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After experiencing trauma, you may feel sad, anxious, and isolated. While it is common to experience such feelings after a traumatic event, you might struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD if these feelings persist. While most associate PTSD with sexual assault, childhood abuse or neglect, and military-related events, any event that leaves you with feelings of hopelessness, fear, and helplessness can trigger the onset of PTSD. PTSD can also affect people who experience or witness a traumatic event.
Amid a global pandemic, many healthcare professionals believe that PTSD is likely to impact millions worldwide. While it is difficult to experience such feelings or experience a friend or family member struggling, there are ways to help you cope and overcome these PTSD related feelings.
Practicing Breathwork
Did you know that breathing helps regulate critical neural and cognitive abilities and even helps promote better sleep? Yet, most people do not breathe properly. Breathing involves your diaphragm muscle. When you breathe correctly, your belly should expand upon inhalation and fall upon exhalation. However, most people forget to mind their breathing patterns repeatedly and instead use their chest and shoulders. Using the chest and shoulders causes you to take more shallow breaths. Shallow breathing not only interferes with your circadian rhythm but can also cause your nervous system to go into a state of feeling stressed and anxious. Taking time to focus on your breathwork helps regulate your overall feelings of harmony and helps diminish feelings of stress and anxiety that result from an episode of PTSD.
You can practice and strengthen your breathing techniques through exercise, yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. Taking just a few minutes intermittently throughout the day to reset and focus on your breathing can help you focus, think more rationally, and feel more relaxed. You might begin by setting phone reminders to breathe until this practice becomes a habit; this can help transition and transform your entire state of mind.
Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness meditation helps reduce anxiety and discover the underlying cause of your memories and feelings associated with your traumatic experiences. Remember, recovery and self-transformation start within. Mindfulness is excellent for strengthening your mental health and has even been shown to reduce feelings of depression and fear.
Mindfulness is about being in touch with your thoughts, memories, and feelings and their relationship with the present moment. Since many people succumb to getting stuck or caught up in the anxiety and worries of everyday life, they could begin to create a bleak future filled with scary events and scenarios that might never happen. Mindfulness helps you to get your thoughts unstuck from always living out the worst-case scenario in your mind. Setting aside time each day to focus on the present vs. what you're feeling is a great way to overcome your fears and anxieties and free your mind to focus on things that matter most to you and make you feel good.
Writing
Never underestimate the power of the written word. Using journaling to help you cope with and express your feelings is a great way to manage the emotions associated with your PTSD. Writing not only improves your coping abilities but offers post-traumatic growth, which is the ability to find meaning in positive life changes following a traumatic event. Your narrative does not always have to be autobiographical.
You can discover a lot about yourself when writing fictional stories too. Writing fiction can lend just as much insight into what you are experiencing while simultaneously exercising your creative muscles.
If you have not considered writing, put pen to paper and give it a try. Writing in the morning can help get you in a more confident and balanced state of mind to tackle your day's tasks. Writing in the evening is also beneficial because writing is meditative and can help bring closure to your day, allowing you to get a more restful night's sleep. Adding writing to your regimen can help completely transform your outlook and approach to managing feelings associated with your PTSD and other life challenges.
Distraction
Sometimes focusing on one emotion can make it stronger and more out of your control. When you distract yourself with meaningful and constructive activities, you can help decrease your emotions’ intensity. Understand, this is temporary; this is not a practice to avoid feelings but to look to positive outlets that help reduce the severity of your emotions so you can better manage them later.
When you feel the onset of a negative mood, you might do some household chores. Doing household chores is not only a great way to distract you from negative feelings, but it helps build structure and discipline within – it also keeps your house clean. Other beneficial activities include exercise, painting, playing, or listening to music and cooking. So long as it is a healthy distraction, you are well on your way to reducing stress and anxiety.
Combating your PTSD requires a proactive and persistent approach where it is crucial to utilize healthy techniques and practices to help you get to your trauma's underlying cause. Sometimes you can't go it alone, and if you find yourself isolating yourself from outside support, this is a sign you may need help. At START UP Recovery, we offer both inpatient and outpatient options geared toward allowing you the opportunities to overcome your anxieties and stresses. We believe that you reach your greatest successes when you attain the self-confidence needed to overcome the challenges you face from past trauma or addiction. Our holistic and conventional philosophies aim to help you develop and transition into the person you want to be. At START UP Recovery, we are not treatment; we are a transformation. We believe that transformation is needed to sustain a life of sobriety and success. Always put your health needs first. Call START UP Recovery today at (310) 773-3809.