to equilibrium.

But when sadness is interrupted, the emotional system interprets the interruption as threat. Hurt without acknowledgment becomes anger. Not because the sadness changed, but because the nervous system has to mobilize to protect you.

This is the emotional space many people live in: where grief and anger coexist.

You might feel heavy and irritable at the same time.You might want comfort and isolation simultaneously.You might snap at something small while completely forgetting the original emotional trigger.

You are not unstable — your emotional completion was interrupted.

HOW SOMATIC RELEASE OPENS THE DOOR AGAIN

One of the simplest and most supported ways to complete emotional activation is intentional breathwork. A 2023 randomized-controlled clinical trial found that just five minutes of cyclic sighing — a structured breath pattern with a long exhale — reduced anxiety, decreased physiological arousal, and improved mood more effectively than mindfulness meditation alone (Balban et al., 2023). This is a powerful finding because it demonstrates that emotional regulation is not only cognitive — it is embodied.

Why does breath matter so much?

Because exhalation is the physiological mechanism by which the parasympathetic nervous system activates. When you release breath with sound — a sigh, hum, moan, or open-throat “ha” — the vagus nerve responds, and emotional energy has a pathway out.

Body shaking is also instinctive emotional completion. Animals discharge stress this way following threat: trembling, shaking, rhythmic movement, and vocalization. Humans override these impulses because they feel embarrassing or uncontrolled, but these movements are natural biological restoration.

Naming sensation rather than narrative — for example, “my chest feels heavy,” “my stomach feels tight,” or “my throat feels closed” — reestablishes communication between emotion and cognition without re-traumatizing or rehashing the story. Somatic therapy research consistently shows that describing sensation interrupts dissociation and facilitates emotional integration.

And sometimes emotional completion does not come through cognitive processing at all — it comes through surrender. Many people experience release during prayer, worship, lament, song, or embodied spiritual expression. Studies show that spiritual emotional release is associated with reduced physiological stress, improved emotional resilience, and increased mental well-being (Koenig et al., 2020; Khalaf et al., 2021). This is not superstition — it is nervous system regulation through meaning, connection, and embodied ritual.

Your body does not care whether the release comes through science or spirituality — it only cares that the emotional cycle completes.

FINAL REFLECTION

If you have lived with a scream stuck inside — a cry in your throat, a burning behind your ribs, a heaviness you cannot articulate — hear me:

You are not being dramatic.You are not too emotional.You are not “making something out of nothing.”

You are carrying emotional activation that never got permission to finish.

The goal is not to “be stronger” or “get over it.” The goal is to let the body finish what it started.

Healing is not forgetting. Healing is completion.

When the body finally exhales — in sound, in tears, in trembling, in prayer, in breath — it returns to safety. Not because the story changed, but because you changed the way your body holds the story.

Let the body speak. Let the scream come through the door it was searching for.You deserve relief, not containment.

REFERENCES

• Balban, M. A., et al. (2023). Brief structured breathing improves mood and reduces physiological arousal compared to mindfulness meditation. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(1), 100918. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100918

  
  

• Wilms, T., et al. (2023). Stress and gastrointestinal function: Mechanisms and consequences. The Journal of Physiology, 601(9), 1573–1591. https://doi.org/10.1113/JP281951

  
  

• Khalaf, S., et al. (2021). Spiritual coping, vagal function, and emotional regulation: Psychophysiological perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 699338. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.699338

  
  

• Koenig, H. G., et al. (2020). Religion, spirituality, and health: A review and update. Advances in Mind-Body Medicine, 34(1), 43–57.

  
  

• Mayer, E. A., & Tillisch, K. (2011). The brain–gut axis in abdominal pain syndromes. Annual Review of Medicine, 62, 381–396.

  
  

• van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.

  
  

• Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Putnam.