Stress Response vs Trauma Response: What is the Difference
Do you recall or have recently noticed some challenges fade quickly while others seem to stay in your mind (and body) for weeks, months, or even years? Maybe you’ve felt the short-lived stress of a busy day at work and later, the lingering impact of an experience you couldn’t just “shake off.”
This difference is much more than just resilience or willpower. It’s the distinction between a stress response and a trauma response, the two ways your nervous system reacts to the world. While both can impact your mood, energy, and health, they operate very differently. And, understanding which one you’re experiencing can help you find effective and practical supports and begin moving toward healing.
In this blog article, we’ll explore what sets stress and trauma apart, how each affects your nervous system, and why recognising the signs can be a decisive step in reclaiming your emotional well-being.
What Is a Normal Stress Response?
A normal stress response is your body's short-term reaction to an identifiable challenge. And, this is how your nervous system mobilises energy to deal with everyday pressures.
Trigger: Common stressors such as work deadlines, a disagreement, or sitting in traffic (APA, 2020).
Nervous System Response: Activates the "fight or flight" state, but returns to balance once the stressor is gone (Levine, 1997).
Duration: Symptoms fade within hours or days. You can still think with clarity, problem-solve, and access and employ your coping tools.
Impact: While it can temporarily affect mood and focus, it doesn't shake your core sense of safety or identity.
If you're feeling stressed but able to recover within a reasonable timeframe, you might find grounding tools helpful.
Read: Feeling Overwhelmed by the world? 5 Gentle Ways to Reconnect with Your Inner Calm
What Is a Trauma Response?
A trauma response occurs when an experience overwhelms your capacity to cope, leaving a lasting imprint on your nervous system (van der Kolk, 2014).
Trigger: Intense, frightening, or life-altering events or repeated exposure to distress. Triggers may not always be obvious.
Nervous System Response: Instead of resetting, your body gets “stuck” in survival mode either hyperarousal (fight/flight) or hypoarousal (freeze/fawn), even when you’re no longer in danger (Levine, 1997). These are automatic survival responses and aren’t conscious choices. When your body gets stuck in either state for too long, it can affect your mental health, physical health, and relationships.
💡 Visual Guide: To help you recognise the signs, below are a quick nervous system state guide showing what hyperarousal and hypoarousal may feel like physically and emotionally.
Duration: The symptoms could persist for weeks, months, or even years, and may surface long after the event.
Impact: Trauma can reshape how you see yourself, others, and the world, creating a sense of unsafety, lack of trust, feelings of lack of choice impacting your relationships, emotional regulation, disconnection and daily functioning.
If this resonates, you may also want to read: What Does Feeling Safe in Therapy Mean? A Trauma-Sensitive Perspective
Tables showing physical and emotional signs of hyperarousal such as racing heart, muscle tension, irritability, and restlessness.
Recognising these states is the first step toward regulating your nervous system. Trauma-informed counselling and somatic therapy support you to move gradually into a self-aware, regulated, and grounded state where you can begin to feel safe, present, and connected.
Stress vs Trauma: A Quick Comparison
While stress is short-term and manageable, trauma can reshape
your sense of safety and overwhelm your ability to cope.
Why This Distinction Matters
Recognising whether you're experiencing stress or a trauma response can be deeply validating. If your symptoms linger, feel overwhelming, or affect your daily life, it's not "just stress."
This understanding can guide you toward:
Trauma-informed counselling: Working with a therapist trained in nervous system regulation and emotional safety.
Somatic practices: Techniques like Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) and mindfulness that help repair your nervous system. Trauma-Sensitive Yoga, in particular, focuses on 'embodied rest', a state of deep relaxation and safety that can be experienced in the body. Trauma sensitive yopa practice can be especially beneficial for those dealing with trauma responses.
Self-compassion: It’s first and foremost a practice. An act of strength and courage to look at your overwhelm, your fatigue, or your frustration as a natural, human reaction. It’s not a personal failure. And, this understanding brings a shift in perspective which is the most powerful tool we have to mitigate burnout and build a life that's not just productive, but actually sustainable.
How Trauma-Informed Therapy Can Help?
At New Leaf with Nisha, I integrate trauma-informed counselling and somatic therapy to help you:
Rebuild emotional safety and trust in your body.
Shift from survival mode to a calmer, regulated state.
Process experiences gently in an environment conducive for emotional recovery and reconnection, without re-triggering.
Feel grounded, present, and reconnected again.
Learn more about:
Trauma-Informed Counselling in Brisbane & Online
Somatic Therapy for Nervous System Healing
When to Seek Support?
If you notice persistent anxiety, emotional numbness, hypervigilance, or physical exhaustion that doesn't resolve, it may be a sign of trauma-related dysregulation. You do not have to navigate this alone.
Working with a trauma-informed counsellor can help you move from overwhelm toward resilience and embodied wholeness.
Ready to Begin Your Healing Journey?
If you’ve been wondering whether what you’re feeling is stress or something deeper, know it’s not “just in your head” and that you’re not alone.
Your body is telling a story, and with the right support, you can help it find safety again.
At New Leaf with Nisha, I work with clients to gently shift from survival mode into a calmer, more regulated state. During my sessions, the aim is to co-create a compassionate, grounded space where you can rebuild trust in yourself, process experiences at your own pace, and feel more present in your life.
You deserve to feel safe in your own body. When you're ready, I'm here to walk alongside you.
📍 Brisbane & Online | www.newleafwithnisha.com.au
"Healing means to create safety so your body and mind can return there naturally without forcing yourself to feel better."
– Nisha Trivedi
References:
Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. Viking.
Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. North Atlantic Books.
American Psychological Association (APA). (2020). Stress in America 2020.
Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body. W. W. Norton & Company.
