Living in a state of alert: what anxiety is trying to say

You sleep, but you do not feel rested. You are safe, but your body insists on keeping watch. You wake up tired before the day even begins, and on many days you only want to get home, close the door, and silence the world for a few hours. If this sounds familiar, your nervous system may still be responding to something that has already passed. Anxiety, far from being an enemy, may be a message.

This article is about that message. It is not a diagnosis or a self-help protocol. It is an attempt to translate, in accessible language, what happens inside the body when we live in alert mode. I also share how I approach this theme clinically with patients who arrive feeling "broken" and discover, over time, that they were adapted to a danger that no longer exists.

What alert mode actually is

When facing a real threat, such as a car braking suddenly, someone shouting, or a situation of physical danger, the brain does exactly what it should: it activates the sympathetic nervous system to protect us. The heart speeds up, attention narrows, and the muscles prepare to fight or flee. It is an ancient mechanism, older than language, and present in all mammals. The problem is not the mechanism itself. The problem is when it does not turn off.

Stephen Porges mapped this defense mechanism in his Polyvagal Theory (2011). Porges describes three states of the autonomic nervous system, not two:

• Ventral vagal (safety): a state of calm, social connection, and rest. The body functions in "normal life" mode.
• Sympathetic (mobilization): fight-or-flight activation. Faster heartbeat, tense muscles, and a hyperfocused mind.
• Dorsal vagal (immobilization): collapse, shutdown, and dissociation. This is the "blackout" some people experience in unbearable situations.

A healthy nervous system moves flexibly between these states. A traumatized nervous system gets stuck, usually in sympathetic activation (chronic anxiety, insomnia, tension) or in dorsal shutdown (apathy, chronic fatigue, "mental fog"). In both cases, the body has forgotten how to return to the ventral state on its own.

Hypervigilance: when the alarm does not quiet down

After difficult experiences, whether single and intense or repeated and silent, the body may learn that danger is always nearby. We start reacting to signals that no longer represent real risk: a slightly firmer tone of voice, a date on the calendar, a smell, a song, a specific way someone moves. The response is automatic and happens before conscious reasoning.

This is what we call hypervigilance. It is not exaggeration, weakness, lack of faith, or overreaction. It is a system that learned to do its job too well, and now it fires even when there is no obvious reason.

That is why "trying to calm down" is rarely enough. Saying "relax, it is nothing" to someone in hypervigilance is like saying "do not feel pain" to someone with a burned finger. The perception of threat is not only in thought. It lives in deeper layers connected to implicit memory and the body. Therapeutic work needs to reach that level.

Signs that the body is in hypervigilance

Recognizing the signs is the first step. Some are subtle, while others are very intense:

• A disproportionate startle response to small stimuli, such as noise, touch, or a phone notification
• Difficulty sleeping, even when physically tired, because the mind stays "on"
• Chronic tension in the jaw, shoulders, neck, and hands
• Short, shallow breathing, even at rest
• A constant sense that "something will go wrong"
• Intense emotional reactivity, such as irritation, crying, or anger over apparently small triggers
• Checking habits: doors, messages, people, without being able to stop
• Avoidance of situations that even vaguely resemble the original danger

If you recognize yourself in several of these points, it may be worth considering that this is not "anxiety for no reason." It may be the body keeping an old promise of protection. The good news is that promises can be rewritten.

Where this state comes from: the roots of hypervigilance

A sustained state of alert can come from different kinds of experiences. Some are obvious; others are less so.

Single, intense traumatic events

Serious accidents, violence, sudden losses, abuse. When the event is intense enough, the body can hold on to it. The memory gets "stuck," and every time something reminds the body of that moment, the system fires. It is as if the body is reliving the danger each time, unable to file it away in the past.

Repeated and relational trauma

Many people who live in alert mode did not go through one catastrophic event. They grew up in environments where danger was part of daily life: domestic violence, emotional abuse, neglect, instability. In these cases, the body learns early that the world is not safe, and that belief becomes the background of adult life.

"Smaller" traumas that are not small

In clinical practice, it is common to hear people say, "but nothing that serious happened to me." This is one of the most frequent and most important sentences. What matters is not only the objective magnitude of the event, but what it meant to that person, at that age, with those resources. Constant criticism from a parent, an abrupt separation, prolonged bullying, or childhood surgery can all install a lasting state of alert, even if from the outside it seems like "not much."

The neurobiology: why the body "remembers" more than the mind

In The Body Keeps the Score (2014), Bessel van der Kolk shows that trauma is not stored only as narrative. It is also imprinted in the body. Several layers are involved:

• Amygdala: the structure that detects threat and triggers the alarm. In traumatized people, it can become hyperactive and detect danger where there is none.
• Hippocampus: responsible for placing memories in time. When trauma affects the hippocampus, the memory loses its date, and the body reacts as if the danger were happening now.
• Prefrontal cortex: the part that plans, weighs options, and reasons. When we are on alert, this region goes offline, which is why clear thinking becomes so difficult during intense anxiety.
• Autonomic nervous system: the conductor of the whole process, regulating heartbeat, breathing, digestion, and temperature. In a trauma state, it runs on defensive autopilot.

Understanding this architecture helps explain why techniques based only on "thinking differently," such as positive affirmations or trying to convince yourself that everything is fine, often fail. The problem is not only thought. It is the body. And the body needs to be accessed differently.

What therapy can do: evidence-based therapeutic paths

The good news is that, in recent decades, therapeutic approaches have emerged that access the body and nervous system more directly. These are not trends. They are methods with decades of research, recognized by organizations such as the World Health Organization, the APA (American Psychological Association), and the UK's NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence).

EMDR: reprocessing through eye movements

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) was developed by Francine Shapiro in the 1980s and is now one of the most studied approaches for trauma. The technique uses bilateral stimulation, usually eye movements, but sometimes alternating taps or sounds, while the person accesses the traumatic memory in small doses. The brain can then reprocess the memory, integrating it into the past instead of keeping it frozen in the present.

In EMDR sessions, people often notice that the memory still exists. It is not erased, but it has lost emotional weight. "I remember, but it does not hurt anymore" is a recurring phrase among patients near the end of the process. As one patient recently told me, "I do not need to keep telling and explaining everything that happened." Therapeutic work can access content through pathways that speech does not reach.

Brainspotting: where the gaze meets memory

Brainspotting, created by David Grand in 2003, starts from an elegant discovery: eye position is connected to specific areas of the brain where emotional memories are stored. By finding a "spot in the visual field" that resonates with the memory, the therapist works with the person at that point of focus, and the body can enter a deep process of reorganization.

Brainspotting can be especially useful when suffering has no words, or when talking about trauma feels impossible. The technique works directly with subcortical processes, where language does not fully reach. It is often considered when someone feels that ordinary talk therapy is not enough.

Somatosensory approach: Ogden and regulation through the body

In Trauma and the Body (2006), Pat Ogden developed a model that integrates body awareness with verbal therapy. The idea is simple and clinically important: the body carries history, and learning to read its signals, such as tension, posture, and breathing, is an essential part of healing. In my practice, I use elements of this approach together with EMDR and Brainspotting.

What to expect from a therapeutic process

When someone arrives saying, "I have been like this for years, is there still time?", my answer is: yes, there is time. The body can access its capacity for healing again. But the process has stages.

Phase 1: stabilization and safety

Before approaching any difficult memory, the first task is to build a foundation of regulation. You learn resources to calm, ground, and contain yourself when the alarm goes off in daily life. It is like building a toolbox before entering a storm.

Phase 2: reprocessing

With resources in place, we begin working with the memories that remained stuck. This may involve EMDR, Brainspotting, or a combination of both, depending on what makes sense for each person. This is the moment when memories can lose emotional charge and become things that happened, rather than things that are happening.

Phase 3: integration

Finally, we integrate what has changed: new relationship patterns, new boundaries, and a different relationship with the body. Life does not become "easy," but it can become more livable. The alarm may still exist, but now it is just an alarm, not a verdict.

What begins when the alarm quiets down

When the body understands that the danger has passed, small things become possible again. Sleeping without fear. Leaving the house without checking the door three times. Hearing a song that once tightened your chest and feeling only nostalgia. Meeting someone without constantly scanning who that person might be. Looking back and saying, "that happened, but I am not only that anymore."

Leaving alert mode is not simply "relaxing more." It is helping the body understand that it can finally rest.

It is not about erasing the memory. It is about returning it to its place in the past, where it can be remembered without being relived.

About the author

Dra. Mariana Lage · CRP 01/8814 · Clinical Psychologist

Trauma specialist, trained in EMDR through TraumaClinic / EMDR Brasil and in Brainspotting through Dr. David Grand's method. Online sessions for Brazil, Brazilians abroad, and English-speaking clients. Her work draws on Polyvagal Theory, Ogden's somatosensory approach, and reprocessing protocols.