The Way We Can Cope With Trauma And How Important Is The Mental Health
- Apr 2, 2023
- 4 min read
Written by: Corina Neagu, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Trauma is a result of battering, witnesses horrible attacks, enduring an accident/incident, death of someone close, abuse and so on.
When a person is experiencing a traumatic event or experiencing extreme fear, their "Fear Circuitry" may kick in and the prefrontal cortex begins to function less effectively. This means that in the midst of trauma, a person may not be able to think through the situation and make decisions such as calling for help.
Anytime a person is subject to violence, it brings forth trauma, whether it is in small doses or extreme doses. Posttraumatic Stress Disorders (war shock) was only linked to combat, but recently mental health experts are finding that more individuals are subject to Posttraumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD). Generally, people that suffer Multiple Personality Disorder often have Posttraumatic Stress Disorders underneath. It is often difficult to detect this since people with Multiple Personality Disorder alters or changes personalities.
Some of the personality types may not illustrate any symptoms of mental illness, while others may illustrate extreme symptoms. Most patients with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) were subject to extreme abuse as a child, which means these people suffered severe trauma from the get-go.
Now, the people that do not have Multiple Personality would have to undergo traumatic experiences, or witness traumatic attacks. It depends on the mind but some people can witness an accident and it won’t faze them, while others can witness a similar accident and it could lead them into PTSD symptoms. This type of mind is often suffering with other problems, and the problem has not been detected, while the person that was not affected probably had excellent coping skills. Most likely, the person affected survived traumas long before this accident took place. Trauma affects us all differently and some more than others.
When a person endures trauma, it is essential to get help immediately, since trauma often plays with the mind. A person will often endure sleepless nights, nightmares, anxiety and panic attacks and so forth. The issues bring forth more complications since the nerves are tortured and the person might resort to alcohol or drugs to relieve the symptoms. Flashbacks are common with trauma people, and flashbacks can be dangerous since the person loses contact with the here and now. Rather the person will go back in time to the event or one of the series of events that caused the trauma and they often stay stuck there for a few minutes or longer. If someone is around them and that person does not have understanding other complications can occur.
People with Posttraumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) are often treated with various medications. But before getting medication, the more you take care of you, the more your symptoms will run the other way. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is nothing to play around with, since the symptoms are ‘combat.’ In other words, when you endure an attack, the person often feels like he or she is on a battlefield and everyone around them is the enemy. The symptoms leave no room for concentration, understanding, and even affect the person’s ability to hear what is said to him or her.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder starts out with smaller symptoms and gradually works up to deeper symptoms if not treated. The sleepless nights alone leave the patient open for triggers. Triggers are sound, smell, voices, taste, and so forth. There are many elements in society that can trigger an episode of Posttraumatic Stress. It is also important to minimize the entertainment habits, for instance. If possible, avoid movies that will startle, fright, or trigger your symptoms. Movies that are animated or comedies are great sources of entertainment that will spare you a posttraumatic stress attack. You want to remember that when the nervous system is affected then so is the body and mind. In other words, the more attacks you have from posttraumatic stress put your heart and body at risk of physical illnesses. Finally, it is important to seek help, take care of yourself, and avoid any element in society that will trigger your symptoms.
Seeking help means to also read about the subject, listen to people experiencing same feelings and symptoms, listen to specialists, like Dr. Andrew Huberman, for instance.
Andrew Huberman is an American neuroscientist and tenured associate professor in the department of neurobiology and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine who has made contributions to the brain development, brain plasticity, and neural regeneration and repair fields. Much of his work is focused on the visual system, including the mechanisms controlling light-mediated activation of the circadian and autonomic arousal centers in the brain, as well as brain control over conscious vision or sight. Huberman has been credited with coining the term "Non-Sleep Deep Rest" (NSDR), referring to practices that place the brain and body into shallow sleep to accelerate neuroplasticity and help offset mental and physical fatigue.
In 2021, Dr. Huberman launched the "Huberman Lab" podcast with the goal of translating neuroscience into tools that can be applied in everyday life.
In the end of this article, I would like to introduce one of the episodes: Erasing Fears & Traumas Based on the Modern Neuroscience of Fear. In this episode, Dr. Huberman discusses fear and trauma, including the neural circuits involved in the “threat reflex” and how specific experiences and memories activate that system. He also discusses how our body is involved in trauma and fear. I sincerely hope this helps a little to clarify the terminology, but also the way we experience trauma and how we can cope with it.
Corina Neagu, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Corina is the H (human) in HR, and she has more than 20 years of experience in Human Resources. She has become an entrepreneur in HR and Leadership Consulting in 2014. She founded Dare (www.dare.com.ro) in 2016 as she always dared to dream, to create, to share more and more, to do good. She has trained, mentored and career coached thousands of people starting 2010 including teenagers, students, employees in many organizations. She has started to deliver HR and management trainings in Asia in 2015, when she has also become an HR and Management professor at the Business Academy in Bucharest. Now she works as Human Capital Business Partner at Xclusiverse, in Dubai.
