Your body always tells a story. Outwardly, the longer you live, the more scrapes and bruises reveal what you’ve been through. The same applies to your mental state. Your mind and emotional trauma are inextricably tied. When a traumatic event occurs, wounds happen that may or may not heal well.
Common Physical Effects of PTSD
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.
Trauma Explained: Definition, Types, and Symptoms
We have all heard about post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is a type of response to trauma. Many people associate PTSD with those who served in the military and were in combat settings. However, any person, regardless of age, gender, or background, can experience trauma and the symptoms associated with it.
To better explain trauma, let’s go over the definition, types, and symptoms associated with the disorder.
How You Can Start Healing From Sexual Trauma
Overwhelmed or Scared by the News? How to Cope & De-Stress
Have you reached your threshold for stress in 2020? If so, you are not alone. This is a time of previously unseen turmoil. Each one of us is navigating uncharted territory. To call this scenario frightening would be a vast understatement. The mere act of monitoring news headlines is enough to trigger anxiety.
If any or all of this sounds familiar, take heart. It is normal and okay to feel afraid under such dire circumstances. Through a combination of self-care steps and guidance from a therapist, you can rediscover your balance in the age of COVID-19.
EMDR: When It Works Well and What It's Like
More than three decades ago, therapist and researcher Dr. Francine Shapiro, developed a type of trauma therapy called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR. The therapy was born from an observation she made walking in a park one day. Shapiro noticed that moving her eyes appeared to decrease negative emotions associated with certain bad memories.
She combined other therapeutic components with eye movement and developed the researched and validated therapeutic protocol that is used today. EMDR therapy is a useful treatment for the after-effects of trauma and other negative life experiences.
Overwhelmed By Personal Loss? 5 Ways To Help Ease The Pain
We often associate personal loss with the death of a loved one. Grief, however, is not confined solely to death. A health crisis, career change, a home sale, or the termination of a relationship or marriage– there are numerous pieces of life, that, through the progression of time, we might eventually lose.
Grieving the parts of life that we once loved and cherished is painful, and the steps we take towards recovery may be very similar to the grieving process of losing a loved one.
PTSD and Trauma: How to Support Someone You Love
Having a family member or close friend with PTSD and trauma can be hard. More than anything, you want to support and comfort a loved one who is suffering from post-traumatic stress or struggling to recover from a traumatic event. But you don’t know what to do. The usual ways of relating don’t work. You feel almost as hopeless and out of control as you imagine your loved one must be feeling.
What can you do?
Body Awareness: Why It's Important to Trust What Your Body is Telling You
By Elizabeth McMahan
Intuition is a gift we were all given at infanthood. Intuition is how we connect with our inner selves through our bodies. It links closely with body awareness, also known as somatic awareness or “learning to feel your body.”
So, why is it that important to trust what your body is telling you?
EMDR Treatment for Trauma? What Makes It Worth Trying?
Trauma – caused by abuse, natural disasters, or perhaps battlefield experiences – is a widespread problem. Studies have shown that unprocessed memories of the trauma are often at the base of the negative thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations a trauma victim experiences.
Professionals utilize several effective therapies for treating trauma, such as CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) or psychodynamic therapies. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy is one that has become popular in more recent years and shows promising results.