Healing from Trauma: Body Impacts, Skills & Techniques

“After trauma, the world is experienced with a different nervous system that has an altered perception of risk and safety.”

-The Body Keeps Score (Kolk, 2014)

How Does Trauma Impact Us?

Trauma may effect our brains and bodies in many different ways:

• Slow frontal lobe electrical activity: results in poor executive functioning including poor judgment and poor impulse control.

• Sharply increased activity in the temporal lobes, creating emotional instability.

• Impact to the thalamus which helps filters information. This can be indicated by overreactions to lights or sounds.

• The amygdala perceives threats and initiates whole-body responses of fight, flight, or freeze. It does this via stress hormones and the autonomic nervous system (ANS), sending messages to the hypothalamus and brainstem.

  • Stress hormones triggered by the amygdala, including cortisol and adrenaline, raise blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing patterns.

  • Usually, our body resumes to normal soon after a danger has passed. However, with traumatic incidents, stress hormones continue to excrete and recovery from this arousal is blocked. After trauma, a person continues assessing for danger. Their stress hormones elevate quickly and disproportionately, often misinterpreting danger or lack of safety.

  • When stress hormones remain high, we may experience irritability, sleep disorders, problems with attention and memory, muscle aches, headaches, issues with bowels or sexual functions, and/or irrational behaviors.

• Abnormal activation in the insula and Broca’s area: These connected areas combine information from different organs (e.g. muscles, joints, balance system) to generate the sense of embodiment. Trauma can result in alexithymia, or an inability to recognize and communicate emotions. This may result in shutting down or screaming obscenities or non-words.

Trauma can make survival mode feel never-ending, and make it nearly impossible to meet needs like providing basic care for ourselves and others.

Fortunately, there are many helpful coping skills and techniques we can learn and practice to heal and thrive.

Healing from Trauma: Skills and Techniques

“Central to the experience of trauma is helplessness, isolation and the loss of power and control. The guiding principles of trauma recovery are the restoration of safety and empowerment.” -Trauma Recovery (trauma-recovery.ca)

There are many activities and coping tools individuals can use to gain a sense of safety, feel more present in their life, and move through traumatic experiences. Some options may feel more comfortable and may be more appropriate than others, depending on the individual’s needs. A trauma-informed mental health professional can help you navigate your healing process which may include some of these techniques:

Grounding: Use your five senses to calm and focus on the present. Take time to notice five things around you that you can see. Then feel four things, hear three, smell two, and taste one (e.g. gum, juice). What details do you notice about each?

Breathing: Focusing on breath gives us an immediate sense of control. Exhaling slows down heart rate by activating the parasynthetic nervous system, calming our bodies and minds. Focus on deep, long breaths out or “square breathing”: Inhale to the count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for four, hold for four, and then start the “square” cycle over.

Self-Compassion: Notice, accept, and respond to your pain, and treat yourself with kindness and grace. When you notice anxiety, tension, sadness, anger, or other difficult feelings, take what Dr. Kristin Neff calls a “self- compassion break”:

• Place your hand on your arm or upper chest. Using language that works for you, acknowledge your feelings (e.g. “this hurts,” “I’m sad”).

• Remind yourself that you are not alone physically nor in your suffering (“other people feel this way,” “this is part of life”).

• Respond with self-compassion: “What do I need?” “May I give myself the compassion/patience that I need.” “May I accept myself as I am.”

Mindfulness activities help us slow down and to notice and appreciate the present. They can be simple and brief, or longer and more intentional such as a structured meditation. Start slowly with short mindful sessions such as with mindful eating, mindful walking, awareness of breath, or guided meditations. Check out YouTube videos and apps on mindfulness to find aspects that speak to you.

Writing, journaling, or other arts can be cathartic and calming. Try free association by writing without rereading or editing until you’re done. Write poetry or music. Paint, draw, sculpt, dance, act.

Yoga often combines skills discussed above, and may help ease an individual’s relationship to their own body after a trauma. Depending on the trauma, there may be yoga poses that will be emotionally difficult. Be aware of your reaction, use breathing, and be gentle with yourself in choosing how much to do. Consider and search for “trauma-sensitive” yoga online or in your area.

Social Support : Connect with support groups (in person or online), spend time with beloved pets, and talk to family and others whom you trust. Be careful not to isolate only into support groups or others with similar traumas as this may further alienate yourself by growing an “us and them” mentality.

Therapy: Connect with a trauma-informed, empathic therapist. Consider engaging with a trauma-focused therapy like Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) which I offer in person or virtually. Release negative body sensations, distressing images, and eliminate triggers. (Re)build a sense of safety, sense of identity, and coping skills. Work toward healing and post-traumatic growth.

Tired of feeling held back from the past? Ready to heal and move forward from traumas in your life? Let’s work together to help you release, process, heal, and break negative cycles.