The best way to explain this is to think of our nervous system - which is made up of the brain and all the nerves that run down into the organs and limbs - as a regulator and interpreter of stimuli. It's a bit like a circuit board.
So when we go through a stressful event, our stress response will activate via the nervous system to get us out of the way of danger. The heart rate will quicken, the muscles will clench, digestion is paused and the breath becomes short and shallow.
This response happens in a split second, sending a cascade of signals from the brain to the adrenals to release cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine which get us moving. It's a remarkable evolutionary mechanism that promotes our survival and helps us to flee danger.
What happens when we undergo a traumatic event, however, is that the brain continues to perceive a threat and will stay in fight, flight or freeze mode.
Rather than finding regulation in the nervou system, unresolved trauma means the brain will continue to respond to a threat that no longer exists and the amygdala (the fear centre) will keep ringing the alarm.
With the alarm ringing and the stress hormones still flooding the body, many will encounter adrenal fatigue.
Without rest, and a physical feeling of safety, our minds and bodies cannot heal, digest, metabolise food, or absorb nutrients – not to mention sleep, feel creative, or find connection through relationships.
Rest is absolutely essential to our survival.
For anyone stuck in fight/flight or freeze, emotions will be expressed out of proportion to what’s actually happening. Reactions will be extreme, perhaps violent.
One of the most common symptoms is a feeling of being out of control, stuck in time, unable to move forward, unable to make any decisions. And that's because the areas of the brain responsible for executive thinking and time processing are affected.
So are the regions responsible for language, communication and memory, which explains why it can be really hard for people to express what they're feeling and going through, to situate themselves or to recall what happened.
With so many of the brain’s major regions closing down, there’ll be a lot of brain fog, a lot of confusion and violent outbursts can be very common.
As a way of dissociating from the pain, connection between the mind and body cuts off and we no longer receive vital information from the body. The more disembodied we are, the more in our heads we are. And when everything is signalling a perpetual threat, it's easy to see how living in one's skin becomes unbearable.
Which leads me to...
This is my 8-week mentorship for yoga teachers like you who want to go deeper in your skill, knowledge and expertise when working with trauma-impacted students so you can support them to feel safe within themselves and move forward in life.
If you're finding yourself working with students for whom these symptoms sound familiar and you want to understand the evidence basis and techniques for working with trauma, I'll be sharing all this – as well as how to take your work off the mat and into the world with a trauma informed pilot yoga program of your own – in next summer's Becoming a Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher.
Early Bird pricing with 20% off ends November 20th.