3 Seriously Impressive Ways The Human Brain Protects Itself When Bad Things Happen
The brain shields us from trauma, but some work may still need to be done.
Dean Drobot | Shutterstock Trauma happens when you experience an event that is physically or emotionally harmful or even life-threatening. Your brain has an impressive ability to cope when it is overwhelmed. Even though the event passes, the trauma protection your brain creates has lasting effects on a person’s mental, physical, social, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Though no single study has asked everyone about PTSD, the Department of Veterans' Affairs estimates, "Women are more likely to develop PTSD than men. About 8 of every 100 women (or 8%) and 4 of every 100 men (or 4%) will have PTSD at some point in their lives." So, it’s essential to understand how trauma affects the brain so that you can heal and minimize the lifelong effects.
While you may feel "broken" after yoru trauma, your brain did its best for you. Now you can say "thank you" and start on the process of recovery.
Three ways the human brain protects itself when bad things happen
1. The 'fight or flight' response
Harmful or life-threatening events trigger the brain to release adrenaline, activating the fight-or-flight response so you can prepare to run or defend yourself. If your brain perceives you are in danger, it works hard to get you out. At times like this, a lot of energy courses through you.
It’s important to understand that your fight or flight response is automatic. When a threat is present, the body pauses all functions involved in the usual "rest and digest" state. These physiological changes help improve the chances of survival.
Some changes are increased heart and breathing rates, the release of stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, dilated pupils, and increased blood pressure, to name a few. It’s a total-body shift to a threat response state.
As long as you can run from the threat or fight back, these physiological changes will continue. When you’re "caught" or can no longer run or fight, you freeze. This freezing is when your nervous system is too overwhelmed to offer any other solutions to survive. This is the point where most trauma occurs.
2. Fragmented memory
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When adrenaline is released, the prefrontal cortex essentially shuts down. The prefrontal cortex is part of the frontal lobe, which controls primary cognitive skills, like emotional expression, problem-solving, memory, language, judgment, and motor control.
One of the biggest jobs of the prefrontal cortex is executive functioning, which is involved in decision-making, self-control, and acting in ways that align with long-term goals. When the prefrontal cortex goes offline during the threat response, high reasoning and language structures stop.
Trauma effectively imprints the stressful event in the brain. The memory of the traumatic event is stored in the amygdala, which ensures you do not find yourself in this dangerous situation again.
However, the amygdala doesn’t save the event as if it were a story — the amygdala stores the emotional significance of the traumatic event as experienced by our five senses. So, the memory is fragments of visual images, smells, sounds, tastes, or touches.
3. The body remembers
Since the traumatic event is stored as sensory fragments, it can be hard to verbalize and attach language to it. Instead, your physical body is what is holding the trauma. This phenomenon is famously noted in the book The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild and later in The Body Keeps the Score.
The traumatic energy of these fragments is stored in your body and can be triggered by physical or sensory input in some way reminiscent of the trauma. Even though the sensory information that triggers the memory of the traumatic event is usually from an insignificant, regular event, the brain misinterprets it as dangerous.
This means anything internal (like thoughts or feelings) or something external (like a situation, place, sound, or smell) can be enough to remind your brain of the past trauma. When your mind is reminded of the trauma, the brain wants to warn you of impending danger, even when there isn’t any.
So, it can feel like triggers come out of the blue. But identifying the triggers can help you work towards coping with them.
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How to address the trauma and move on
Questions to ask yourself when determining what was triggering in a situation:
- "In what type of situation was I?"
- "What was happening around me?"
- "What emotions was I feeling?"
- "To what sensory input was I exposed?"
- "What types of thoughts were going through my head?"
- "How did my body feel?"
Identifying your triggers is the first step towards coping with them because you cannot avoid them all. Increased awareness of the source of your triggers also helps you recognize why you are reacting the way you are.
This understanding can help you feel more in control because there are patterns and predictability to what you are experiencing.
Other healthy strategies to lessen the impact:
- Mindfulness
- Relaxation techniques
- Social support
- Journaling
- Self-soothing
It’s also necessary to recognize that every person is unique in terms of experiences, reactions, and resilience. So, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach for treating and healing trauma.
Rhonda Kelloway is a trained divorce and family mediator and a co-owner and principal therapist at Life Care Wellness, a group psychotherapy practice in Glen Ellyn and Chicago, Illinois. She is a trauma specialist utilizing a Somatic Experiencing framework, EMDR, and a variety of traditional psychotherapy approaches in her work.
