The Body Trauma Loop: Why Time Doesn't Heal Chronic Illness

What if the slogans we've trusted about healing are actually in conflict?

"The body keeps the score." "Time heals all wounds." We've heard both. They can't both be true.

Here's the tension. If time heals all wounds, staying busy should eventually work. Decades of pushing through should land us somewhere good. But that's not what happens. The body keeps the score whether we acknowledge it or not.

I go deeper into the research from my conversation with Dr. Karestan Koenen in Episode 155. She followed 100,000 women over twenty years. What she found confirms what I see clinically. Unresolved experiences don't fade with time. They become biology. That background sense of danger we can't quite name? That's our nervous system still on guard.

This was never about time. It's about what happens when we ask the nervous system to stay alert indefinitely.

In this episode you'll hear more about:

• Why staying busy creates allostatic load: When we push through without processing, we ask the nervous system to sprint forever. Dr. Hans Selye mapped what happens next. The body reaches a point where it cannot maintain that response. Then things fall apart.
• The difference between stress and trauma: Stress is a sprint. Trauma is what happens when we've sprinted as far as we can but the danger is still there. The terminology matters. Calling it all "chronic stress" doesn't capture the truth of breakdown.
• The body trauma loop: The cycle between activation and shutdown sits at the core of every chronic health condition. Stressed out, then breakdown. Activated, then burnout. This loop can never contribute to health.
• Where the body actually holds trauma: People ask if it's in their liver or pinky toe. The answer surprises them. The body holds trauma in patterns. The glass of wine. The procrastination. The exhaustion that won't lift.
• What I'm actually assessing: I don't ask for a checklist of how bad your childhood was. I ask what's going on now. How reactive are you? How adaptable? How long before you hit shutdown? Those patterns tell me what your body is still holding.
• Why there's hope in this science: When we recognize the body trauma loop, we know what to do. We untangle piece by piece. Step by step. We create a biology of healing.

The body holds trauma through its patterns of surviving. When we understand this, we work with our biology. Not against it.

Resources/Guides:

• Biology of Trauma book — Available now everywhere books are sold. Get your copy
• Free Guide: How Trauma Shows Up in the Body — A comprehensive starter guide to understanding the physical manifestations of trauma

🎙️ Check out the main episode this follows: Episode 155: Time Doesn't Heal—It Becomes Biology with Dr. Karestan Koenen

💭 Try this practice this week: Notice when you reach for your go-to survival strategy. Wine, scrolling, ice cream, overworking. Before you do, pause. Ask: "What am I feeling in my body right now? What am I trying to soothe?" That awareness is the first step.

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