Trauma is More Than Psychological

Hello! A few weeks ago I wrote about how different types of childhood trauma can affect our brains and bodies, but today I want to go a little further and talk about the science behind trauma. This video on The Polyvagal theory is a great start to understanding the science.

A couple of facts:

1) Your autonomic nervous system is automatic- it controls everything in your body that is automatic (ex: heart and breathing). It is responsible for keeping you alive.

2) Your brain scans your environment every second of every day to determine if there are threats in your environment. Within a split second, your brain is deciphering whether you are safe or not safe.

If your brain determines that you might be in a slightly unsafe situation, it will kick on the fight or flight response. But in the presence of a life-threatening situation, your body freezes and goes into shut down. Your nervous system is deciding which way to go without thinking about it- this is involuntary and your nervous system is reacting in the best way it knows how to keep you as safe as possible.

The difficult part about trauma is that it affects the part of the brain that determines our safety level, even after the trauma is over. And when that happens, feelings of activation or shut down occur at things that normally wouldn't trigger these reactions.

This is where symptoms such as hypervigilance, startle response, sensory changes, dissociating, and feeling numb come from. Even after the trauma is over, the central nervous system can get stuck and it reacts as if the trauma is still occurring.

"Trauma isn't just psychological, it's physiological" - Seth Porges

Treating trauma is more than talking about emotions related to the trauma. We also have to treat the body and shift the central nervous system back to baseline. Therapies that are great for this include EMDR, brainspotting, or internal family systems (IFS). Yoga has also been shown to help shift physiological changes after trauma. Other helpful ideas: deep breathing, being in environments you feel safe, and being around people who help you feel safe.

I hope you have found some part of this helpful. If you are interested in learning more, I recommend reading the book "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk.

Thanks for reading and being in connection with me,

Steph