Understanding Trauma: How Stress and Trauma Cause Chronic Pain, Anxiety, Depression, & PTSD

hello and welcome to this video presentation of understanding trauma the cause of chronic conditions my name is Scott Musgrave I'm a physical therapist chronic pain and Human Performance specialist and I've created this video especially for anyone who continues to suffer from a chronic condition like anxiety depression chronic pain or post-traumatic stress so that you can better understand what's really going on now understanding how your brain reacts to trauma well it turns out is the key to understanding how trauma impacts your body so the first thing we need to do is really Define trauma what is trauma you know the real definition of this may just surprise you okay listen we can all agree that getting into a car accident or breaking an arm or a leg these certainly constitute traumatic experiences in life but that really only tells part of the story the key to defining trauma lies within every one of us in something we all share in common and that something is our survival instincts so how do our instincts Define trauma well our instincts of survival ultimately Define trauma regardless of what we think about the event itself see it's a chemical thing there are certain parts of the brain that live beneath or outside of your conscious awareness and they react to these life events and when they produce the chemistry of trauma your body is pushed into a traumatic reaction that's what we're here to learn about so here's a new definition of trauma that's championed by renowned neurologist traumatologist author and international speaker Robert Scare and that is that trauma is defined find as any negative life event that occurs in a position of relative helplessness think about that statement for a moment relative helplessness so when the human brain experiences trauma or any negative event in a relative state of helplessness an instinctive process of protection is engaged and it turns out that the key to understanding trauma is finding out how the human brain responds to helplessness and how the helplessness engages these Natural Instincts of survival and what those Natural Instincts of survival do to your body so this is how it works when your brain experiences any event with a combined negative consequence and a relative state of helplessness to that event itself then instinctive neurochemistry turns on the survival strategies of fight andlight reactions which are then sent throughout the body and these fight andlight instinctive reactions of protection serve to help us survive the event which was ultimately perceived as a potentially life-threatening situation by our brain so we can all see the benefit of having an instinctive or automatic part of our brain constantly assessing for any life-threatening situation and ready to take action in the event that we experience something like that but the trouble with trauma is that the human brain has a way of learning to associate many things even safe things later on with the actual trauma long ago and then can re-engage the neurochemical processes of protection over and over and over often long after years after the actual threat has been extinguished in point of fact it's important to understand that this happens to all of us all the time consistent with the basic form and function of the human brain now most of our habits they're actually formed in exactly the same way and I want to go through some of the habits of trauma with you because I think you'll find that many of you have commonalities of symptom patterns or presentations within this grouping of habits so the habits of trauma include chronic pain depression anxiety fear tension anger post-traumatic stress dependency and learned helplessness now these interrelated habits well they're common patterns that are associated with trauma they're also common patterns when we're dealing with chronic conditions and the habits of trauma will generally they lead to patterns that have dramatic physiological impact in our bodies and ultimately dictate our very own quality of life the travesty for most trauma survivors is that the neurochemistry of helplessness is re-engaged so often often that maintaining a state of fight and flight becomes a habit and this results in a myriad of chronic conditions emerging each having its own doctor its own medicines and its own empty promises so to make matters worse most of the reactions that have resulted in these habits well they were actually false alarms so now we can understand how the brain responds to trauma but what does that have to do with how the body reacts to trauma okay listen the part of your brain that controls all of your survival instincts see that's called your autonomic or automatic nervous system it also controls every system in your body including your nervous system cardiac system digestive system circulatory system respiratory system reproductive system your excretory system your muscular system your skeletal system your endocrine system or hormone balance your immune system and your integumentary system take a look at that list chances are your symptom patterns are included but see this autonomic nervous system it also micromanages the inter relationships of all of these systems the tissues and organs that comprise these systems and how these systems work together to sustain your life that's 24 hours a day 7 days a week no breaks so when the autonomic nervous system engages the survival instincts of fight and flight every single system in the body receives instructions to be prepared for critical Action Now interestingly if you're able to evade the real or perceived threat that initiated this traumatic response in your brain then your autonomic nervous system turns off the survival instincts of fight and flight and this allows your body your physiology to return to balance or homeostasis that's the place where true healing can really occur but what happens when you can't or don't escape that threat then your brain or your autonomic nervous system becomes Frozen in a state of fight and flight still considering the trauma to be an active threat to your survival and when your autonomic nervous system freezes in the state of instinctively driven protection fight and flight kind of just like this Iceberg the real problems are much more more than you can see above the surface the real problems live underneath the surface inside every single system within your body now when you're Frozen in a fight andlight instinctive pattern of protection your brain drives your body hard at full speed kind of like this race car thing about that is our body isn't really built to sustain that over the Long Haul so over time as expected your body starts to break down and this results in chronic conditions that show up in multiple systems within your body look again at this graphic of the habits associated with trauma chronic pain depression anxiety fear tension anger post-traumatic stress dependency and learned helplessness okay and these can become habituated within your brain your body and your very life now the habits of trauma they generally lead to patterns that have dramatic physiological impact in your bodies and they ultimately dictate your quality of life the list of chronic conditions that result from the autonomic nervous system becoming Frozen in a state of instinctively driven fight and flight protection consequently instructing your body to operate at this full speed critical action alert well they just might surprise you so here is a partial list of traumas so that you can better understand the life consequences of living Frozen in a state of instinctively driven fight andlight protection so you can see how your history may have culminated into this state of fight and flight protection being activated within your body and driving your chronic conditions here's that list now there are many things on this list that you may or may not have considered to be traumatic in the past I would suggest you just pause this video now and read through this list and and ask yourself how these events may have been a part of your life's history now let's explore an example of how an old trauma can re-engage the fight andlight instinctive mechanisms of the autonomic nervous system today long after the threat is no longer uh is no longer real so consider getting in a car W and an intersection on your way to work and then relive living the experience of the accident the fear the the anxiety the the stress every time that you go through that inter intersection or as another example think of how your body reacts just before you step in front of a big crowd to give an important speech in both of these cases most of us react in predictable patterns that include increased heart rate blood pressure shortness of breath clammy hands dry mouth feeling like you have butterflies in your stomach tension and stress or recurrence of pain patterns the inability to focus or make decisions clenched fists and tight jaw digestive problems including irritable bowel syndrome uh and many others avoidance behaviors and emotional reactions including anger fear anxiety and depression now how can all of these reactions be Universal and predictable for All Humans it's because they represent the impact of the instinctive fight and andlight responses of protection within the human body and every time that these reactions become re-engaged they're actually reinforced and this results in the formation of Life habits over time perhaps this picture best exemplifies how our brain reacts today when exposed to the memory of an old trauma even when we consciously understand the experiences not currently or directly threatening our lives today look at this picture for a minute and just think about how how it makes you feel you can probably remember what you were doing when this occurred where you were the people that were around you the responses of those people the looks on their faces um You probably have very good recollection of of many events that were associated or surrounded by this event itself so now we can understand how trauma impacts our brain how that resulting fight andlight instincts take control over our body in order to help us survive the threat and how constant reinforcement of this protective patterning results in the formation of Life habits so it seems like the next question has to be what can we do to break this cycle of trauma well cuttingedge Neuroscience it's led to a remarkable discovery of of a very simple treatment application that actually changes the chemist of trauma within the autonomic nervous system right at the cause that's called associative awareness technique or aat and it's a remarkable treatment process that's specifically designed to promote balance within the autonomic nervous system aat is a treatment system that's built upon new discoveries in neuroscience and it represents a much needed change from the old thinking in medicine and best of all most of the aat treatment system is self-applied once you've learned the techniques you can perform them on your own anywhere the first step is called reflexercise and it's a simple effective self-applied step that can be readily implemented within minutes of downloading an instructional manual it represents a significant breakthrough in medicine as reflexor size promotes a neurochemical trend toward balancing the autonomic nervous system reflexively that means automatically even in the face of old long habituated traumatic responses reflexercise allows all humans to self-direct or train their own instinctive reactions to trauma now so if you were a loved one suffer from trauma chronic pain anxiety depression or post-traumatic stress then reflexor siiz is the first step to actually extinguishing that old threat and establishing A Renewed sense of neuro chemical and therefore physiological balance or homeostasis within your lives don't allow mistaken threat responses or false alarms to dictate your quality of life any longer you can get empowered Now to create change within your life today is that day now thank you so much for watching once again I'm Scott Musgrave chronic pain and Human Performance specialist and I wish you a happy healthy day for more information about how you can get started with associative awareness technique please visit wellness and performance.com

Channel: Associative Awareness Technique (AAT)

Views: 711,932

Keywords: Stress, Brain Body Connection, Brain (journal), Chronic Pain, Depression (mood), Pain, Anxiety, Reflexercise, AAT, PRRT, Fibromyalgia, Medical, Pain Management, Self Help, Brain Body Balance, PTSD, Brain, Neuroscience, Neurology, Physical Therapy, Medicine, Physiology

Id: byQBP7fq5vQ

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 06 2012