why a moment of you and a cup of warm tea can feel healing?

What I’ve been searching lately, has been the simple elements of everyday life that can feel healing. I changed several cups of coffee for cups of tea some time ago. I start my day with a cup of coffee, yes, but after that on a regular weekday I drink different kinds of flavours of tea. At home it's mostly green tea with mint and milk. In the office it's rooibos. Sometimes when Henkka brings souvenirs, it's açai cinnamon tea with or without milk. After drinking all those cups of tea I started wondering why a moment of you and a cup of warm tea can feel so healing? Here's what I learned as someone building safety after trauma.

1. A rhythm of daily tea ritual: how predictability signals safety

I’ve experienced myself how trauma disrupts a person’s sense of safety and control. A tea ritual — warm mug, a vibrant shade of black, red or pearly white and green whirling in the hot water, familiar scent — gives the brain something predictable. That tells the amygdala a.ka your threat detector:

this is familiar. we are safe.

2. Warm tea mug in your hands: warmth soothes the vagus nerve.

I never knew that holding a warm cup physically stimulates the vagus nerve. This nerve which I got familiar with just recently, is the nerve, which plays a vital role in calming your nervous system. And when I heard that it can help to move you from fight-or-flight into inner rest, I started making even more tea, haha. Cause I know rest is where healing happens.

3. A tiny moment of calm: small actions rebuild agency.

I’ve found myself often pondering how trauma so easily creates a feeling of helplessness or the sense of being out of control. It's been really life giving to notice how one simple, mundane act of choosing a tea, boiling water, pouring mindfully — it reminds you:

I can make a gentle choice. I’m not stuck.

4. Feeling the now of tea moment: sensation brings you back to the body.

I’ve come to understand how many of us who have experienced trauma live in their heads — stuck in loops of anxiety, shame, or overwhelm. And this is how tea engages the senses:

the warmth

the aroma

the flavor

the sound of the pour

This brings you back into your body, back into the moment — gently and safely.

5. A moment of peace with a cup of tea: slowness counters urgency.

When I learned about how trauma can cause both an active or frozen response as a default pattern, it gave me so much clarity of certain moments in my everyday life. When the trigger of hustle or freeze arises — we go fast, or stay tense, and we don't feel. Yet I was amazed at how easily a simple tea ritual invites you into slowness. And slowness says:

there’s no emergency. we’re safe now.

So yes — a tea ritual may look tiny on the outside. But for a woman post-trauma, it’s often a sacred doorway:

from fear into presence.

from chaos into calm.

from survival into trust.

Now, if you’d like, go make a steaming warm cup of tea, dear.

Love,

Pia