How Therapy Can Help When Stress Lives in the Body
We often talk about stress as something that happens in the mind. But if you’ve ever felt tension in your shoulders after a long day, a knot in your stomach before a difficult conversation, or found yourself grinding your teeth at night, you already know: the body remembers what the mind tries to suppress.
At Massage Copenhagen, we help people release muscular tension and find physical relief through massage. But many of the clients we treat carry stress that runs deeper than muscles. That’s why we’ve partnered with therapist Pernille Ljungdalh, who offers therapy online and in-person on the island of Møn.
Because sometimes, it’s not enough to treat the body. We also need to tend to the mind.
Therapy: A Space to Understand What’s Going On Inside
Therapy gives you a chance to slow down and listen — not just to your thoughts, but to your whole system. It’s a place where you can talk about what you’re experiencing, without pressure to “fix” it immediately. With the support of a trained therapist, you can begin to explore how stress, anxiety, grief, overthinking, or self-doubt might be affecting you — not only mentally, but physically as well.
Pernille works from a systemic and narrative approach. That means therapy with her is not about labelling you with a diagnosis or trying to make you “fit in.” Instead, she’s interested in how your life story, your relationships, and your experiences shape the way you feel — and how you can begin to relate to yourself with more understanding, agency, and care.
When Stress Doesn’t Leave the Body
Many people seek massage because of physical symptoms: a stiff neck, sore lower back, headaches, jaw tension, tightness in the chest. And while massage can do a lot to ease these symptoms, they often return again and again — especially if they’re linked to stress that never quite gets addressed.
The nervous system doesn’t just turn off when you lie down on a massage table. If you’re constantly overstimulated, overwhelmed, or emotionally drained, your body will find ways to signal that it’s under pressure.
Some examples:
- Shoulder and neck tension from carrying invisible burdens
- Digestive issues due to chronic anxiety or emotional suppression
- Fatigue or sleep issues because your system is stuck in a high-alert state
- Aches and pains that don’t resolve, even after physical treatment
In these cases, therapy can offer the missing piece.
Therapy and Massage: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Massage is a wonderful way to care for the body. It calms the nervous system, increases circulation, and helps muscles release tension. But if the root causes of that tension — stress, inner conflict, emotional overload — are never given attention, the body will simply tighten back up again.
That’s where therapy becomes a natural extension of bodywork. In therapy, you can begin to understand what’s happening under the surface. Why are you always bracing? What patterns keep you in a state of tension? What kind of life situations make it hard for your body to relax?
By combining massage and therapy — or by using therapy as a follow-up to massage — many people experience more lasting effects. They become more attuned to their needs, more capable of setting boundaries, and better able to rest.
Self-Care Means Listening — Not Just Coping
We often think of self-care as something we do to recover from stress: a warm bath, a walk in nature, a weekend away. These things are good — but sometimes, we also need to ask why the stress is there in the first place.
Therapy supports a deeper kind of self-care. It’s not about solving everything at once, but about learning to listen to yourself more clearly. You begin to recognise:
- what triggers your tension
- how you respond to emotional pressure
- when you’re ignoring your own limits
- what kind of support actually helps you
Instead of pushing through or numbing out, therapy helps you relate to yourself with more kindness and honesty. And when the mind softens, the body often follows.
Online or In-Person: Therapy on Your Terms
Pernille offers therapy sessions either online or in-person on Møn. Both formats are equally effective — it’s more a matter of what works best for you.
Online sessions are ideal if:
- you live far from Møn or outside the city
- you have a busy schedule or limited mobility
- you feel more comfortable opening up from your own home
In-person therapy may feel right if:
- you value face-to-face connection in a calm, private setting
- you combine therapy with other wellness activities during a stay on Møn
- you simply prefer the grounding presence of sitting in the same room
No matter the format, the intention is the same: to offer a safe and respectful space where you can be heard, and begin to reconnect with your inner resources.
Why We Recommend Therapy to Our Massage Clients
At Massage Copenhagen, we often see clients who are doing everything “right” — eating well, exercising, booking massages regularly — and still feel exhausted or tense. When we dig a little deeper, it turns out the real issue is mental load: constant overthinking, emotional responsibility for others, lack of rest, or life transitions that have left them disoriented.
Massage helps, no doubt. But when we can sense that the body is holding on to something bigger — something emotional — we often suggest therapy as a valuable next step. Especially if:
- tension keeps coming back despite regular massage
- you feel like your stress has no clear outlet
- you’re dealing with grief, burnout, or major change
- you’re tired of coping and want to make lasting changes
We trust Pernille because of her warm, grounded presence and her ability to meet people without judgment. Her approach fits well with our philosophy: that wellbeing is not about “fixing” yourself, but about getting back in touch with your body and mind in a deeper, kinder way.
A Note to Anyone Who Feels Stuck
Maybe you’re someone who usually handles things just fine — until your body says otherwise.
Maybe you’ve tried yoga, meditation, magnesium, massage — and you still feel worn out.
Maybe you don’t even have words for what’s wrong. Just a vague sense that something inside is too tight, too tired, too much.
Therapy can be a place to explore that. You don’t need to have a big problem or a clear goal. Sometimes the most powerful thing is simply having a space where you don’t have to hold it all together. Where you can feel what you feel — and slowly start to make sense of it.
Pernille offers that kind of space.
