Trauma
Last month we focused on Anxiety and now we are on to Trauma or in the psychology world: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD .
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First things first, all of my posts are geared toward adults and adult symptoms, just know symptoms in kids can look very different.
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Trauma happens to be one of my specialties and I actually enjoy working with trauma bc our bodies and brains’ response to traumatic events is a sign of protection and one that is biologically built in! When we experience something scary, violating, humiliating, abusive, neglectful or unsafe our brain kicks into fight or flight, freeze, or fawn mode. AND I think that’s such a cool sign that we are resilient and strong, and have these built in defense mechanisms to keep ourselves safe and THRIVING!! I also love working with trauma because I love incorporating brain and body research into my practice, and trauma is the cornerstone of that partnership. SO lets start our trauma series with brain stuff, shall we: Flight/Fight and Freeze mode is our bodies and brain’s reaction to a perceived threat, these reactions are meant to keep us safe but can sometimes create a lot of chaos and confusion in our behaviors, and problems for our life.
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Just like in my anxiety series, we discussed how the hypothalamus (the center of our brain) controls our sensory input (hearing, tasting, smelling, tactile, vision) and is where we first experience something unsafe. It also controls our memories, ability to concentrate and learn, our blood flow, heart and breathing rate, and muscle activation and digestion. So our brain is constantly scanning our environment for threats of any kind. If it senses a threat ( seeing a car crash, for example) will cue our hypothalamus to react, which will then dilate our eyes, move blood from our stomach to our muscles, increase our circulation and breathing and halts digestion- so we can run or fight
***Originally Posted June 19th 2018 on LVLHolistic’s Instagram page as a collaborative presentation regarding mental health and nutrition***