Understanding Trauma: Anatomy, Responses, and Healing

Published on October 16, 2024

Understanding Trauma: Anatomy, Responses, and Healing

Written By: Leah Linder, ND

Trauma is a complex emotional and physical response to a distressing or life-altering event. Whether it’s the result of a sudden accident, ongoing emotional abuse, or a natural disaster, trauma can leave deep imprints on both the mind and body. Understanding how we experience trauma, the various ways it can manifest, and the steps we can take toward healing is essential for anyone on a journey of recovery.

Acknowledging that you have gone through a traumatic event is a crucial first step in the healing process. It allows you to validate your experience and emotions, rather than suppress or minimize them. When you recognize the trauma, you open the door to understanding its impact on your mind and body, which is essential for moving forward. This acknowledgment helps break the cycle of avoidance and denial, providing space for self-compassion, emotional processing, and seeking support. By facing the trauma, you create the foundation for healing, personal growth, and reclaiming control over your life.

What is Trauma?

Trauma refers to an emotional and physiological response to a deeply disturbing or threatening event. It can result from:

  • Acute Trauma: A single, overwhelming event like an accident, assault, or natural disaster.
  • Chronic Trauma: Ongoing stress from prolonged exposure to harmful situations, such as domestic violence, emotional abuse, or living in a war or disaster zone.
  • Complex Trauma: Exposure to multiple, varied traumatic events, often occurring in childhood, which impacts emotional development and coping mechanisms.

Trauma affects everyone differently. For some, the effects may be immediate, while for others, the impact might emerge months or even years after the event.

Anatomy and Physiology of Trauma: What Happens in Your Brain and Body?

Trauma affects specific parts of the brain and body, activating your fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. Let’s look at the key systems involved:

1. The Brain's Role in Trauma

  • Amygdala: This part of the brain detects threats and triggers the body's stress response. During trauma, the amygdala becomes hyperactive, putting the body on high alert.
  • Prefrontal Cortex: Responsible for rational thought and decision-making, the prefrontal cortex can become less active during trauma, making it harder to think clearly or control emotions.
  • Hippocampus: Critical for processing memories, the hippocampus often struggles to properly store traumatic memories. As a result, these memories can feel fragmented or constantly replay, causing flashbacks or intrusive thoughts.

2. The Body's Response

  • Autonomic Nervous System (ANS): Trauma activates the sympathetic nervous system, responsible for the fight-or-flight response. This leads to increased heart rate, rapid breathing, and elevated stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.
  • HPA Axis: The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis helps regulate stress hormones. When trauma occurs, the HPA axis can become dysregulated, leading to chronic stress, anxiety, or physical symptoms like fatigue, disrupted sleep, and digestive problems.
  • Vagus Nerve: This nerve regulates the body’s parasympathetic system (rest and digest), which helps calm the body after a threat has passed. In trauma survivors, the vagus nerve can remain underactive, leaving the body in a constant state of hyperarousal.

Trauma Responses: How Trauma Manifests in Our Lives

People react to trauma in different ways, and these responses can vary based on the severity of the trauma, personal history, and individual resilience. Here are the four main trauma responses:

1. Fight Response

  • Signs: Anger, irritability, controlling behaviors, aggression, and a need for power.
  • Why It Happens: The brain’s survival instinct kicks in, and individuals in this state may lash out to regain control of their surroundings.

2. Flight Response

  • Signs: Restlessness, anxiety, panic attacks, perfectionism, or the need to escape situations.
  • Why It Happens: Fleeing or avoiding the traumatic situation is a survival mechanism to protect oneself from perceived threats.

3. Freeze Response

  • Signs: Dissociation, numbness, feeling disconnected from reality, indecision, or shutting down emotionally.
  • Why It Happens: When neither fight nor flight feels like a viable option, the brain may "freeze," resulting in a sense of paralysis or inability to act.

4. Fawn Response

  • Signs: People-pleasing, difficulty setting boundaries, prioritizing others’ needs over your own, and feeling trapped in unhealthy relationships.
  • Why It Happens: The brain’s response is to appease or placate the perceived source of threat to avoid conflict or further harm.

Symptoms of Trauma

Recognizing the signs of trauma can help individuals and their loved ones understand when it’s time to seek support. Common symptoms include:

  • Emotional Symptoms: Anxiety, depression, mood swings, irritability, emotional numbness, and/or frequent nightmares.
  • Cognitive Symptoms: Difficulty concentrating, intrusive thoughts, memory issues, or feeling confused.
  • Physical Symptoms: Fatigue, muscle tension, headaches, gastrointestinal problems, and/or sleep disturbances.
  • Behavioral Symptoms: Social withdrawal, avoiding situations that trigger memories, and/or engaging in self-destructive behaviors (e.g., substance abuse).

Practical Tips and Tools for Healing from Trauma

Healing from trauma is not a linear process, and it requires time, patience, and self-compassion. Below are some practical tools to help you move forward on your healing journey.

1. Grounding Techniques

  • Grounding exercises help bring your awareness to the present moment, which is essential for breaking the cycle of flashbacks or dissociation. Techniques include:
    • 5-4-3-2-1 Method: Identify 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, and 1 you can taste.Taking a moment to pay attention to your 5 senses can help get out of your emotional brain for a moment, pulling you back into the present moment.
    • Breathing Exercises: Deep breathing helps calm the nervous system and reduce anxiety. Try box breathing - inhaling for 4 counts, holding for 4, exhaling for 4, and then again holding for 4, then repeat 10x.

2. Mind-Body Practices

  • Trauma impacts both the mind and body, so holistic approaches can be highly beneficial.
    • Yoga: Trauma-sensitive yoga focuses on gentle movement and breathing to help release tension stored in the body.
    • Meditation: Mindfulness meditation encourages present-moment awareness and can help regulate emotions and stress.
    • Tapping: also known as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), is a form of energy psychology that combines ancient Chinese acupressure with modern psychological practices. It involves tapping on specific meridian points on the body—similar to acupuncture points—while focusing on emotional issues or physical pain. The goal is to help release blocked energy and reduce emotional intensity, particularly in response to trauma.

3. Trauma-Informed Therapy

  • Seeking professional help from a therapist trained in trauma can provide critical support.
    • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Helps individuals challenge and reframe negative thought patterns associated with trauma.
    • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): This therapy helps reprocess traumatic memories so they are less distressing.
    • Somatic Experiencing: Focuses on releasing trauma stored in the body by tuning into physical sensations.

4. Journaling and Expressive Writing

  • Writing about your feelings and experiences can help process trauma in a safe way. Try keeping a gratitude journal or writing about your day to track emotional patterns and triggers.

5. Building a Support Network

  • Trauma can feel isolating, but connecting with supportive people—whether friends, family, or a support group—can be a vital part of healing.

6. Supporting the Body with Herbs and Nutrients

  • Just as a support network of people can be vital in the healing process, so too can nourishing the body with herbs and nutrients that promote resilience and calm. Trauma can deplete the body’s natural resources, leading to feelings of fatigue, anxiety, and stress. Consider incorporating these supportive herbs and nutrients as part of your trauma recovery journey, alongside other healing practices.
  • Herbs like ashwagandha and rhodiola are known for their adaptogenic properties, helping to balance the body’s stress response and restore energy.
  • Magnesium and B vitamins are also key nutrients that support the nervous system, reducing anxiety and promoting relaxation.

7. Self-Compassion and Patience

  • Self-compassion and patience are essential components in the process of healing from trauma, serving as both the foundation and guiding force throughout recovery. Trauma often leaves us feeling overwhelmed, vulnerable, and self-critical. During the healing process, it's easy to become frustrated by the speed of recovery or blame ourselves for emotional struggles, decrease or lack of productivity, disinterest in things that once brought us purpose and joy… and the list goes on and on. However, practicing self-compassion—the act of extending kindness, understanding, and forgiveness to oneself—helps break this cycle of negativity. It gives you space to embrace your emotions without judgment and fosters a sense of inner safety. Patience plays a key role by acknowledging that healing from trauma is not a linear process and cannot be rushed. Trauma recovery involves revisiting difficult emotions and memories, which can take time to not only process but also to reorient to. Being patient with yourself allows room for setbacks and emotional fluctuations, recognizing that healing comes in waves rather than a steady stream.
  • Self-compassion and patience together create the emotional resilience needed to persevere through challenging moments, ultimately cultivating deeper healing and personal growth. By treating yourself with care and understanding, the journey becomes less about "fixing" the pain and more about creating space for ongoing recovery, growth, and self-love. Some days its two steps forward, some its three steps back, but it is important to recognize that regardless of the direction, there is movement, and movement creates change… and change takes time.

Moving Toward Healing

  • Experiencing trauma can leave lasting scars, but understanding how trauma affects the brain and body is a crucial first step toward healing. By recognizing the different ways trauma manifests and exploring practical tools like grounding techniques, therapy, and self-compassion, you not only have first-aid care for moments of crisis, but you can also actively participate in your journey of reeorientation, healing, and evolution.
  • Healing is a process, not a destination, and it’s okay to seek support when needed. With compassionate tools, you can regain control, reclaim your life, and move forward from trauma into a place of peace and empowerment.

Supportive resources

1. Professional Therapy and Counseling

  • Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT): A type of cognitive-behavioral therapy specifically designed to help individuals process and heal from trauma. It involves techniques such as cognitive restructuring, relaxation, and exposure therapy.
  • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR helps people process traumatic memories by focusing on the distressing memory while making specific eye movements. This approach helps to reduce the emotional impact of trauma.
  • Somatic Experiencing (SE): A body-oriented approach that helps release trauma stored in the body. It focuses on physical sensations to facilitate emotional release and healing.

2. Support Groups and Online Communities

  • Support Groups: Peer support groups, either in person or online, provide a safe space for sharing experiences and learning from others who are also navigating trauma recovery.
  • Online Forums & Apps: Virtual communities can offer anonymity and support for those who may not feel ready for in-person interactions.
    • Resources:
      • After Silence: This forum aims to validate, empower, and support survivors of all types of sexual violence through protected and moderated message boards and online chat.
      • CPTSD Community Safe Group and Out of the Storm: these are forums to support those that have experienced complex relational trauma
      • MyPTSD is a forum helps connect survivors and their supporters with PTSD news, information, and community support.

3. Books on Trauma and Healing

  • “Transforming Trauma” by James S. Gordon, M.D. Gordon’s work is grounded in scientific evidence and timeless wisdom. Through his decades of first-hand experience, he understands that trauma will come to all of us sooner or later. That each of us has the capacity to understand and heal ourselves. And that the heartbreaking devastation that trauma causes can also open our hearts and minds to deeper understanding, enhanced meaning and purpose, and greater love.
  • "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk: A highly regarded resource that explains how trauma affects the brain and body and provides insights into healing strategies.
  • "Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma" by Peter A. Levine: This book offers insights into Somatic Experiencing and how the body can heal from trauma.

4. Trauma-Informed Apps

  • Calm App: Offers guided meditations and breathing exercises for calming the nervous system, which can be particularly beneficial for individuals experiencing trauma-related anxiety.
  • Insight Timer: Features a wide range of guided meditations specifically for trauma and emotional healing.
  • 7 Cups is a free mobile App to support those that have gone through or are currently experiencing trauma.

5. Trauma Hotlines and Crisis Resources

  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Provides free, confidential support for those in distress and crisis, available 24/7.
  • Crisis Text Line: Text-based support for anyone dealing with trauma or emotional crises. Text "HELLO" to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor.
  • RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): Offers resources and a helpline for survivors of sexual trauma.

 

About the Author

Leah Linder, ND, is a writer, speaker, and educator on topics of natural medicine, dietary supplements, and medical foods, with a specialty in the human microbiota and cognitive wellness. An alumnus of Bastyr University, Dr. Linder is a licensed naturopathic physician, the owner of her own private practice, and consults for several health and wellness companies bridging the gap between scientific research and healthcare in practice. Her guiding philosophy, "I don't heal my patients; I teach them to heal themselves," underlies her passion for supporting individuals to take charge of their well-being, highlighting the importance of holistic education and self-empowerment on their journey through all stages of life.