Welcome to day one of this PTSD help mini course.
Today we are going to cover some of the basics of what someone with trauma will be experiencing,
How the brain is impacted by trauma,
Different types of trauma,
And most importantly,
How to recover from a traumatic experience using meditation.
Days two through five will include various meditations shown to be helpful with specific trauma symptoms.
Each meditation will start out with a brief discussion and then go right into teaching the meditation technique.
I hope you find this helpful and please feel free to ask any questions or leave any comments that you may have.
You often hear people say,
Time heals all wounds.
This may be the case for some difficulties in life,
But it is not the case for trauma.
Trauma leaves a lasting mark and trauma has staying power.
It does not always get better with time.
This is partly due to the physical changes that happen in the brain after a traumatic experience.
The brain is interconnected by vast networks of neurons.
Abnormal changes in the brain create disharmony among different regions that maintain the symptoms of trauma.
The following changes have been observed with brain scans.
Increased activity in the amygdala,
Or the fear center.
Decreased size of the hippocampus,
Which is the memory center.
Decreased size of the insula,
Which is the emotional mind-body awareness center.
Decreased activity in size of the prefrontal cortex,
Which is the logical thinking center of our brain.
And decreased activity in size of the cingulate.
I know this sounds like the uniform wrestlers wear,
But it's actually the self-regulating part of the brain.
So considering how dramatically traumatic experiences impact these structures,
It's easy to see much more than time is needed.
The good news is that researchers have also witnessed these brain structures healing with regular practice of the meditative techniques I will share.
Recovery is inevitable with perseverance,
Commitment,
And initiative.
Before we get to the practices,
I'd like to revisit the specific symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
This comes from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,
Fifth Edition.
This was created by the American Psychiatric Association.
I view this manual as a guide to understanding common reactions many of us have to stress,
Rather than scientific fact.
Of course,
There are several diagnoses in the DSM-5 that do have a purely biological basis and can be contributed to medical abnormalities.
But I'm referring to some of the more common mental health problems,
Such as PTSD.
So according to the DSM-5,
PTSD can develop from one's own experience with near-death,
Serious injury,
Or sexual violence.
It can also develop from one experiencing or learning of a close loved one experiencing any of these.
And of course,
Also the death of a close loved one,
Of course,
Would count.
I would like to break down the symptoms into four broad categories.
The first is involuntary memories of the event.
The next is avoidance of trauma triggers.
The next is a pervasive negative mind state.
And the last category is intense anxiety.
A person must technically have symptoms from each of these categories to meet the criteria.
So let's get into the more specific symptoms in each category.
The first category,
Involuntary memories of the event.
These symptoms can include flashbacks or sudden memories of the event,
Upsetting dreams about the event,
Disassociating from the present moment,
Or mentally reliving or re-experiencing the event.
Under our avoidance of trauma triggers category,
Some of the symptoms a person may have are intense and long-lasting anxiety related to stimuli that remind the person of the event.
This is when a person experiences a trauma trigger and it throws them into a panic that lasts for an extended period of time.
It doesn't just go away right away.
It takes a very long time for the person to calm down.
The next symptom is an avoidance of emotions and thoughts associated with the event.
And then the next is avoidance of people,
Places,
Things,
And conversations that remind the person of the event.
In our next category,
Negative mind state,
We have blaming oneself excessively.
Constant negative emotions such as fear,
Worry,
Anger,
Guilt,
Shame.
Person may stop participating in activities they enjoy.
Person may feel detached from other people.
And they may have an inability to experience positive emotions or they may feel numb.
In our last category,
Intense anxiety,
A person may experience angry outbursts that include yelling,
Physical violence,
Or property damage.
They may have reckless or self-destructive behavior.
They may have a feeling of always being sort of on guard.
This is also known as hypervigilance.
They could be easily startled or jumpy.
They may have difficulty concentrating.
And they may have sleep problems.
We can see how trauma could present itself in many different combinations of these symptoms.
A person need not have all these symptoms.
To meet the technical diagnosis,
They must have one symptom from the involuntary memory category,
One symptom from the avoidance category,
Two symptoms from the negative mind state category,
And two from the intense anxiety category.
But again,
A person could be experiencing serious problems related to a trauma they've been through and it not fit into this neat little diagnostic criteria.
Also,
Just a quick side note.
There is a great movie with Adam Sandler called Rain Over Me that very accurately depicts what it looks like when someone is struggling with PTSD.
It depicts many of these symptoms very well.
Trauma is very subjective to the person.
So maybe you haven't experienced any of the prerequisites to trauma such as violence,
Near death,
Or injury,
But you've been through something else that was deeply troubling for you.
I say listen to yourself and what your pain may be trying to tell you.
Pain can be a great motivator for personal growth.
It is also important to note that when the DSM file was being created,
Many,
Many health experts pushed for a new type of trauma diagnosis to be included.
They recognized many people have experienced developmental trauma.
This is also known as complex trauma.
While complex trauma shares many of the same symptoms,
These mental health experts who petitioned the American Psychological Association recognized the cause of this trauma was multifaceted,
Often involving a combination of ongoing physical abuse,
Emotional abuse,
Sexual abuse,
And or neglect during childhood.
They recognized the more chronic nature of developmental trauma and hoped it would be added as a new diagnosis to further research and treatment.
The positive is that whether a person suffers from the traditional PTSD stemming from one major event or complex PTSD stemming from repeated traumatic events as a child,
The meditative practices I share in this mini course have been proven through research to help with two major symptoms of PTSD,
Feeling detached or numb,
And experiencing anxiety attacks or angry outbursts.
So the first step to empowering yourself to recover from trauma is learning to reconnect mind,
Body,
And emotions.
The disconnection of the body and mind is to blame for the symptoms of detachment,
Dissociation,
Numbness,
Panic attacks,
And or angry outbursts.
So how can you control your emotional state when you don't know what you're feeling?
And how do you control anxiety attacks or anger outbursts that seem to just come out of nowhere?
The causes of these symptoms are related to two brain regions we previously discussed,
The amygdala and the insula.
Remember,
The amygdala is the fear center of the brain.
You can think of it as the smoke alarm.
The amygdala's job is to detect danger and then prepare the body to fight or flee.
It is considered very primitive and so operates mostly outside of our conscious awareness and cannot be always directly controlled.
After a traumatic experience,
This brain region tends to become overactive.
So the person develops an overactive danger detection system.
The other brain region we will mostly focus on during this mini course is the insula.
This brain area helps connect internal sensations with our emotional state.
For example,
If our insula is working properly,
We will be in tune with butterflies in our stomach.
We would notice this change in our physical state and most likely note it as nervousness.
We can then use this awareness to take an action to calm ourselves or prepare in some other way to cope with this change.
After trauma,
The person can sometimes lose this awareness of changes in their physical state.
This is thought to occur because during moments when our physical being is threatened,
All of our awareness needs to be focused outwardly to protect ourselves from the danger.
It could be possible that the mind never learns to reconnect to our internal world.
Recognizing these warning signs though is imperative to regulating our emotions.
Different emotions will produce heat at different locations in the body.
For instance,
Anxiety produces more heat in the core of the body,
While anger produces more heat in the upper torso and head.
After a traumatic experience,
The insula is often dysregulated.
At times it is underreacting and at other times it is overreacting.
When the insula is underactive,
The person will feel numb,
Detached,
Or kind of spaced out.
When it is overactive,
The person will experience angry outbursts or anxiety attacks.
Again,
The first step to recovery is to reconnect the physical sensations in the body with the mind.
This ability to detect physical changes in your internal state and thus in your emotions is known as interoception.
You can strengthen interoception with these meditation practices.
They have been specifically created to improve your mind-body connection.
The ability of meditative practices to create physical changes in the brain is something we've come to better understand since the advent of brain scans.
I think that it's just really cool stuff,
The way that meditation can change physical structures in the brain.
The practices I share in this course have been shown to calm the fear center of the brain,
Again the amygdala,
Reduce numbing,
Disassociation,
And anger outbursts,
It aids in one's ability to cope with negative memories,
And it decreases feelings of constantly being on guard.
So,
Let's get right to it.
Day two will start with beginning to notice where you may be holding stress in the body.
Be on the lookout for areas of tension,
And also remember,
Heat shows up in different areas of the body during different emotional states.
So,
Be sure that you're scanning for different levels of heat in the body as well.
It is important to note that the changes created in the brain from these techniques take time and regular practice,
So just be patient with yourself and stay committed.
You should notice some improvement after 30 days of regular practice.
So,
That is all for today,
Stay safe and healthy my friends,
And I'll see you next time.
