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Original Research · The Workout Witch
The Stress & Trauma Data Report:
What We Learned From 250,000 Students
Real data from 250,000 students reveals where stress and trauma live in the body — and what happens when you finally release it.
For over 15 years, Liz Tenuto has taught somatic exercises to women carrying stress and trauma in their bodies. What started as a single observation — that most people don't realize stress lives physically in the body — has now been confirmed by data from over 250,000 students and thousands of quiz respondents who shared where their stress actually lives.
This report compiles original, first-party data from The Workout Witch's quiz platform, covering stress levels, where pain lives in the body, nervous system survival responses, sleep disruption, and student outcomes. No competitor can replicate this data. It comes from real students and real polls.
How much stress are people actually carrying in their bodies?
Most people are carrying far more stress than they realize
The data is striking: 91.3% of respondents describe their stress as high or very high — meaning chronic, overwhelming stress is not the exception but the norm, and most people are carrying far more than their bodies can sustain without physical consequences.
The vast majority of respondents were not in the "low" category. They were in high or very high territory, often without realizing the physical toll that chronic stress was taking on their bodies.
Chronic high stress is not just a feeling. It has measurable physical consequences — elevated cortisol, disrupted sleep, and tension stored as physical pain in the muscles and nervous system.
When asked what they relate their stress to most, 40.2% of respondents selected "I struggle with SO many of these" — the most common single response, indicating that for most people, stress is not coming from one source but from a compounded accumulation of pressures that feel impossible to separate or address.
Where does stress actually live in the body?
Stress doesn't stay in the mind. It lives in specific places in the body.
Stress and trauma are stored physically in specific muscle groups and tissues — not just as memories in the mind. One of the core teachings of somatic exercise is that stress and trauma are stored as tension held in specific areas. Our quiz data confirms this pattern across thousands of respondents.
Nearly 7 in 10 respondents feel daily pain in the head, neck, hips, shoulders, back, or jaw — the precise areas where somatic exercise research shows stress and trauma are most commonly stored in the body's tissues and nervous system.
The data also reveals what respondents struggle with beyond physical pain. Gut issues are the single most reported secondary struggle, with 26.8% of respondents reporting gut problems. This aligns with somatic research showing that the gut and nervous system are directly connected through the gut-brain axis, and that a dysregulated nervous system disrupts digestion.
Why do I keep waking up between 2 and 4am?
Stress-disrupted sleep is nearly universal. The 2–4am wake is the most common pattern.
Sleep disruption is one of the most reported consequences of chronic stress and elevated cortisol. Our data reveals not just that most respondents struggle with sleep, but specifically how their sleep is disrupted — pointing directly to nervous system dysregulation as the cause.
The 2–4am wake pattern is a recognized physiological response to elevated cortisol. In chronically stressed individuals, this spike happens too early and too intensely — disrupting deep sleep. Nearly 1 in 3 respondents experience this pattern regularly.
What is the most common nervous system stress response?
Freeze is the dominant stress response. Not fight or flight.
The body sensations associated with freeze are equally revealing. When asked how their body feels under stress, respondents described classic freeze-state symptoms: exhaustion, immobility, heaviness, and emotional numbness.
Freeze is frequently mistaken for laziness, depression, or personality traits like introversion. In reality, it is a physiological survival response — the nervous system's way of shutting down when fight or flight feels impossible.
The secondary struggles reported by this group are equally significant. 34.2% report brain fog and frequent dissociation as a regular part of daily life — one of the most debilitating consequences of a nervous system stuck in freeze.
Do somatic exercises actually work?
Student outcomes across 250,000 people
Across more than 250,000 students taught by Liz Tenuto since 2010, the outcomes of consistent somatic exercise practice are clear. These figures represent the cumulative experience of a student body large enough to constitute meaningful evidence — not a small trial, but a decade and a half of teaching.
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