How to Heal From Trauma & Stages of Recovery

Last Updated on March 10, 2024

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Did you know that 70% of U.S. adults have been into some traumatic experience at least once in their lives? That makes about 223.4 million individuals according to the national council.

Notably, extremely stressful events that make you feel helpless and destroy your sense of security in an unsafe world resulting in emotional and psychological trauma.

Let’s take the example of the pandemic Covid-19. It traumatized most parts of the world, adversely affecting people from across the globe physically, emotionally, and financially as well.  

The good news is you can heal from trauma by following certain tried and tested tips. We will reveal those useful tips in this article, but before getting into the meat, let’s get to know more about trauma.   

What Is Trauma?

When defining trauma, it’s an emotional response to a terrible event such as rape, accident, or natural disaster, according to the American Psychological Association (APA). Adding to it, a Traumatic experience can also include life experiences such as death, divorce, and illness.

Subsequent to trauma, you feel denial and shock typically. As far as its long-term effects are concerned, you possibly suffer from physical symptoms, e.g., fatigue, headaches, and nausea. The long-term traumatic effects also include volatile emotions and flashbacks.

What Are the Effects of Trauma on the Body?

Trauma, whether emotional or psychological, affects the human body in the following ways;

Overproduction of Stress Hormones

When in trauma, your body stimulates the overproduction of stress hormones named cortisol. Noticeably, your body remains in a state of high alert due to the activation of stress hormones in case you are reliving a traumatic experience constantly.

Triggers might include an exaggerated startle response or tremble, occurring due to the things reminding you of a traumatic event.

Fight or Flight Mode

Whenever you feel triggered, your body will step into flight, fight, or freeze mode. To put it simply, you will either.

• Defend yourself against the trigger

Or,

• Feel paralyzed

You might also feel difficulty sleeping and the need to avoid situations or people that you believe threatening.

Psychological and Emotional Distress

Trauma has an impact on three areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex. More shockingly, it can cause lasting changes in all three areas.

What’s even worse? Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can cause impaired functioning of the brain and make significant changes in its size as per some animal studies. Moreover, post-traumatic stress leads to a fight-or-flight response that further causes the overproduction of cortisol.

If so happens, rewiring of your brain’s circuitry will take place, bringing about emotional and psychological distress.

Some Other Traumatic Effects

• Insomnia and night terrors leading to difficulty concentrating and fatigue
• Anxiety and agitation
• Mood swings, anger, and rage
• Numbness
• Unexplained aches and pains
• High blood pressure, racing heart

What Are the Stages of Trauma Recovery?

An American psychiatrist Judith Herman talks about the following three stages of trauma recovery in her book “Trauma and Recovery”,

1. Stabilization

It includes symptom-oriented treatment and preparation for traumatic memory liquidation.

2. Identification

The second stage has to do with traumatic memories’ exploration as well as modification.

3. Prevention From Relapse

In this stage, there occurs relief of residual symptomatology, rehabilitation, and personality reintegration.

How to Heal From Trauma

You can start healing from trauma by following these useful tips;

Limit Media Exposure

Avoid watching disturbing footage and checking social media before bed. Also, don’t watch online news and TV until your symptoms of trauma lessen or diminish.

Accept What You Feel

In this regard, you need to deal with painful emotions in the following ways;

• Give yourself time to get through your feelings and mourn any loss you’ve encountered.
• Avoid forcing the healing process.
• Being patient during the recovery period.
• Preparing yourself for volatile emotions.
• Learning to reconnect with uncomfortable emotions.

See also: How to heal yourself emotionally

Take Positive Actions

Taking positive actions can help overcome feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and fear. Here are some of the positive action examples that you can take;

• Donate blood.
• Contribute to charitable activities.
• Open a door for a stranger.
• Find ways to comfort others, e.g., share a smile.
• Be friendly.
• Take part in memorials, and public rituals to stay connected.

Be Physically Active

Being physically active is a surefire way of releasing endorphins, i.e., the feel-good hormone that’ll boost your mood. You can do the following to stay physically active;

• Indulge in rhythmic exercises, e.g., running, walking, dancing, basketball, or swimming.
• Practice mindfulness by participating in rock climbing, martial arts, weight training, or boxing.
• Increase your exercise timing over time.
• Stay consistent.

Go for Stress-reduction Ways

Here are some of the stress-reductions ways you can go for;

• Breathe 60 times to calm yourself in any situation.
• Meditate and do yoga.
• Schedule time for joyful activities such as painting, gardening, dancing, and listening to your favorite inspirational personality.

Have a Healthy Diet and Get Quality Sleep

Having a well-balanced diet is extremely important to keep you alive and fresh at all times. In fact, you can cope with traumatic feelings better by having a healthy diet, including a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables.

As well as that, getting quality sleep is also necessary for coping with trauma. To accomplish this purposefully, avoid caffeine, make your bedroom dark, soothing, and quiet and go to sleep at the same time.  

Join the Trauma Skills Summit

If you are looking for how to recover from emotional trauma, this transformational course has a lot to offer you.

Yes, you read that right! It’s an online course where you’ll be exploring the latest trauma healing inventions. This online course is going to transform your life by helping you release your unresolved trauma. More to your interest, there will be 24 global leaders to inspire you and help you start healing.     

Joining this online event is going to be the best decision of your life. Wondering why?  This is because this all-encompassing course will be healing your body, mind, emotions, and spirit with powerful insights.

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See also:

• How to heal ancestral trauma
• 5 TED talks on trauma
• Breathwork to release trauma

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