The Body Remembers: How Science Is Redefining Where Memory Lives
by Janet Carroll, RN, NMT — Nov. 2025
Massage Therapists have known this for decades! Emotions, trauma, grief — all are stored in the body and often present as pain, dysfunction, or disease.
Beyond the Brain: The Emerging Science of Memory Stored in the Body
For decades, science taught us that all memories were stored exclusively in the brain — but new research is revealing a bigger truth: the entire body may participate in holding experiences, emotions, and learned responses.
From the heart and gut to the muscular and fascial system, cells throughout the body appear to store biochemical “imprints” of what we live through. That’s why we talk about muscle memory, why stress can be “held” in the shoulders or hips, and why trauma can show up as tension, pain, or shutdown in the nervous system — even long after the mind has moved on.
Emerging research suggests:
• The body stores emotional and procedural memory at a cellular level
• The gut and heart have their own neural networks that influence mood, intuition, and emotional recall
• The fascial system may act as a sensory and memory-rich communication network throughout the body
• Trauma can embed itself not only in the brain, but in tissues, posture, breath, and muscle tone
Why this matters for massage & bodywork:
Therapeutic Massage, Myofascial Release, CranioSacral Therapy, and other nervous-system–based bodywork don’t just “relax muscles” — they help access and release stored tension patterns, support emotional regulation, and calm the stress response held within the body’s tissues. When the body feels safe, softens, and breathes again, the nervous system finally gets permission to let go.
This is why clients often say things like: