How to Cope With a Trauma Response: Part 2

In Part 1, we discussed how trauma responses are intense physical and emotional sensations that seem to come out of nowhere, but are often related to a trigger of a past traumatic experience.  They can be confusing and bewildering, causing a fight-flight-freeze response to arise.  They toss you out of your window of tolerance and lead you to feel uncertain about how to respond.

The first and most important step covered was how to respond to the initial impact of the trauma response.  Calming your body’s reaction to the trauma needs to happen before you can engage in critical thinking about what led to the response and how to address it more adequately in the future.  Detailed in more depth in Part 1, these calming techniques included:

• Breathing and grounding strategies to calm the nervous system

• Coping thoughts to remind yourself of distance from the traumatic experience

• Distraction techniques to focus your mind elsewhere until the intensity of the emotional response recedes

Now, we’ll get into more depth on how to approach your trauma response with curiosity instead of criticism and learn more about yourself and your needs through this exploration.

Identify the traumatic event that triggered your response.

In some cases, it is easy to connect a past traumatic event with a current trigger.  An experience in combat, a spouse’s betrayal, or physical abuse from a caregiver are all examples of experiences that may resurface in a flashback.

With other experiences, it’s more challenging to identify the trigger or what might be intensifying the experience.  As an EMDR practitioner, I often prompt my clients to connect the dots by identifying the emotion they’re feeling, where it is located in their body, and any thoughts associated with that feeling.  Then, I ask them to let their mind go back to other experiences in their life where they’ve had a similar response.

Sometimes, what comes out of that exercise may feel unrelated to the trigger, but let your mind make those connections and be curious about what it finds.  The purpose of this exercise is to validate your experience and help you understand that you’re not crazy: this is a trauma response.  If you notice this experience brings up even more emotional intensity, mitigate it with some of the self-soothing, coping thoughts, or breathing practices discussed earlier.

Ask yourself what you needed then.

Once you recognize the event that triggered the negative reaction, you can then reflect on what needs might have gone unmet or what threats were occurring that left you feeling unsafe.  For example, in an abuse situation, the need may have been for protection or escape.  In a major car accident, safety and help may have been the primary needs.  For a betrayed partner, empathy and connection may be needs they’ve experienced when dealing with addiction.

It may take some digging to get at the core needs you feel here.  Often, they aren’t right at the surface.  It may help to take a look at your reaction to the trauma: if your immediate response to a harsh word or anger from your spouse is to run and hide, this might indicate the escape you needed from an abusive family member.  Once you’re aware of these needs, then you can more easily bring them into the present moment. 

Seek healthy ways to get your needs met.

In some situations, you can easily get your needs met.  For example, if your traumatic experience relates to living with an abuser in the past or a combat experience that occurred several years ago, you can remind yourself that you are no longer in that situation, it is over, and you are safe in this moment now.  This can help increase a sense of safety.  Grounding strategies work well at supporting this need, to bring you into awareness of the present moment and connect you to that sense of present-moment safety.

In other situations, there might be a few more steps you need to take to receive support for your needs.  Perhaps you’re still living in the place of trauma, as when your spouse is a recovering addict and you can’t lean on them for support or trust.  You may have had a traumatic experience at work, but you aren’t able to quit or leave your job, and so you feel anxiety or stress each time you walk through the door into your office.

When you can’t immediately talk yourself down from a lack of safety, consider opportunities to meet your needs in healthy ways.  For the betrayed partner, seek out a therapy or support group or helpful, understanding friends with whom you can talk to receive empathy.  Practice self-validation of your experience and acknowledge to yourself that it makes sense why you would feel unsafe.  Set boundaries in your workplace or in your relationships to meet needs for protection and security.

Consider trauma-based therapy with a trained counselor.

The strategies listed above and in the previous post can help in some situations, but if you notice your trauma triggers aren’t going away, it may be time to consider more formal therapy to address some of the trauma.  EMDR is a method of psychotherapy that directly addresses and reprocesses traumatic events so that they don’t continue to hang around in your mind and plague you with intense triggers and flashbacks.  Good trauma counseling can help you create deeper change to see lasting resolution from the traumatic memories.

Understanding the Window of Tolerance and How Trauma Throws You Off Balance

Have you ever felt out of control of your emotions?  Overtaken by anger or rage?  Swarmed by anxious thoughts and worries? Confused by the intensity of your emotional reactions?

What about feeling shut down emotionally? No matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to feel anything.  You’re disconnected from relationships and others, and you coast through your day feeling numb.

Chances are, if you’ve had this happen to you, you’ve been outside of your window of tolerance. 

What is the window of tolerance?

Coined by Dr. Dan Siegel, the term “window of tolerance” describes the space where your level of arousal (how alert you are) matches up with what is required for you to do.  This window is the space where you can approach day-to-day life most effectively, handling emotions without losing control and making clear-headed decisions with rational thought.

Imagine an average day where you aren’t troubled by too much stress, but you’re still alert and able to focus on your tasks.  Typically, this would place you right in the center of your window of tolerance: you’re not facing anything beyond what you can handle.  You can experience emotions without being overtaken by them and feel safe in general.

Let’s say a minor stressor comes up: you get a phone call from your boss that requires you to do additional work, or an email comes in from your child’s teacher about misbehavior in their class.  That stressor will increase your level of arousal, maybe even to put you at the edge of your window of tolerance, but if you’re still within that window you can handle the stress without getting too out of sorts.

Our brains are designed to handle the ups and downs of emotions and experience by remaining within this window of tolerance.  We may have unconscious coping mechanisms in place that help us handle that stress, or the passage of time brings us back to the center of that window.

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM) has provided this infographic to help you visualize the window of tolerance.

What happens when I go outside the window?

When a circumstance, stressor, or trigger is enough to throw you outside the window of tolerance, you enter into survival mode.  Outside the window of tolerance, the prefrontal cortex of your brain (involved in impulse control, decision-making, and regulating emotions) shuts down.

If your level of arousal is too high and jumps above the window of tolerance, you’re experiencing hyperarousal.  Usually this is the initial response when a stressor throws you off balance.  Hyperarousal comes from your fight-or-flight adrenaline response, which can show up with increased heart rate, racing thoughts, digestive issues, or hypervigilance in your surroundings.  You might feel an intense wave of anxiety, panic, or anger.  Your emotions can be overwhelming and out of control.

If your level of arousal is too low and dips below the window of tolerance, this is hypoarousal.  This comes from a freeze and shut-down response, often as a reaction to the adrenaline rush of hyperarousal.  Hypoarousal can look a lot like depression.  You might notice lack of motivation, exhaustion, and feeling numb and disconnected from emotions.

How Trauma Affects the Window of Tolerance

If you’ve experienced trauma, whether big T (like a natural disaster or prolonged abuse) or little t (like gaslighting or emotional manipulation that adds up over time), you know that reminders of those experiences can bring you back to how it felt then.  These triggers happen out of nowhere.  A sound, smell, or location can send you into a negative spiral.  Often, these triggers go unnoticed and you’re left feeling anxious, depressed, or some combination of the two without really knowing why.  Other times, these are obvious reminders that trigger flashbacks or physical reactions in your body.

If you have experienced trauma, your window of tolerance shrinks.  The traumatic experience has likely taught you that the world is unsafe and unpredictable.  Triggers related to the trauma also increase emotional response, skyrocketing you out of your window of tolerance before you’re even aware of what’s happening.

Because the window of tolerance is smaller, you’re likely to fluctuate more often through hyperarousal and hypoarousal.  Something as simple as that call from your boss or email from your child’s teacher could send you into an anxious spiral. 

In some cases, when you’ve been outside of your window of tolerance for a long period of time, clinical levels of anxiety or depression can develop. Survivors of trauma may learn to adapt to fluctuations between hyperarousal or hypoarousal by moving toward unhealthy behaviors, such as addictions, to manage their discomfort.

How can I stay in my window of tolerance?

There are healthy alternatives to addictions or other destructive ways of coping that can help you to return to your window of tolerance.

• Breath work and grounding. Bring yourself into the present moment by taking a few deep breaths.  Use a breathing technique like four-square breathing or the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise to help you remember that you’re in the present.

• Check your thoughts. Talk to yourself about what’s going on in the present.  Question whether the feelings of panic or lack of safety are based in factual reality, or if they’re an echo of the past trauma.  Affirm yourself for changes you’ve made and work you’ve done or are doing to heal from the trauma.

• Self-care. When you notice your emotions getting out of control, think of that as a red flag indicating your need for self-care.  This can include things like going for a walk, taking a hot shower, giving yourself a few minutes to breathe, or calling a friend.  Look for self-soothing actions that help you not to be overcome by the emotion and ground you in the present

• Connection with loved ones.  Feeling supported and cared for by your loved ones can serve as an important part of self-care when you’re reeling from a trauma-related trigger.  Connect with your loved ones via phone call, text, or in-person meeting to remind you of their present role in your life. 

Expanding Your Window of Tolerance

The solutions above can be great in an emergency when you find that you’re already outside of the window of tolerance.  But if you’ve experienced trauma and are coping with a smaller window of tolerance, these will only provide a temporary fix.  Luckily, it is possible to grow that window of tolerance with focused work.

• Therapy. Creating space to process and deal with the impact of trauma on your everyday life with a professional counselor or psychologist can help create a buffer for your emotional reactions.  Your relationship and connection with your therapist is the most valuable part of any therapy relationship, moreso than what technique that therapist uses.  Find someone with whom you feel comfortable and safe and who can help you stay within the window of tolerance in your sessions, as healing can’t occur when you’re outside of that window.

• EMDR. As an EMDR-trained clinician, I have seen EMDR change the game with clients who have survived trauma.  EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) helps process and reorganize the traumatic memories in your brain such that they aren’t creating such strong emotional reactions.  This technique replaces the negative narratives and emotions from those memories with a more grounded and centered perspective coupled with positive, affirming words.

• Regular meditation practice.  While the short version of meditation and breathing mentioned above can help in a pinch, regular meditation practice can do wonders for extending the window of tolerance.  Doing regular breath work over time can create a habit that develops into a reflex to react to stress with conscious breathing.