You know your trauma is triggered when you experience intense physical, emotional, or mental reactions that feel like you're reliving the event, such as a racing heart, panic, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, or overwhelming fear, often sparked by something in your environment like a sound, smell, or situation that reminds your brain of the past trauma, overwhelming your senses and sense of safety.
Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect.
Causes of unresolved trauma may include:
Mindfulness and relaxation techniques
Meditation encourages relaxation and mindfulness, helping individuals process and release trauma. Breathing exercises, such as deep breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, or box breathing, can calm the nervous system and reduce stress through deep breath.
A trauma trigger is a stimulus that causes memories or reactions to severe or sustained trauma. For example: You get a tight feeling in your chest every time you drive past the place where you had a car accident. Your palms sweat and your cheeks flush when a certain person touches you.
Emotional Trauma Symptoms
Psychological Concerns: Anxiety and panic attacks, fear, anger, irritability, obsessions and compulsions, shock and disbelief, emotional numbing and detachment, depression, shame and guilt (especially if the person dealing with the trauma survived while others didn't)
Recognizing Emotional Trauma Triggers
Some examples of emotional trauma triggers linked to past trauma are sights, sounds, smells, situations, or people. Although not inherently dangerous, these cues are perceived as threats due to their traumatic associations, triggering intense emotional and physical reactions.
But in my experience, emotional healing happens in seven stages: awareness, acceptance, processing, release, growth, integration, and transformation. We don't move through these seven stages in a straight line, but we do pass through them all eventually on the path to healing.
Because our nervous system and brain can hold onto painful and traumatic events, chronic pain can be very real and present even after the physical injury has healed.
Physical Sensations
Tremors or Shaking: These involuntary movements can occur as the body releases stored energy associated with traumatic experiences. Tingling or Warmth: You may feel tingling sensations or warmth in certain areas of your body as trauma is processed and released.
Symptoms of unprocessed trauma frequently emerge as: Physical symptoms: heart palpitations, sweating, or shaking. Emotional symptoms: panic, feeling trapped or terrified. Psychological symptoms: avoidance of situations that trigger the trauma.
In univariate analyses, all 5 forms of childhood trauma in this study (ie, witnessing violence, physical neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse) demonstrated statistically significant relationships with the number of different aggressive behaviors reported in adulthood.
The 'fight or flight' response is how people sometimes refer to our body's automatic reactions to fear. There are actually 5 of these common responses, including 'freeze', 'flop' and 'friend', as well as 'fight' or 'flight'.
Individuals who have experienced trauma may exhibit heightened startle responses and hyper-vigilance, often scanning their surroundings for potential threats. Closed-off postures, such as crossed arms or turning away, can indicate a desire to protect oneself.
The Five Signs encouraged people to ask if they or their loved ones were not feeling themselves, feeling withdrawn, feeling agitated, feeling hopeless or not caring for themselves. A longtime mental health advocate, Broderick discovered the program and introduced it to New Hampshire.
It won't rid you of PTSD and your fears, but let your tears flow and you'll maybe feel a little better afterwards. 'Crying for long periods of time releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, otherwise known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals can help ease both physical and emotional pain.
Can I heal from childhood trauma without therapy? While professional support is recommended, self-healing strategies like mindfulness, journaling, creative expression, and physical practices can support recovery.
Physical symptoms such as headaches, nausea, or dizziness can often accompany the release of trauma. These symptoms may arise seemingly out of nowhere and can be perplexing to those experiencing them. The nervous system, having been in a prolonged state of alert, begins to normalize, causing various physical reactions.
Our bodies keep unprocessed trauma. For some, that strength manifests inside the feet as a “holding on” response — the body literally grips the ground for stability and protection. It's a subconscious way of dealing with beyond fear or instability.
The “90-second rule,” introduced by Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, reveals that an emotional surge in the body lasts only about 90 seconds—unless we mentally keep it alive.
Getting therapy and joining a support group can also help you deal with your emotions. Taking care of your overall health is another way to help you manage physical and emotional stress: Exercise regularly. Eat a nutritious diet low in processed foods and sugar.
Identifying and addressing trauma triggers is an important part of treating PTSD. A trigger warning is a message presented to an audience about the contents of a piece of media, to warn them that it contains potentially distressing content. A more generic term, which is not directly focused on PTSD, is content warning.
Trauma Blocking and Emotional Detachment
It involves subconsciously inhibiting emotional responses to protect oneself from overwhelming feelings associated with traumatic memories. By “blocking” these emotions, one attempts to shield themselves from additional pain and distress.
The person can become anxious and agitated, and they may shake or sweat. They might raise their voice and become angry or argumentative. Alternatively, the person may become hypo-aroused or emotionally numb or “shut down” Their eyes may glaze and they might zone out and become quiet.