Where Is Trauma Stored in the Body?

What Is Trauma?

Trauma is when we experience an event or experience that is extremely distressing or disturbing that stays with us long after the event takes place. It may be something so extreme that it prevents us from being able to return to a feeling of safety. Common examples of traumatic events include car accidents, national disasters, or an assault. Common examples of traumatic experiences include childhood abuse, prolonged abuse in a family of origin, or other events where the trauma is repeated and ongoing.¹

Trauma can cause people to experience lasting symptoms. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is diagnosed when people who were exposed to an “actual or threatened” traumatic event must also experience three avoidance symptoms, at least one re-experiencing symptom, two negative symptoms related to mood, and two hyperarousal symptoms.²

Common symptoms of PTSD include:^{1, 2}

• Hypervigilance
• PTSD flashbacks
• Brain fog
• Poor sleep/insomnia
• Nightmares
• Anxiety
• Poor concentration
• Avoidance behaviors

Is Trauma Really Stored in the Body?

Mental health experts are only recently uncovering how much of our trauma stays with us. Traumatic events leave a lasting impression in the brain and in our bodies. The events stop, but the traumatic responses stay inside us.

Renowned trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk is one of many mental health clinicians who agrees that trauma is indeed stored in the body.³ In his research on trauma, he has found that even long after the traumatic events have stopped, people who were traumatized experienced hypervigilance, fear, physical symptoms of the trauma due to the ways that traumatic experiences affect and rewrite the brain.³

How Trauma Is Stored in the Body

While the body remembers trauma in specific ways, not everyone has the same lasting results or symptoms. People who have more access to supportive interventions immediately following the trauma are likely to have decreased symptoms, or decreased severity, or PTSD.

Below is how trauma may affect the body:

Recurring Fight-or-Flight Response

Trauma can trigger an overactive flight-or-fight response, causing us to react to non-threatening stimuli as if they were reminiscent of our traumatic history. This fight-or-flight response is an evolutionary response that developed to protect us from danger: it gives us the adrenaline we need to get out of the way of danger.⁴

However, when we experience trauma, the body tends to stay in that heightened response, as if ready for danger at every corner.³ Over time, this can lead to many mental health or physical symptoms.

Flashbacks

Flashbacks are moments where you remember the trauma involuntarily through a familiar sensation or feeling. Because the brain may remember trauma in segments rather than a series of events, there can be moments that trigger a feeling of being back in the traumatic event.

These moments can manifest as flashbacks or “knee-jerk” reactions when one is reminded of their trauma. For example, the smell of smoke coming from a toaster can remind someone of surviving a fire, causing them to panic and run.

Brain Changes

Trauma experiences can affect normal brain functioning, by affecting the way the developing brain functions.^{3, 6} This is why those who experience trauma often find that the trauma affects their brain functioning, including memory, decision making, and emotions.

When trauma happens during development, it can contribute to mood instability, difficulties with behavior regulation, and struggles with impulsivity. Furthermore, trauma to the amygdala can lead to struggles with calming down, affecting sleep and ability to self regulate that is triggered by a heightened activation of the fight or flight response.  Due to these, many people have difficulty with coping with negative feelings and may be at risk of addiction or substance use disorders due to self-soothing.^{3, 4, 6}

Somatized Symptoms

Suppressed trauma symptoms, such as mental health symptoms of anxiety and depression, can manifest as physical symptoms if left unchecked or untreated. This is because when we are unable to process the feelings and symptoms that arise from our traumas, they can show up in our body in physical symptoms.

Common physical symptoms of trauma may include:

• Heart palpitations
• Muscle tension
• High blood pressure
• Gastrointestinal problems such as acid reflux or GERD
• Stomach pains
• Physical muscle or joint pain
• Headaches
• Chronic pain

Interpersonal or Social Symptoms

Because of the way trauma affects your ability to feel safe in the world around you, symptoms of PTSD can affect your ability to relate to and connect with others. You may feel uncomfortable trusting others, or may struggle to regulate emotions which can lead to arguments or other conflict with loved ones.

What Triggers Trauma Symptoms in the Body?

There are many things that can trigger a trauma response, and they differ depending on the person and event. A trauma response is when we have a feeling of reliving the traumatic event, either physically or mentally. Some common examples of these are feeling like we are trapped in a room if we have to sit with our back to a door, which can come as a result of having been attacked in an enclosed space.

Another example is the feeling of tensing up and bracing for impact that comes when you feel the driver of a car you are riding in hit the brakes too hard. For someone who experiences PTSD from a bad accident, this feeling can make them feel like they are reexperiencing the event.

Trauma triggers may include:

• Specific smells
• Locations associated with the event
• Specific sounds
• Recalling memories from the event
• Avoiding people who look or sound like someone who hurt you
• Emotions or feelings that remind you of being ridiculed or mocked during your trauma

How to Release Trauma From the Body

There are different ways that people can learn to release trauma from their bodies. Through mindfulness techniques such as grounding or yoga, it is possible to learn how to channel negative energy outside and direct more positive energy inside to release tension, anxiety, and other symptoms of trauma.⁵

Here are 9 ways to start releasing trauma from the body:

1. Practice Deep Breathing Techniques

Breathwork can be helpful when releasing trauma. It involves being mindful and intentional about your breathing in order to reduce stress and negative feelings or symptoms.⁷ Some common methods of breathwork to consider trying are mindful breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, and 4-7-8 breathing.

2. Start a Yoga Routine

There are many benefits of yoga for mental health, including decreased anxiety and depression, improved concentration and focus, and even improved physical health.⁷ One form of yoga that is helpful for releasing trauma is trauma-informed yoga. This form is helpful for trauma survivors due to its sensitive and safe method of approach.

To get started, you can also use apps such as Glo or Alo Moves to see if a yoga routine would be a good outlet for you to release trauma.

3. Try Journaling

A great way to release trauma is through writing. Methods such as journaling about trauma can help someone address their past experiences and process them. Having a tangible place to express your emotions and thoughts helps you process them in a safe and self-paced way, which can help you push past trauma.

4. Try the Emotional Freedom Technique

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is an evidenced based therapeutic practice that has been shown to be effective in reduction of mental health symptoms of trauma experiences, as well as improving physical health symptoms.

EFT involves brief therapeutic interventions that combine exposure, therapy, and using acupressure points on the face and other parts of the body to improve symptoms and provide relief.⁸

5. Enjoy a Massage

There are many mental health benefits of massage, including a reduction in anxiety and depression symptoms. Massage has been shown to help reduce blood pressure, improve circulation, and help decrease stress and other trauma symptoms.⁹ Massage can help relax you to decrease negative symptoms, and help improve your ability to rest and sleep.

6. Try Reiki

Like massage and yoga, Reiki is another modality that many trauma survivors find helpful. Reiki is a form of Japanese healing that promotes relaxation, reduction in stress, and improved mental health symptoms by focusing on healing energy and promoting the positive energy that flows inside us all.¹⁰

7. Practice Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation is when you relax your body slowly by tightening and relaxing specific muscle groups one at a time. This practice should be done mindfully and slowly, ideally over the course of 10-20 minutes in order to give each part of your body ample focus and time to relax.

8. Be Mindful of What You Put in Your Body

Everything you eat and drink has the potential to influence your mental health symptoms. Sugar, alcohol, certain processed foods or dyes for example can increase negative symptoms for some people. However, everyone is different, and you may therefore not be affected by certain foods or drinks in the same way someone else is.

Because those with childhood trauma are more likely to turn to food to cope, understanding how food and drinks affect your mental health can help empower you to understand more about your trauma and how it affects you.¹¹

9. Consider Acupuncture

Acupuncture involves a practitioner using thin needles that are inserted into the skin at specific points on the body with the goal to improve health by releasing pain. It has been used for centuries in Eastern medicine to relieve mental and physical health symptoms, and has been increasingly used in Western Medicine more recently.¹²

When to Seek Professional Help

There are many different effective treatments for PTSD  or CPTSD. Trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, internal family systems, and dialectical behavioral therapy are some common modalities that have shown to be effective in treating trauma.

There are some specific ways for someone to know if they need therapy, such as their symptoms affecting their ability to sleep, eat, or complete work or school. Because of its sensitivity and awareness of how trauma affects present symptoms, trauma-informed therapy can be beneficial when addressing unresolved trauma, and can help with post-traumatic growth.