Self-awareness approaches towards healing of stress and trauma
Life, our existence is nothing more than just a mere condition where we have the rationality and capacity to function. As we go through life, and it’s experiences we get to go through a number of stages that are supposed to teach us everything that we need to know to survive and learn how to live and how to survive in a society that continuously changes and adapts itself to new standards of life, and until death reaches us. These stages are infancy, toddlerhood, preschool years, early school years, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood. Yet, no one quite clearly can explain the particular events that are going to transpire in your life, and lead you through different pathways where you will encounter numerous obstacles, challenges, and experiences that will make or break you. Experiences that will activate your stress hormones and put them on a loop, sort of an overload, where you will have to know how to grasp and handle emotions, strong emotions that you will not understand clearly that can fog your mental state, as well as physical state. These experiences are led by an uncontrollable factor in everyday life, stress.
As we are all different and unique individuals, our individual experiences cannot be compared, and since that can’t happen, we don’t fully comprehend what another person goes through. Nevertheless, of the situational factor, stress is a universal factor that impacts us on a regular basis. But what is stress? The World Health Organization say that it’s “a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation…is a natural human response that prompts us to address challenges and threats on our lives. Everyone experiences stress to some degree.”. So, the continuance of this factor in human beings causes an imbalance and ir-regulation that affects the mind, brain, and body.
So, how does stress affect us? When our body is subjected to an event of experience that causes extreme stress or tension our brain secretes stress chemicals and lights the neural circuitry on fire. It sends alerts to the hypothalamus, the one designed to maintain a balanced internal state, that subsequently sends sensory signals to the amygdala. The amygdala, the processor of emotion and behavior, then processes these signals as the image, sounds, smells, taste, and touch of the moment and decides how to interpret that information and what level of danger is perceived. In their connection the autonomic nervous system, the regulator of involuntary physiologic processes, is activated, alongside with the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Both of these in their respective ways tackle the fight, flight or freeze response of the body to the stress. Think of it as a car’s pedals that increases in force are for acceleration and decreases in force are for deceleration until to stoppage. And, these signals and responses once activates occur so quickly that the brain doesn’t even know that anything happened and that a response was emitted. Basically, as the events occur fast, the brain is not aware of the cascade of events, as it takes some time to process. So, the sympathetic nervous system stays on, continuously secreting stress hormones (for example, cortisol and adrenaline), thus impacting and aggravating the individual’s overall balance and well-being.
The physiological and psychological states of the individual continuously are being impacted to an overwhelming state, meaning that its effects on the mind, brain, and body reflect themselves, and stand in the way of completing even the simplest tasks, activities, and duties (ex. reading, studying, or working). In addition to, affecting relationships (ex. partners, family and friends), organ and system health (ex. musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, reproductive, and gastrointestinal systems), nervous system function (various levels of body aches and pain, vasodilation, compromised blood circulation, amongst more), use and abuse of substances (ex. cocaine, opioids, alcohol, and tobacco), anxiety, depression, and much more.
How to reduce levels of chronic long-term stress? Well, throughout time and various cultures different techniques have been established to aid in the debilitating symptoms of trauma induced stress. For example, relaxation responses are a combination of different approaches to light-up a state of relaxation through deep breathing techniques, focusing on calmness, tranquility and serenity, prayer, yoga, tai chi, and more. Another form of response is physical activity and/or movement therapy, for example, through stretching, pilaties, walking, running, swimming, aerobics, and more the body is able to reduce stress hormones and produce endorphins. In addition to, activities that make some individuals “feel alive”, such as dancing, singing, and social interactions with community members. All in all, in the battle to support the health and well-being of the individual, as well as, improve their self-esteem and self-worth.
A new type of exercise that has been found to be a link of connection between the mind, brain, body, and trauma is somatic awareness. It focuses on a bottoms-up approach towards trauma recovery, where instead of talking or exercising the emotions away this approach focuses on “how the body responds to the trauma, and how that in affects the brain” (American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, n.d.). Somatic therapy stretching involves intentional body movements during which one focuses their attention on the inner experience of stress, basically letting go those fight, flight or freeze responses. Because when we go through chronic long-term stress due to trauma the body disconnects from itself, and somatic therapy aids in finding calmness, grounding, balance, and it’s an overall great approach of self-care. So, through somatic awareness we get to pay attention to the different sensations and signals that our bodies send us, in addition to, movement, tensions, and breathing practices (Ucrós, G., 2023). It’s a form of understanding your personal experiences of trauma, and how your body responds to it. Practices to engage in one’s somatic awareness are mindful breathing that focus on the quality, depth, rhythm, location, and body movement; mindfulness of habitual movements where one selects a movement to explore and you notice how you feel inside while repeating the movement and connect to your emotions; body-mind centering where using movement, touch voice and mindfulness can re-pattern or re-educate the individual and their relationship with their body and emotions; and the Alexander Technique that through movement and stretching helps bring forwards the awareness of the impact of stress and trauma on the body, amongst more (Cohen, E., 2023).
The importance in assessing chronic long-term effects of stress and trauma is to prioritize the integration of the mind, brain, and body, and connect it with your spirit and ability of awareness; where therapeutic practices and life choices can be embraced in the journey to healing. There is no easy pathway towards health, balance, and resiliency; as there will always be obstacles, challenges, and two steps forward and one step back in the journey of recovery.
References:
American Psychological Association. (March, 2023). Stress effects on the body. https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body
Cohen, E. (August, 2023). An Introduction to Somatic Stretching. Charlie Health. https://www.charliehealth.com/post/introduction-to-somatic-stretching#:~:text=The%20core%20aim%20of%20somatic,(muscle%20contraction%20and%20release).
Rousseau, D. (2023). Module 3: Neurobiology of Trauma. Retrieved from: MET CJ 720 O2 Trauma and Crisis Intervention Printable Lectures.
Ucrós, G. (February, 2023). Somatic Awareness: Learning how to read your body’s story. Woven Together Trauma Therapy. https://woventraumatherapy.com/blog/somatic-awareness-reading-bodys-story
Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking Penguin.
World Health Organization. (February, 2023). Stress. Web page: https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/stress#:~:text=Stress%20can%20be%20defined%20as,experiences%20stress%20to%20some%20degree.