What happens to the mind and body during a traumatic experience.
I am located in Tampa Bay, and our area, along with several other regions in the southern U.S., was recently struck by two major hurricanes. I launched a blog about Post Traumatic Growth not too long ago to assist with the coping of these devastating events, and also to foster growth.
However, I realized that I first needed to lay the foundation—what is trauma, and how does the body and mind experience it, respond, process, and adapt.
I’ve encountered many misconceptions regarding trauma, so I hope this blog will help you better understand these complex processes.
Before we dive into this post, I want to acknowledge that some of the material may be emotionally intense or triggering, especially for those who have experienced trauma in the past. The content will explore what happens to the mind and body during traumatic events, which can sometimes bring up challenging memories or emotions.
If, at any point, you begin to feel overwhelmed, please consider taking a moment to pause and ground yourself. A great exercise for this is: Focus on 5 things around you that you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
Please honor what you need as you read through this material, and know that it’s okay to stop or return to it later.
Trauma is a word often used in many contexts, but what does it truly mean?
‘Trauma’ is the Greek word for wound.
It refers to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope. It leaves a lasting imprint on their emotional, psychological, and physical well-being.
Whether it’s the sudden loss of a loved one, experiencing violence, or surviving a natural disaster, trauma affects everyone differently.
Typical process of information and the creation of memories:
Before we dive deeper into the topic, we need to take a look at how the mind typically processes information and creates memories. This is crucial for understanding what happens during a traumatic event. I will try to keep this as simple as possible:
The way the mind processes information and creates memories is a complex system that involves different parts of the brain working together.
When we encounter new information, our senses take in that data. This sensory information (what we see, hear, touch, smell, taste) is then processed by the sensory cortex of the brain. It constantly filters information for relevance, paying attention only to what seems relevant at the time.
Once the brain decides that the information is important, it begins to encode it, meaning to ‘translate’ the smell, taste, sight, etc into a format the brain can store.
What’s important to understand is that there is a semantic encoding as well, which means the processing of a meaning = understanding it with a meaningful context. If the brain cannot apply meaning to the information it has been provided, it cannot form a memory.
The initial stage of memory is the short term memory. It lingers there for a few seconds to a few minutes, and if you don’t focus on it, it fades away.
If the provided information is important or repeated enough, it moves to long term memory. Of course, there is a complex process involved, but I won’t go into that right now. However, during the process the brain reorganizes stored information / memories, making it easier to recall the new information in the future. Basically, it organizes everything into the proper place. Sleep plays a very critical part in this process, since the brain reviews the day’s events while we sleep, reinforcing the important parts and discarding the rest.
When we need to use a memory, we simply recall it. Multiple parts of the brain are involved in this process, since memories are stored in different places, given that the original information came from different sources, such as taste, smell, sights. The brain pulls all the information and reassembles the pieces to give us one memory.
How does the brain process information during a traumatic event?
When it comes to a traumatic event, the brain's process of handling, storing, and recalling information can be significantly altered. Trauma impacts how memories are formed, processed, and recalled because the brain reacts differently under extreme stress or threat.
During a traumatic event, the brain goes into survival mode, activating the fight, flight, or freeze response. Please note that all three modes are natural responses to the trauma, and there is no hierarchy and no blame.
The amygdala, the brain's emotional processing center and alarm system, takes over to assess the threat. In traumatic situations, the amygdala is hyperactive, sending signals to the body to release stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. This puts the body on high alert, heightens sensory perception, and focuses on immediate survival.
Under extreme stress, the brain doesn’t process information in the same way it does under normal circumstances. It shifts its priorities from nuanced thinking and memory processing to sheer survival.
The encoding, or ‘translation’ as I called it earlier, becomes fragmented and incomplete. The Hippocampus, who usually helps to organize and integrate memories into a coherent narrative, sorting through details like time, place, order of events, is not working properly, as the overflow of stress hormones interferes with its proper function.
This leads to shattered memories - only certain pieces of the event can be remembered, no logic is applied, and a high level of emotions is involved, which makes the memory feel vivid and intrusive when recalled.
The brain focuses less on short term memories since the system is overwhelmed or entirely suspended due to the focus on survival. The recollection of time and the order of events is most likely impossible, which leads to confusion when the event is being remembered at a later point of time. Survivors may not be able to recall details, faces, the time of the day.
However, the brain is still dealing with the influence of information. While the short
term memory is likely highly impacted, long term memories are still being created. Since the processing timeframe got shortened and interrupted, the long term memories are ‘unfiltered’, for lack of a better word. The memories are raw and disorganized. Meaning, concepts, categories are not applied.
This is one of the crucial parts to understanding Trauma. The brain is overloaded with fragments of information that do not make sense, that are not property processed, and they linger around without context. A traumatized person struggles to assign meaning to what happened, why it occurred, how it makes sense, or how it fits into their lives. What they do remember are fragments of the event, or sometimes nothing at all.
These parts and pieces are coming back into their memory over and over again, since the brain still tries to catalogs, store, and process, but it lacks all the information it needs to do so. Even if the event is entirely suppressed, parts and pieces may flair up. This is called flashbacks. The raw memory comes back since the brain does not understand (yet) that the event actually happened in the past.
What happens to the body during a traumatic event?
During a traumatic event, the body undergoes a complex and intense response aimed at survival. This includes the release of stress hormones, cardiovascular changes, heightened sensory awareness, and shifts in digestion and immune function. It’s fight - flight - freeze mode for an extended period of time.
The muscles, heart, digestion, hormones, breathing - everything is in overdrive. The senses are sharpened, often tunnel vision is experienced since the sole focus is on survival. Everything else is not relevant.
Once the threat is eliminated, the body may just crash, with feelings of fatigue, muscle soreness, anxiety, sleeping issues.
The body itself is impacted by the trauma as much as the mind is, and the experiences go hand in hand.
While the brain is not able to process the event as it usually would, the body also struggles to adapt since the unprocessed memories are coming back in the mind of the traumatized individual, hence the body reacts again to the memories as it did when the event occurred. The traumatized person may experience physical sensations and movements again.
This is another important component since many believe trauma is only impacting the mind. That’s not true. The body remembers in the same way and needs attention to heal. Both go hand in hand. The body keeps the store indeed.
Can you heal?
YES! A very affirmative YES! Physically and emotionally! Will it fully go away? No, but it can become very manageable.
Trauma in itself, its many appearances, impacts on one individual, his or her family, partners, children, the workplace, is complex and far-reaching, affecting not only the person directly experiencing it but also those around them. It can manifest in emotional, psychological, and physical ways, altering relationships, disrupting family dynamics, influencing productivity and morale, and impacting the overall well-being of everyone involved.
Healing from trauma is often not linear. It requires patience, as setbacks and difficult periods can arise. With persistent effort, support, and appropriate tools, many people find that they can move forward and lead fulfilling lives despite their past trauma.
While trauma may leave lasting marks, it does not define a person’s future. Many people not only heal from trauma but also experience post-traumatic growth, where they emerge from their experience with greater strength, insight, and emotional resilience.
There are several ways to address it, with a therapist or coach. I cannot stress enough that a somatic approach should be favored to heal the body AND the mind. Somatic healing focuses on the connection between the body and the mind since physical sensations are intertwined with emotions and psychological experiences and stages.
While this blog is focused on what trauma is, and what happens to a body and mind during such an event, please feel free to reach out to me to discuss options for healing and support, if you or anyone you know is impacted.
Please feel also free to read the next part of this series, Understanding Trauma - PTSD, and subscribe to my newsletter to stay updated and informed for future releases of this series, and more.
Truly yours,
Angela
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