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For Survivors of Katrina, Caregivers and Responders-
An Important Message about Traumatic Stress

by Belleruth Naparstek LISW

Click here for a 15-minute sample of guided imagery to relieve stress.

Traumatic Stress is About Survival Biochemistry
We psychotherapists are just starting to understand how much posttraumatic stress is a biophysical condition, related to the massive release of survival hormones that flood the body at the time of traumatic events. These biochemicals don’t dissipate quickly, and this accounts for most of the acute, persistent and frightening symptoms that people experience for at least a couple of months after a traumatic event.

Symptoms
The symptoms look and feel like they are strictly emotional problems - flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, anxiety, panic, concentration problems, emotional numbness, impaired memory, irritability, temper and startling from sudden noise and touch. But that’s the effect of these wild swings in biochemistry - alternating floods of natural alarm and sedation biochemicals - as the body tries to settle back down to its normal rhythms. People are generally relieved to know that they aren’t going crazy, and that this is a commonplace aftermath of trauma.

These biochemical oscillations account for the puzzling mood swings survivors experience. People can be furious or terrified one minute - that’s the alarm biochemicals - and numb and disconnected the next - that’s the release of the natural opioids.

It Takes Time
We know from studies of typhoons and bombings that for many people it can take from four to nine months to settle back down. For others, it’s only a matter of weeks. A lot depends on built-in neurological wiring, how long and how intensely people were affected by the trauma, and whether they suffered previous traumatic experiences.

Atypical Memory Storage
And because traumatic memories are not stored in the language and thinking centers of the brain, where normal memories are catalogued, they are hard to access with language, and they don’t fade and distort over time the way normal memories do. Instead they stay in the primitive, survival centers, as flashbacks and nightmares, where they are experienced as actual replays of the original event - a reliving of the trauma over and over, through feelings, sensations, emotions, perceptions and muscular reactions, sometimes even gaining in intensity with each repetition.

Talking About It Not a Great Place to Start
So getting thoroughly traumatized people to talk about the terrifying things that have happened to them right away is often not helpful. Either they can’t access what happened in words, or they tell it in a rote, disconnected way, that doesn’t help; or they try to talk and a panicky flashback gets activated, turning loose another cascade of alarm biochemicals that keep the ugly cycle going full force.

Self-Regulate Instead
What is most helpful in the immediate aftermath of a trauma - once people are safe and their basic needs are being met, of course - is teaching them simple self-soothing skills that help their dysregulated biochemistry return to normal. Once there is a nice, solid practice of one or more of these simple, self-regulation skills under their belt, people are usually able to discuss the trauma without being overwhelmed - that is, if they still want or need to. A spate of recent research suggests that this may be one of the important keys to speeding up recovery from acute stress and posttraumatic stress - learning these relaxation and self-soothing practices or going into the trauma already habituated to them.

Simple Practices
There are many of these practices, and they are simple to do - conscious breathing (counting to five with each in-breath and out-breath, for instance), progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, yoga, qigong, acupressure, therapeutic massage, energy work, (such as Reiki or Therapeutic Touch) aerobic exercise, prayer, journaling, artwork, music, and, of course, guided imagery.

Imagery the Best Tool in the Kit
Guided imagery is especially easy for people to use, because it demands little and does most of the "heavy lifting" - listeners can just drop into an immersive, receptive, dreamy state (surprisingly easy for most traumatized people to do, thanks to those endogenous opioids) and listen or, more likely, half-listen. There are many other reasons why imagery is ideal for healing trauma, but there’s no need to go into them here. (If you are curious to know more about this, email us at info@healthjourneys.com and we can point you to a thorough discussion from my book.)

A Free 15-Minute Streamed Sample
We have a 15-minute sample for you to stream by clicking here. Once the audio starts, just close your eyes (or keep your lids at half-mast if you don’t want to shut them completely) and let yourself experience the voice, music and images. Simple as it sounds, repeated listening to this segment from our Relieve Stress audio program can reduce your symptoms considerably, by serving to remind your agitated system that it knows how to settle back down. We have more complex imagery for more integrated healing, but for the immediate aftermath, this is what is needed - simple imagery to re-establish a sense of safety and control, and to remind the body it knows how to get back into balance.

Other Free Tools, Too..
We have other self-soothing techniques for you to click and try, too, if you want. To experience a brief exercise in yoga, acupressure, qigong, meditation, conscious breathing, general relaxation or other kinds of imagery, click on DesktopSpa.com, our web-based, holistic health "jukebox". It streams 5-minute, calming "mini-lessons" for self-regulation, 24/7, guided by renowned experts like Andy Weil, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Joan Borysenko, Martha Howard, Cyndi Lee, Emmett Miller, Ken Cohen and many more.

How to Use DesktopSpa
To use DesktopSpa, all you have to do is give yourself a user name, a pass code and, where it asks for a corporate code, enter in caps the word: KATRINA. Although designed for use at work to help with job stress and related discomforts, it’s a perfect online "coach" for dealing with acute stress and posttraumatic stress, at home, at work or at school.

Help Yourself and God Bless!
Please help yourself to our streamed imagery and the mini-lessons on DesktopSpa. All of us at HealthJourneys.com are delighted to have some simple, useful techniques that we can make available to you, and we wholeheartedly wish you a complete return to full strength, energy, resilience and peace in the days and weeks to come.

Very sincerely and with gentlest regards,

Belleruth Naparstek, LISW
Dan Kohler, CEO, Health Journeys

For questions. comments or more info:
www.healthjourneys.com
800.800.8661
info@healthjourneys.com

Click here for resources for acute and posttraumatic stress.
The streamed imagery on this page is here.
Click here for workshops featuring this new information.

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