Your brain is one of the greatest supercomputers put here on earth. It consists of a network of approximately 100 billion neurons that process and organize information. It is so fast at doing so, it produces between 18 and 640 trillion electrical impulses every second. This network precisely encodes and stores your experiences and memories, which ultimately make you unique.
But what happens when shock or trauma disrupts your life? How can shock or trauma linger in the mind and body thereby impacting your health for years?
The answer is that trauma leaves a real, physical imprint on your mind and body. It changes how memory storage is processed, and it changes your brain.
Untreated trauma can negatively impact your health for years. The emotional and physical impact can increase your risk of serious health conditions including heart attack, stroke, obesity, diabetes, and cancer, according to Harvard Medical School research.
In addition, the risk of developing serious health conditions increases if you experience more traumatic events over your life. “For example, your risk for problems is much higher if you’ve had three or more negative experiences, called adverse childhood experiences (ACEs),” says Harvard research scientist Andrea Roberts.
On the outside, a trauma survivor may look normal and healthy. However, trauma can linger and grow, weakening your body’s defense system until it manifests as an actual physical illness.
What changes in our body and mind when we experience trauma? Where does the body store this?
Let’s take a look at what happens to our supercomputer when it experiences a shock.
Trauma can cause impairment to our memory processing system. The declarative explicit memory system malfunctions, which causes the traumatic memory to be improperly stored and logged.
Instead, your brain reverts to a different method of recording signals and encoding traumatic memories as sensations or pictures.
This is referred to dissociation. Memories become fractured, yet they remain embedded in the mind like explosive confetti that inhibits the brain’s natural trauma recovery process. These fractured memories can manifest as symptoms of PTSD and increase our risk of becoming seriously physically ill.
Post-traumatic stress disorder can visibly change the brain.The three parts of the brain responsible for processing stress can change when people suffer from PTSD:
- The hippocampus shrinks — this is the center for emotion and memory
- The amygdala function increases — the center for creativity and rumination
- The prefrontal/ anterior cingulate function decreases — the center for more complex functions like planning and self-development
Just like a computer virus, unprocessed traumatic memories can cause our physical and mental processes to malfunction. Early evidence of cellular memory shows that it’s not just our brain, but our body’s cells that can retain an imprint of past traumatic events.
So what can be done about this?
The good news is that past trauma doesn’t have to affect you for life. It’s a treatable problem and help is out there. Therapy can help in unlocking or processing the traumatic memories, releasing them from being trapped in your system. When the traumatic memory is reintegrated in the mind, the brain can begin to heal.
Meditation and physical activity, such as yoga, also deliver real results in this release and can help the healing process. Yoga can be a very effective method to begin down the path to healing.
Releasing trauma from the mind and body can have incredibly powerful consequences. Studies on cancer patients who beat their disease often cited that releasing emotional stress or trauma was an important element to healing.
Our “bodies keep the score,” which is how Bessel van der Kolk described the process in his book on the topic. If you are struggling with overcoming trauma, seek out therapy from a competent trauma specialist and know that many people have healed from PTSD.