If you have experienced a traumatic event or ongoing adversity, you may suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. While PTSD is a mental health condition, your physical health can also be affected.
Your mental and physical health are closely connected, and it’s important to pay attention to how your body feels after going through a traumatic experience.
Maybe you have been struggling with aches and pains, or perhaps you’ve been getting sick more often. A holistic approach to healing that integrates treatment for mental and physical symptoms is necessary. Here are a few ways PTSD can affect your physical health.
Sleep Deprivation
Maybe you have experienced night terrors that leave you feeling panicked in the middle of the night. After waking up from a night terror, it might be practically impossible to fall back asleep. Or, maybe you have trouble falling asleep when you first go to bed.
Every night, you toss and turn, struggling to keep your eyes closed even when you’re exhausted. Sleep deprivation can exacerbate your other symptoms, and after a night of poor sleep, you may feel more anxious, irritable, angry, or depressed.
You may also have trouble focusing, which can affect your performance at work and make you feel nervous about everyday tasks like driving.
Headaches and Migraines
Sometimes, the stress associated with PTSD can cause frequent headaches. You may even experience migraine headaches that make you feel sensitive to light and sound.
Sleep deprivation can contribute to these headaches. These headaches can be quite debilitating. Furthermore, if you’ve experienced changes in your appetite after trauma, and struggle to eat healthy foods you may have headaches that come along with hunger.
Gastrointestinal Issues
PTSD can cause a variety of gastrointestinal issues. When you feel triggered, you might experience nausea. You might also deal with heartburn as a consequence of stress. Your gastrointestinal issues might make it hard to motivate yourself to eat.
On the other hand, you may turn to comfort foods to cope with the effects of trauma, and these dietary choices might affect your digestion. Our eating habits and our emotional health often go together, and it can be very difficult to maintain healthy eating habits after experiencing trauma.
Chronic Pain
People with PTSD may experience chronic pain. You might have muscle aches, joint pain, or back pain, even if you live a relatively sedentary lifestyle. You’re not in pain because you injured or overexerted yourself physically, it’s because your physical health is affected by your mental health.
Stress can lead to inflammation throughout the body. Inflammation is a natural physical response that can help you heal from illness or injury. But chronic inflammation can be harmful to your overall health, especially if it is connected to stress.
Lowered Immune Response
Do you tend to get sick more often when you’re feeling stressed? Chronic stress can lower the effectiveness of your body’s immune response. This means that you might be more susceptible to frequent colds or other illnesses.
In addition, a lack of sleep can make it harder for your body to fight off illnesses and you may even be more vulnerable to more serious illnesses. Of course, being sick and unable to take care of all your responsibilities can often worsen your stress. This can turn into a cycle that is tough to break.
If these symptoms sound familiar to you, reach out to your physician to be sure your symptoms are related to your trauma, and seek the help of a mental health professional who is trained to treat trauma. Working together you will learn tools to manage, lessen, and overcome your symptoms.
Is your physical and emotional health suffering in the aftermath of trauma? Therapy can help you heal. Many therapists at the Relationship Counseling Center of Austin work with clients who are needing to process and recover from traumatic events in their lives. Reach out to us today to discuss your options for scheduling your first session by calling (512) 270-4883, or request an appointment on the RCC Austin Scheduling page.
For more information, click here: Trauma Therapy