When the Body Can No Longer Rest: Understanding and Soothing Hypervigilance

There are times in life when rest no longer feels possible. Even in sleep, the body stays on guard — attuned to every sound, every tone, every silence that lasts a little too long. We find ourselves anticipating, trying to understand, pushing emotions away to avoid being overwhelmed. As if an inner radar were constantly scanning the world — ready to detect the slightest sign of danger.

This state of constant alert has a name: hypervigilance. It is a natural reaction of the nervous system after it has known fear, unpredictability, or betrayal of trust.

It is not a flaw in character or a weakness, but a bodily imprint of survival. The body simply learned to paddle upstream to avoid drowning.

What Is Hypervigilance?

Hypervigilance is an extreme state of alertness, often associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or its more diffuse and long-term form, complex trauma (CPTSD). It occurs when the nervous system, after being exposed to repeated fear, chronic stress, or relational insecurity, can no longer return to a resting state. It’s as if the body, convinced that danger could return at any moment, keeps its foot on the accelerator.

PTSD usually develops after a single, intense event — an accident, an assault, a disaster, a sudden loss. The nervous system, overwhelmed by the charge of survival, remains stuck in a state of alert.

Complex PTSD, on the other hand, develops over time. It results from prolonged exposure to situations where fear, humiliation, or unpredictability were constant: abusive relationships, unstable family environments, toxic workplaces, harassment, emotional neglect, or chronic insecurity.It is no longer an event that wounds, but a repeated context that wears down the nervous system.

The body eventually learns to live in this alert state: tense muscles, shallow breathing, darting eyes, a racing heart at the slightest change. This hyperactivation becomes a way of functioning — an adaptation that once ensured survival, but in the long run, prevents true rest.

That’s why hypervigilance is often mistaken for other issues: anxiety, attention difficulties, exhaustion, or depression. But beneath these labels, it is often a nervous system stuck in protection mode, an organism that has not yet received the sensory proof that the danger is over.

The Autonomic Nervous System: A Guardian Overwhelmed To understand hypervigilance, we must return to the autonomic nervous system — the silent regulator that constantly adjusts our inner states: heart rate, breathing, digestion, attention.

It works like a pendulum between two branches:

• The sympathetic system, which prepares for action — mobilizing energy, speeding up the heart, allowing us to fight or flee.

• The parasympathetic system, which restores calm — promoting rest, digestion, repair, and social connection.

In a balanced life, these two branches dance together. But after prolonged stress, the pendulum freezes on the side of alert. The sympathetic system remains active while the calming branch struggles to take over.

Stephen Porges calls this the neuroception of danger: even in the absence of real threat, the body still perceives that something could happen.

Dan Siegel describes this loss of balance as a functional disintegration: the different parts of the self — body, emotion, thought, and social connection — stop communicating.

We function, but we no longer truly live.

The Many Faces of Hypervigilance

Hypervigilance manifests through a wide range of physical, emotional, and cognitive symptoms that may seem unrelated at first glance — but in truth, they all express the same thing: a nervous system stuck in high alert.

On a physical level, as Peter Levine describes, the body remains tense, ready to react.

Common signs include:

• shallow or rapid breathing,

• chronic tension in the jaw, neck, or back,

• frequent startle responses or light, fragmented sleep,

• digestive troubles (as the parasympathetic system is inhibited),

• persistent fatigue despite rest.

Bessel van der Kolk shows that this hyperactivation often comes with difficulty concentrating, staying present, or tolerating uncertainty. The brain, overloaded, consumes enormous energy scanning the environment — searching for signs of danger, even when none exist.

On an emotional and relational level, Diane Poole Heller and Dan Siegel highlight how hypervigilance shapes connection.

It can manifest as:

• subtle mistrust or fear of rejection,

• difficulty letting others in or trusting them,

• a need to control or appease to keep peace,

• or, conversely, withdrawal and isolation.

Finally, Gábor Maté reminds us that prolonged states of alert can lead to nervous and emotional exhaustion, often mistaken for depression or anxiety.

Beneath these symptoms lies a single truth: a body still trying to protect itself.

These manifestations are not separate disorders but signals from an organism that has not yet received proof that it is safe. And behind this constant tension lie the three primal survival responses the body has always known: fight, flight, or freeze.

The Body in Alarm Mode

When the nervous system switches into defense, three main mechanisms unfold:

1. Flight – mobilizing energy to escape danger;

2. Fight – opposing to regain control;

3. Freeze – when neither escape nor fight is possible, the energy locks inside.

It’s often this third state that fuels hypervigilance. The body appears calm, but the energy remains poised to spring.

Peter Levine explains that trauma is not in the event itself, but in the unfinished response of the body — a survival charge still seeking release. When these defense loops repeat without resolution, the body grows weary. And it’s often at this point that connection becomes a key to healing — though not the only one.

When Connection Becomes the Key

Diane Poole Heller says it beautifully: “What was wounded in connection is also healed in connection.”

Hypervigilance often develops where relational safety was missing. In relational trauma — born of abandonment, betrayal, or neglect — regulation often happens through co-regulation: a reparative bond, a steady presence, a compassionate gaze offering the body a new experience of safety. Through this kind of relationship, the nervous system learns that connection can be safe again.

But not all trauma requires this path. As Peter Levine reminds us, non-relational trauma — accidents, illness, natural disasters, medical interventions — can often be healed through the body itself, through practices of movement, breath, or meditation.

In other words:

Trauma born of loneliness in fear needs connection to heal.

Trauma born of overwhelm in intensity needs a return to the body to reorganize.

Dan Siegel calls this integration: restoring communication between body, emotion, and thought — sometimes through relationship, sometimes through inner practice.

In both cases, trust begins to return as soon as the system feels safe again.

What Hypervigilance Was Trying to Protect

Beneath the armor of control often lies a tender heart that only wanted to survive.

Hypervigilance fulfilled its mission: it kept us functional, alert, capable of moving forward when everything felt unstable. It built invisible walls around us, creating the illusion of safety — a space where nothing could reach us anymore.

But those walls were not real boundaries; they were survival fortresses, built in urgency. They protected us from danger but also kept us distant from connection. Over time, we come to see that protection is not the same as preservation. True boundaries arise not from fear but from presence — they allow life to flow through without letting in what harms.

As Gábor Maté reminds us, “Trauma is not what happens to you; it is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.”

To emerge from hypervigilance is to acknowledge its function — to thank it, and then to let it go. It is to stop paddling against the current and feel that safety no longer comes from control, but from the body’s ability to soften. It is to discover that one can be attentive without being on guard, open without being unsafe, alive without being in danger.

The Signs of Release

When a body begins to emerge from its state of alert, it speaks in subtle ways: a sigh, a deep breath, the weight of the back against a chair, a gentle rocking motion, a softening of the face, a yawn. These are the quiet signs of regulation returning. They may seem trivial — yet they are often the first tangible proof that the nervous system is regaining fluidity.

A sigh is already a repair.

A yawn is already an opening.

The threat recedes, and the present becomes livable again.

Relearning the Body’s Manual

To recognize hypervigilance is already to loosen its grip a little. It does not speak of weakness, but of the body’s brilliance in surviving.

To regulate the nervous system is to restore its compass: walking, breathing, dancing, meditating, laughing, resting, savoring slowness. Even five minutes of relaxation can remind the body that life is no longer an emergency.

Hypervigilance is that moment of suspended breath — held between struggle and surrender — where everything is still possible. That is where the choice resides: to let the defenses dissolve and to return to trust.

And sometimes, as the guard begins to lower, something deeper is revealed:

the old memory of what once made us wary, that learned vigilance still seeking to rest.

It is often there, on the threshold of safety regained, that true healing begins

— the moment when we finally understand what the body has carried for far too long.

“We are wired for connection; it is in relationship that we are wounded, and it is in relationship that we heal.”

— Diane Poole Heller