Trauma is a stressful event or experience that overwhelms an individual's nervous system.

Trauma isn't some kind of ambiguous emotional issue, it's inherently a physiological issue! Understanding trauma through this physical lens is essential to the pursuit of healing ourselves and having compassion for others.

All trauma is stress, but not all stress is trauma, and the difference lies mainly in the individual's resources and ability to cope.

When we think of trauma, it is easy to jump to the big stuff like experiencing violence, or the death of a loved one. We know intuitively that these things are traumatic and can leave lasting impressions on us. Yet when we look at trauma from the perspective of the body rather than our culture, a different story emerges: one that points to each individual having a unique psychological perception of and capacity for stress.

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Trauma, including one-time, multiple, or long-lasting repetitive events, affects everyone differently. Some individuals may clearly display criteria associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but many more individuals will exhibit resilient responses or brief subclinical symptoms or consequences that fall outside of diagnostic criteria. The impact of trauma can be subtle, insidious, or outright destructive. How an event affects an individual depends on many factors, including characteristics of the individual, the type and characteristics of the event(s), developmental processes, the meaning of the trauma, and sociocultural factors. - Trauma Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services (Link)

When we think of trauma, it is easy to jump to the big stuff like experiencing violence, or the death of a loved one. We know intuitively that these things are traumatic and can leave lasting impressions on us. Yet when we look at trauma from the perspective of the body rather than our culture, a different story emerges: one that points to each individual having a unique psychological perception of and capacity for stress.

Whether we're overwhelmed by an actual stress like the death of a loved one, or a perceived stress like worries about an economic crash, it's all stress.

The traditional psychology definition of stress most adopted comes from stress and coping theory (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). In this definition, stress occurs when a person perceives the demands of an environmental stimuli to be greater than their ability to meet, mitigate, or alter those demands (Lazarus et al., 1985). These perceptions of stress are not the same construct as trait measures of depressive symptoms or anxiety though there is some overlap. Trait-level measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms capture more diffuse individual differences in affective and behavioral experiences, whereas perceived stress refers to a response to specific conditions (though it can be chronic like anxiety and depressive symptoms). Perceived stress typically includes several psychological components of the stress response – feelings of overwhelm, or anxiety, as well as cognitions that demands outweigh resources, or not having control. - More than a feeling: A unified view of stress measurement for population science (Article)

It doesn't matter whether what we're going through is considered stressful or traumatic by our culture, or by those around us. What matters is how we are able to process and deal with the stress of the experience.

Our bodies respond to perceived stress by increasing or decreasing nervous system activity, which cues cascading responses through the rest of the body.

Our bodies are well equipped to handle stress in small doses, but when that stress becomes long-term or chronic, it can have serious effects on your body. - APA.org, Stress Effects on the Body (Article)

When we endure stress of any kind, our body senses that we need to adapt. By flooding the body with resources like adrenaline, we're able to accomplish amazing things. Yet what happens when that system doesn't recognize that the stress has passed, and it's time to relax?

Polyvagal theory provides a framework to interpret existing data about our physiological responses to trauma.

The polyvagal theory proposes several ideas around how our bodies process stress and trauma. Understanding this system can help individuals improve their health and reclaim their body's natural baseline of peace and play.

The polyvagal theory proposes that the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system provides the neurophysiological substrates for adaptive behavioral strategies. It further proposes that physiological state limits the range of behavior and psychological experience.
-Stephen W. Porges, PhD (Study)

Understanding that those who are stuck in trauma responses are physiologically experiencing different states allows a new level of compassion for ourselves, and others. When you're experiencing a stress response, you aren't "fully there"-- this doesn't mean that we aren't accountable for our actions, but rather that we can look at these actions as natural responses from fear.

Understanding the power of our survival responses and committing to living in a renewed relationship with them is so important to creating more peace in ourselves, our relationships, and our communities.

If you want to know more about healing trauma responses, book a call or send me an email at jo@wholeheartassistance.com!

Love,

Jo

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