Though we don’t often recognize them as such, most of us had potentially traumatic experiences. Trauma starts as a bodily reaction to a scary situation that overwhelms our nervous system. This fear response includes a host of physical changes in the body such as increased heart rate, shallow breathing, narrowed vision, numbing out and nausea, among others. These physical changes are part of your body’s built-in survival system (“fight or flight”). When fight or flight kicks in, the parts of the brain responsible for reason and language go offline, and all your resources go toward keeping you safe. If all goes well—you are able to get away, or someone comes to your rescue—the odds are good that your nervous system will soon regulate itself. Your breathing and heart rate returns to normal and perhaps you spend a few hours with a loved one who helps you feel safe and connected again.
If all does not go well—for example, if you can’t get away and have to just “freeze” and wait for the danger to be over—ongoing trauma symptoms may result. Another reason a scary event may lead to trauma symptoms is if you have experienced multiple traumatic events in your life, especially if those events started at an early age. When an event leads to trauma symptoms, it is like the body is stuck in a fear response. Symptoms of trauma include hypervigilance (constantly looking out for danger), flashbacks or re-experiencing the traumatic event, dissociation (feeling out of your body), nightmares, and chronic feelings of tension or anxiety. These symptoms may arise in response to a recognizable trigger, such as going to the place where the trauma occurred. But in many cases, you may find yourself having a trauma response without knowing what triggered it. You do not recognize the trigger because the memory of that event is not stored in the conscious, logical part of your brain.
Because the logical part of the brain disengages when your body goes into survival mode, simply telling yourself you are safe does little to calm the trauma response in your body. A mind-body approach to trauma can help you to reconnect the parts of the brain focused on survival with those of thinking and language. If you are interested in finding out if mindfulness based body-centered therapy for trauma could help you, contact me: mindfulness-based therapy