Stuck In Freeze: Trauma And Your Nervous System

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G2QUpHExjk

00:00:01
It’s not the event that causes trauma it’s your  physiological reaction. For example David and   John witnessed a violent pub fight in which two  people died, David froze in absolute terror, he felt   disconnected from his body, he couldn’t move and  he couldn’t respond. He was actually immobilized   for more than three hours and he was eventually  taken home by a kindly police officer. Once at home   he sat alone staring at the wall until the early  hours of the morning. Now John also witnessed the   violent attack but his nervous system reacted  in a very different way, he felt a sudden surge   of adrenaline and his muscles tensed primed for  action. He ran to the back of the pub and managed   to escape via the fire exit, when at home he spent  the evening talking to his wife about the event.   David and John witnessed exactly the same  event but their nervous systems reacted very   differently, David developed PTSD and John didn’t.  But why? There are constant movements within your   inner landscape, salivation, breathing, heart  rate, muscle tension, perspiration and so forth. Now they are a product of the harmony between the  two branches of your autonomic nervous system the  sympathetic which acts as a body’s accelerator  and the parasympathetic which is your body’s brake.   The sympathetic branch of your nervous  system is responsible for the fight or   flight response, it’s like the accelerator of  a car. So when John ran out of the pub it was   his fight or flight response that had primed  him for action. His amygdala, his brain’s alarm   bell, sent a distress signal to his hypothalamus  which activated his sympathetic nervous system.   His adrenal glands responded by pumping  adrenaline into his bloodstream which   caused his heart to beat faster pushing  blood to his muscles and other vital organs.   The parasympathetic branch of the autonomic  nervous system is responsible for rest and   digest, and social engagement, think of it like  the brake pedal of a car. It puts a brake on   arousal by slowing down your heart rate, relaxing  muscles and returning your breathing to normal.   There’s actually a very simple way you can  experience these two systems for yourself,  if you take a deep breath in you activate the  sympathetic nervous system, when you exhale you   activate your parasympathetic nervous system. Now  John’s sympathetic nervous system enabled him to   get away from the dangerous situation but it was  the kind face, soothing tones and physical contact   from his wife that brought him to a sense  of calm and safety. John received the message   ‘you’re safe with me’ which reset his physiology  by activating his parasympathetic nervous system.   Basically John’s a parasympathetic system opened  and then stayed open because he felt safe in his   wife’s presence, so the social engagement with  his wife helped John’s nervous system reset   after the trauma. Now David responded in a very  different way, he froze, his nervous system shut   down and expended as little energy as possible.  This is called the freeze response and it’s the   ultimate emergency system. Now during the freeze  response the parasympathetic system comes in so   strongly that it overwhelms a sympathetic arousal  and sends a person into a state of freeze. This   can be a full collapse, dissociation or partial  freeze such as an inability to think clearly.   The freeze response may be momentary such as a  deer in the headlights but in humans the freeze   response can continue indefinitely. Peter Levine  trauma expert and the creator of somatic experiencing   maintains that when in the freeze state your energy  is tightly activated and doesn’t discharge so   your nervous system concludes that you’re still  in danger and the symptoms of trauma are born.   Unfortunately unless you release the trauma from  your body and nervous system you remain stuck in   a traumatised state now. Peter Levine often uses  a prop to demonstrate what’s going on in the body   during trauma, this prop is a slinky, I have one  with me today. So the slinky represents your energy   and arousal level, if you’re walking around day to  day this would demonstrate your energy and arousal   level. If you’re running it’s more like this and if  you’re in fight or flight mode then your energy is   really aroused but when you’re overwhelmed your  energy can become locked down in your nervous   system and we have the freeze response. Now when  this energy doesn’t get released it leads to a   whole host of trauma symptoms such as flashbacks,  nightmares, feelings of being unsafe, pain and PTSD.   So by using this slinky we can see that  John mobilised his energy by running away   and this was then soothed by talking to  his wife, the social engagement system.   But David’s energy was locked down, stuck  and frozen in time hence his PTSD diagnosis.   According to Levine David experienced PTSD  due to an incomplete biological process that   got locked in his body and nervous system so  when completing trauma work with David we need   to discharge this energy gradually by the process  of titration. So the key is to get a little bit of   discharge at a time so a little bit of energy  is released and again and again and so forth.   So little by little his nervous system resets.  How do you release trauma from the body?   Levine suggests the bottom-up approach to trauma  work which refers to the type of therapy which   starts its work at the base of the brain the  limbic system this is the part of the brain   that’s responsible for the fight flight or freeze  response. So the therapist would first facilitate   a sense of safety and then use body-based  interventions with the aim of releasing   trauma’s impact on the body. Now to activate  this bottom up process you can use a range   of activities such as exercise, rhythmic movement,  diaphragmatic breathing, yoga, EMDR and much more.   Bottom-up approach is focus on body sensations,  movement impulses and emotions, basically these   interventions allow you to release the traumatic  event from your body and nervous system so you can   then relearn how to inhabit your body. By contrast  the most prevalent approaches to psychotherapy   today are top down approaches such as CBT, a  top-down approach involves a therapist working   directly with the thinking part of the brain, the  prefrontal cortex, the aim of a top-down approach   is to change thinking so interventions such as  challenging thoughts, socratic questioning and   thought records are all top-down interventions. But  when someone is stuck in the freeze response they   can’t process verbal communication well that’s  because they’re prefrontal cortex, the logical,  analytical, thinking part of the brain, is offline.  Bessel Van Der Kolk the author of The Body Keeps   The Score, says: “You cannot do Psychotherapy or  psycho-education when people are frozen because   when you’re frozen nothing can come into your  brain until the frozenness is stopped”. This is   why when helping someone come out of the freeze  response relying on words alone often fall short. You better off treating freeze  with somatic or bottom-up approaches.
00:08:06
Now I’ve already given examples of bottom-up  approaches such as diaphragmatic breathing and   yoga but equally important is the activation  of the social engagement system. According to   Polyvagal Theory we all communicate with each  other via our social engagement system, facial   expression, tone of voice and body language, so by  communicating cues of safety we can enable someone   to stabilise in our presence and eventually thaw.  Remember talking to his wife was one of the key   things that helped John move out of the fight or  flight response. Sadly David had nobody to talk   to which only served to embed the freeze response.  Now to find out how the social engagement system   can help regulate your nervous system and  move you out of the freeze response please   view my video on polyvagal Theory which is on the  screen now and I look forward to seeing you soon.
Source : Youtube

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Leaman Ralph

Really sugar is shaky because it originates from a straight stick see the play is Granny yes Grandma plus new style luv MaryJane so listen (Granny Apple last years blue ribbon production winner AKA) I, I, I ain't on the right side of my house Jane something or the other is in my room: finally after an extermination Grannie speaks once more "let my (old man) Pacman step on it". See it is home on the range so solo as it be truity speaks got a problem it is your own. But alter scenario: Z/n time; narcotics I got that candy s.p.ee..d360 Bar itch its' and Mickey Mouse for the Sultan 7 1 4er well a hem a hem, it went early in the morning like a smack chanting sugar structure 7 -one 1 +eleven and 4 do an ate 'er 8 eight 'er? Well that aint nice. NARCO says do you know them numbers change (response) Yes it is a FiX they are MF's Ope yeah Ope Douglas is it. Surrounded by Alkaloid is both Mary and Grandma in an never ending circle of membership. French mandates declare put up their dukes... ZEN Pepsi can talk half Chocolate and your ole man Pacman down in Cuba posing as the worlds one and only Coffee Wizard "back 1:1" tis Coffee time... ||