Trauma is a nervous system response to events that overwhelm you and disrupt your sense of safety, well-being, and normalcy. These events can cause significant and long-lasting emotional, mental, or physical distress. Trauma can result from many different experiences, including:
- Accidents or natural disasters
- Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
- Loss of a loved one
- Witnessing or being involved in violence
- Experiencing neglect or abandonment
- Bullying
Trauma affects everyone differently, so even if others have gone through similar experiences, your reaction and feelings are valid and unique.
How Trauma Affects Your Nervous System
Trauma doesn’t just affect your emotions and thoughts; it also has a significant impact on your body, particularly your nervous system. The nervous system controls how you respond to stress, danger, and discomfort, and trauma can alter its normal functioning. Here’s how trauma impacts your nervous system:
- Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response: When you experience trauma, your body goes into a heightened state of alert. This “fight or flight” response is meant to help you react quickly to danger. But in the case of trauma, your nervous system may stay in this state, even after the threat has passed, leaving you feeling anxious, tense, or on edge all the time.
- Chronic Stress: Trauma can cause your body to remain in a constant state of stress. The hormones released during this time, like cortisol, can lead to exhaustion, sleep issues, and physical ailments. Over time, chronic stress can weaken your immune system, increase inflammation, and contribute to long-term health problems.
- Hyperarousal: Your nervous system may become overly sensitive to stress after trauma. This is called hyperarousal, and it can make you feel irritable, restless, or easily startled. It’s like your body is constantly on high alert, even in situations that aren’t threatening.
- Dissociation: In some cases, trauma can cause your body to “shut down” emotionally or physically in response to overwhelming feelings. This is called dissociation, and it may feel like you’re detached from your surroundings or unable to connect to your body, making it harder to process the event.
- Numbness or Emotional Shutdown: Trauma can also cause you to feel emotionally numb or disconnected. This is your nervous system’s way of protecting you from overwhelming emotions, but it can also leave you feeling detached or unable to fully engage with your life or relationships.
How Therapy Can Help You Heal from Trauma
The effects of trauma can be overwhelming, but therapy offers a way to work through those experiences and heal. Here’s how therapy can help you address trauma and its impact on your nervous system:
- Regulating the Nervous System: In therapy, you’ll learn techniques to calm and regulate your nervous system, helping to reduce the physical symptoms of stress like tension or rapid heartbeat. Practices such as deep breathing, grounding exercises, and mindfulness can help activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for relaxation and recovery.
- Understanding Trauma’s Impact: Therapy helps you understand how trauma has affected both your mind and body. By exploring your responses to trauma, you can begin to recognize the signs of an overactive nervous system and work to restore balance.
- Processing Trauma: At Integrate Counselling, we practise therapies like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and AEDP which are backed by evidence. We can help you process traumatic memories and reduce the emotional charge attached to them. By reprocessing traumatic memories, you can begin to integrate them in a way that allows you to feel more grounded and in control.
- Healing the Mind and Body: Trauma affects your whole system—your mind, body, and spirit. Therapy approaches like Somatic Experiencing and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga focus on reconnecting the body and mind, helping you release stored tension and trauma in your nervous system.
- Building Coping Skills: Therapy teaches you healthy ways to cope with stress and trauma. These tools help you manage overwhelming emotions, trigger responses, and physical sensations. Over time, you’ll feel more in control of your reactions and emotions.
- Rebuilding a Sense of Safety: Trauma often disrupts your sense of safety, but therapy helps you rebuild that feeling. Together with your therapist, you can work on creating a safe, supportive environment to process your trauma and develop trust in your ability to manage and heal.
- Improving Relationships: Trauma often affects your ability to trust others or maintain healthy relationships. Therapy can help you understand how trauma has shaped your connections with others and provide tools for rebuilding trust and communication.
Is Trauma Therapy Right for You?
At Integrate Counselling, we are trauma specialists. We would love to help you heal from past trauma. If you’re ready to start, please reach out to us today. These therapists offer EMDR, a proven trauma therapy: Ferdie, Esther, Khushi, Sandy and Spencer. Nate offers AEDP, another effective trauma therapy.
