The Jaw-clenching Side of Immigration

Sometimes I wonder how much of my jaw clenching began with immigration.

My first move was from my hometown to Moscow - a big, intimidating city where I went to university. In many ways, that was my first little immigration.

My second move came in my mid-twenties, when I moved from Moscow to the UK for my masters and where I ultimately stayed.

Both moves brought opportunity, growth, and beautiful experiences. But they also brought stress my nervous system wasn’t fully prepared for.

Even when immigration is chosen and exciting, the body still registers uncertainty, adaptation, pressure, survival.

Every move came with trying to fit in.

To perform.

To prove myself.

To adapt quickly.

There are periods from those years that feel strangely hazy in my memory now. After years of therapy and coaching, I understand why: my nervous system was overwhelmed.

What I do remember is clenching my jaw.

Pushing through.

Holding tension.

Trying to stay composed.

Years later, working with high-performing women, I started noticing how many women carry stress in the jaw (and often in the pelvic floor too).

Headaches. Grinding teeth. Tightness.

And many of these women also happen to be immigrants.

Not because immigration is the only cause of stress in the body. Of course not.

But constantly adapting yourself to environments that don’t fully feel like home does something to the nervous system.

Especially when the body never truly gets the message:

“You’re safe now.”

It’s easy to tell women to relax. To let go.

But if the body isn’t ready, nothing really shifts.

My own relationship with jaw clenching still comes in waves. Stress returns, and I often feel it first in the jaw.

Now I meet it differently - through reflection, self-massage, yoga, breathing, meditation, and learning how to create more safety in my body.

Not perfectly.

But more consciously.