Mind-Body Healing
Part two in our trauma series explains how to listen to your body
By Delina Williams and Diana Lovejoy
Every prisoner I’ve encountered has had an especially hard life.
Compassion Prison Project (CPP) Founder Fritzi Horstman notes that prisoners have a far higher number of Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs) than free citizens, on average. An ACE is any form of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse or neglect.
Part two in our trauma series addresses how healing can be found through listening to your body and proactively seeking mental peace. This series aims to equip you with curative possibilities.
According to the medical experts featured in Trauma Talks, the first step in processing the inner pain that accumulates through life’s hardships is to develop body awareness, connecting your mind and body to harness your personal power.
This doesn’t mean running marathons or pushing to extreme physical limits. It can start with breathing to relax or energize yourself, and then finding an enjoyable way to get moving while regulating your breath.
As Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk suggests in his book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” a healing activity should reflect the “6 Rs” to help you process and neutralize your trauma responses. Van der Kolk’s work inspired Horstman to accelerate her own healing and to bring the Trauma Talks series to Edovo (on GTL tablets).
The 6 Rs for physical healing are:
• Relational (in sync with self or others)
• Relevant (appropriate for your ability)
• Repetitive
• Rewarding
• Rhythmic
• Respectful
Some exercises to connect your mind and body include drumming, dance, walking, running, yoga, rap, singing, and aerobics. These activities help you connect with your inner self and core functions like breathing, which lets you step outside of your anxious feelings.
“In order to change, (trauma victims) need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them,” Van der Kolk says. “Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.”
Are you seeing an exercise theme? Not only does exercise greatly strengthen your physical systems, but it also has huge brain benefits. Psychiatrist and trauma expert Dr. Daniel Amen explains how feeding your brain repairs trauma-induced damage. Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, which allows brain tissue to physically repair itself. This effect is magnified by adding proper nutrition, plus supplements like omega-3 fatty acids. (Yes, have some sardines!)
Your Brain on Trauma
Dr. Amen describes how trauma impacts three major areas of the brain.
The brain stem is the “survival” brain, which constantly evaluates situations to see if the body will be safe. It’s in charge of bodily functions, temperature, regulation, eating, and sleeping.
The amygdala is the alarm system for the brain. It controls fearbased instincts, emotional memory, recognition of emotion in others, defensive behavior, stress-hormone release, long-term memory, and aggression.
The prefrontal cortex is the “executive office” of the brain, in charge of empathy and relating, our moral compass, and decision-making. It makes space for a good attitude. This is where we want to be for as long as possible.
When a traumatic event happens or you experience a trigger, it wipes out positive thoughts and smart decision-making, Amen says. The brain stem alerts the amygdala that there’s trouble, and the prefrontal cortex shuts off, taking our thinking ability with it. Then we lose control over our actions and fight, freeze, or take flight.
Fortunately, the brain changes with repetition. Culturally-bound activities like learning grow the cortex, thereby improving your executive functioning. So, knowledge is power!
Movement stimulates blood flow to the brain, leading to better, clearer thinking. Your brain chemistry balances, so you feel calmer and more focused. This balancing effect of exercise significantly lowers the anxiety and depression that come along for the ride with trauma.
Physical activity like yoga or interval training also re-establishes a sense of time in your brain. This teaches you that pain and suffering are temporary, as you experience the relief and rest between surges of exercise.
Several Trauma Talks videos feature short, trauma-informed yoga routines for calming your central nervous system through breathing and gentle movement. Simply shifting your focus inward to your breath can effectively counteract negative emotion, pain, and external stressors.
Trauma healing pioneer Dr. Peter Levine explains that “somatic experiencing” is the releasing of traumatic shock. The key is to transform PTSD and the wounds of emotional and attachment trauma by revealing where a person gets stuck — flight, fight, or freeze — and then resolving these fixated states.
Try this simple breathing exercise from Dr. Levine to begin removing yourself from your internal trauma:
1. First, alert the brain by telling it, “It’s ok, the threat is over and it’s time to relax.”
2. Next, take an easy, full breath, and on the exhalation, make the sound VOOH as though from the belly. The idea is to replace the terrible YUCK feeling in the gut. The YUCK brings a fatalistic outlook that you can never be better. The VOOH acknowledges the negative feeling, yet asserts, “I can feel better about myself and help others feel better.”
3. Finish exhaling the VOOH from your belly. When ready, fill your belly and chest, and repeat.
Prison is a hard place to learn how to motivate oneself, but it is possible when what motivates brings healing.
