Is Anxiety a Mind-Body Disorder Too?

The other day, a client asked me something I hear a lot:

“If IBS is a mind-body disorder, does that mean anxiety is one too?”

It’s such a good question because it points straight to the root of what’s happening in our bodies when we experience chronic symptoms. And it’s the kind of question I used to wonder about myself.

For years, IBS and chronic pain were the symptoms that dominated my life. I thought if I could just “fix” my gut, everything would fall into place. But now, looking back after healing, I see something so clearly: IBS and pain weren’t my only mind-body symptoms. Anxiety was just as present, only I didn’t name it that way. I thought it was “just my personality,” or “just the way I am.”

But the truth is, anxiety was another massive symptom of my dysregulated nervous system.

And when I healed my IBS and pain, I also healed much of my anxiety, not by working on them separately, but by addressing the upstream dysregulation that was driving both.

That’s what I want to share with you here.

What Is a “Mind-Body Disorder”?

The phrase “mind-body disorder” can sound vague, but here’s how I understand it:

A mind-body disorder is any symptom or condition that arises not from structural damage in the body, but from the way the brain and nervous system are predicting danger, regulating, and protecting you.

This doesn’t mean the symptoms aren’t real. Far from it. The pain, the bloating, the anxiety, the fatigue, it’s all very real. But the cause isn’t “broken tissues.” It’s protective wiring that has gotten stuck.

And because the nervous system controls every system of the body — digestion, circulation, breathing, immune response, muscle tone, perception of pain — dysregulation in that system can show up in countless different ways.

For me, it was mainly IBS, pain and anxiety. For others, it might be:

• Fibromyalgia

• Chronic fatigue

• Migraines

• Back pain or neck pain

• Insomnia

• Acid reflux

• Depression

• And any other chronic symptoms with no obvious cause

The surface symptoms differ, but the root is the same: chronic nervous system dysregulation.

Why Anxiety Fits This Pattern

Let’s talk specifically about anxiety.

Most people think of anxiety as a “mental health” issue, something happening in your thoughts, something to be treated with therapy or medication. And while those approaches can help, the science shows that anxiety is also deeply physiological.

Neuroception: The Nervous System’s Safety Scanner

The nervous system has a built-in radar called neuroception (a term coined by Stephen Porges, founder of Polyvagal Theory). Neuroception works beneath conscious thought. It’s the body’s ability to detect safety or danger from cues in the environment, in other people, and even inside your own body.

When your neuroception is biased toward danger, which happens after chronic stress, trauma, or years of living in fight-or-flight, the nervous system starts to misread the world.

A loud noise? Must mean threat. A racing heart? Must mean panic. A gut gurgle? Must mean disaster.

This misreading doesn’t just create worry in your head. It triggers the sympathetic nervous system (the fight-or-flight branch) to flood your body with stress hormones, which can tighten your muscles, alter your gut motility, and speed up your heartbeat.

That state of your body is what you feel as anxiety.

Learned Hypervigilance: The Brain’s “Better Safe Than Sorry” Policy

Our brains are prediction machines. They’re constantly asking: What’s happening now? What might happen next?

When you’ve lived through a lot of stress or trauma, the brain adopts a “better safe than sorry” policy. This is called learned hypervigilance.

For example:

• If you once had a panic attack while driving, your brain may start predicting danger every time you get in the car.

• If you had food poisoning once, your brain may tag every gurgle of your stomach as a potential threat.

• If you grew up in a household where you had to constantly “be on alert” for criticism, yelling, or chaos, your body learns to stay braced — even decades later, in situations that are safe.

• If you had a job that put a ton of pressure on you, you might associate tasks on a to-do list with instant overwhelm and danger.

  
  

Hypervigilance wires the nervous system to respond as if there’s danger, even when there isn’t.

The result? A body that lives in sympathetic mode — fast breathing, tight muscles, churning gut, racing heart, looping thoughts.

And when that state becomes chronic, we label it “anxiety” or "this is just who I am".

Anxiety, IBS, Pain, and More: Same Root, Different Branches

Here’s where it all comes together:

The nervous system doesn’t compartmentalize the way Western medicine does. It doesn’t say: “Okay, let’s put the anxiety in one box, the IBS in another, the migraines over here.”

Instead, it runs a global state.

When the body is in chronic fight-or-flight or chronic shutdown, every system is affected.

That’s why:

• IBS can flare when you’re anxious.

• Anxiety can spike when your gut feels off.

• Pain can feel worse when you’re stressed.

• Fatigue can crash in when your body gives up on fight-or-flight and collapses into freeze.

Different people express dysregulation differently and have different triggers. But the root loop is the same.

Afferent and Efferent Loops: The Body-Brain Feedback

Neuroscience shows that about 80% of the vagus nerve fibers are afferent, meaning they carry signals from the body to the brain. Only about 20% are efferent, going from brain to body.

This means the brain is constantly making predictions about your state based on the signals it receives from your gut, your heart, your breathing, your posture.

If your gut is tense, if your breathing is shallow, if your heart rate is spiking, your brain predicts: “We’re not safe.” This is one of the reasons why intense exercise would cause massive symptom flare-ups - the increased heart rate sent signals to my brain that I was in actual danger.

That prediction triggers more sympathetic output, which makes the gut tenser, the breath shallower, the heart faster.

This is the loop. And whether you feel that loop as IBS, or anxiety, or pain — it’s all one system.

Examples in Daily Life: Anxiety a Mind-Body Disorder

To make this less abstract, here are some common scenarios:

• Anxiety as IBS: You feel a little bloating before going out to dinner. Your brain predicts: “Oh no, my stomach will ruin the night.” That prediction triggers more gut tension and urgency, which confirms the danger. Symptom and anxiety spiral together.

• Anxiety as Panic: You notice your heart beating faster after a coffee. Your brain tags it as danger: “Panic attack incoming.” The prediction alone drives adrenaline release — and soon you’re in a full panic loop.

• Anxiety as Pain: You bend over and feel a twinge in your back. The brain remembers past pain and predicts: “Injury! Danger!” Muscles clamp, pain amplifies, fear rises.

In all these cases, anxiety isn’t separate from the symptom. It is the symptom — just expressed through different body channels.

Healing: Interrupting the Patterns

So how do we break these loops?

This is the work I’ve done myself and now guide others through: Awareness (Neuroception Training, Safety & Regulation Practices, Pattern Interrupting Brain Training Tools and Global Healing.

As Deb Dana writes, “Habitual response patterns can be interrupted, and new patterns can be created.”

My Personal Story

I lived with chronic IBS, pain, anxiety, and other symptoms for nearly 15 years. I spent thousands on tests, diets, supplements. I thought maybe I was just broken.

When I finally understood that my nervous system was stuck in dysregulation, everything changed. I stopped chasing symptoms one by one and started addressing the whole system.

And as I healed, something surprising happened: I didn’t just lose my IBS and pain symptoms. I also lost my anxiety.

It wasn’t that I “fixed” anxiety separately. It was that by teaching my nervous system to feel safe again, the anxiety no longer had a reason to exist.

Why I Share This

Now, I work with readers and clients every day who are dealing with symptoms just like these. Some come to me for gut issues, others for anxiety, others for pain. And almost always, they start to realize:

“Wait....this is all connected.”

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this work. Truly. Sometimes I look back and think: all those years of suffering were worth it, because they led me here — to helping others heal in ways I never thought possible.

Final Thoughts

So, is anxiety a mind-body disorder?

Yes, in the sense that it’s another symptom of chronic nervous system dysregulation. Just like IBS. Just like pain. Just like so many conditions that leave people feeling hopeless.

And that means anxiety isn’t a life sentence. It’s a loop. A pattern. And patterns can be rewired.

If you’re reading this and nodding along, know that you’re not alone. Healing is possible. And the same nervous system tools that helped me and my clients heal IBS, pain, and fatigue, can also help heal anxiety.

Because at the deepest level, they’re not separate disorders. They’re different branches of the same tree — and when you water the roots, the whole tree can flourish again.

If I can heal, so can you.

Sending love,

Cam