When your ever-vigilant sympathetic nervous system revs up the fight or flight responses—pouring the stress hormone cortisol and adrenaline into your body—the vagus nerve tells your body to chill out by releasing acetylcholine.
When you’re chronically stressed or overwhelmed you tend to keep reacting in the same emotional way over and over. This conditions your nervous system to potentially (mis)read your environment based on past experiences, and the associations and perceptions you’ve formed around those experiences. It also trains your mind to automatically think more negative thoughts and… Read More Chronic Stress
Everything you perceive through your senses – everything you can see, hear, taste, smell, intuit, and touch is processed through the nervous system. Like a good gatekeeper, it helps you maneuver through life by keeping track of every single little sensory detail of your experience so you don’t consciously have to.
Stress is unavoidable and can, under the right conditions, even be beneficial. We can’t escape stress, but we can befriend it. We can learn to control our stress response and channel that energy in constructive and creative ways. If you’re experiencing chronic stress or feeling constantly on edge chances are you’ve got an overactive sympathetic… Read More Stress is unavoidable
When the parasympathetic nervous system is activated, it produces a calm and relaxed feeling in the mind and body. People can learn to trigger their parasympathetic nervous system to immediately reduce their sense of anxiety and stress. Everything you perceive through your senses – everything you can see, hear, taste, smell, intuit, and touch is… Read More Parasympathetic nervous system
A flashback is a vivid experience in which you relive some aspects of a traumatic event or feel as if it is happening right now. This can sometimes be like watching a video of what happened, but flashbacks do not necessarily involve seeing images, or reliving events from start to finish. You might experience any… Read More What are flashbacks?
Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (complex PTSD, sometimes abbreviated to c-PTSD or CPTSD) is a condition where you experience some symptoms of PTSD along with some additional symptoms, such as: difficulty controlling your emotions feeling very hostile or distrustful towards the world constant feelings of emptiness or hopelessness feeling as if you are permanently damaged or worthless feeling… Read More What is complex PTSD?
PTSD can be successfully treated, even when it develops many years after a traumatic event. Any treatment depends on the severity of symptoms and how soon they occur after the traumatic event. Any of the following treatment options may be recommended: watchful waiting – monitoring your symptoms to see whether they improve or get worse without treatment psychological therapies – such… Read More How post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is treated
People who repeatedly experience traumatic situations, such as severe neglect, abuse or violence, may be diagnosed with complex PTSD. Complex PTSD can cause similar symptoms to PTSD and may not develop until years after the event. It’s often more severe if the trauma was experienced early in life, as this can affect a child’s development.
Someone with PTSD often relives the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks, and may experience feelings of isolation, irritability and guilt. They may also have problems sleeping, such as insomnia, and find concentrating difficult. These symptoms are often severe and persistent enough to have a significant impact on the person’s day-to-day life.
