3. Why am I so Tired? The Frozen Side of a Trauma Response.

Why am I so tired? The Frozen side of the Trauma Response do you know why you are feeling so exhausted? Are you feeling a little bit lightheaded, distant or disconnected? Despite the fact that your daily responsibilities may be lessened, your social life is cut off and your workload is reduced, you still feel emotionally and physically drained. This is a trauma response. We've all heard of the fight, flight, freeze reaction to panic and fear. And right now you're in freeze. When you're in a position where you feel powerless and cannot fight and when you can't run away and escape, your body is doing the only thing it can in the last ditch effort. It's self protection. Your nervous system is shutting down and going into freeze mode. Today we're going to talk about something called the amygdala hijack and what to do about it. Stick around to the end because I also want to share with you something pretty cool that we've created to support you during this time. Welcome to my podcast. I'm Dr. Nicole Cain, integrative mental health doctor, consultant, author, founder of the ACT method and expert in integrative approaches to anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and trauma. You're going to learn about the wisdom of vitalistic and traditional medicine and we are going to deconstruct the latest in alternative and complementary research. Together we will explore the terrain of the human psyche as it relates to the complex interweavings that impact your mental health. I'm going to teach you how to design your life and we will explore techniques for cultivation of emotional agility. If you're ready to turn the page to the next chapter in your life, then let's get started. Researchers describe three primary responses to fright and trauma. They are fight, flight and freeze. This is also referred to as the amygdala hijack, a term coined by Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional why It Can Matter More Than iq. Your amygdala is part of the limbic system in your brain and its primary role is emotional regulation. The amygdala is also responsible for storing and processing memories of events so that you can make quick associations between past incidents and the current moment. When there's perceived danger. Your amygdala acts quickly and produces an intense emotion of fear and coordinates a complex series of responses I.e. the fight, flight or freeze response. The amygdala also shuts off your cortex so so that higher order thinking is delayed or blocked. This means your body is running on sheer autopilot. Stress hormones are being released and your body is going into survival mode. But when you can't fight and when you can't run away, the only remaining option is to freeze. This causes us to feel depressed, lethargic, dissociated and powerless. What started out as panic grows into avoidance and despair. Studies have shown that there is greater amygdala activation in individuals who have experienced trauma or chronic stress, and understanding your emotional well being will serve as the keys towards getting your brain back under control even if your circumstances remain unchanged. So what do you do? How can we prevent the emotional hijack of the amygdala? What do we do when we can't fight or flight and when our circumstances are not changeable? It is important to do the self work during and after a crisis because the way you exist during a crisis will impact your experience going forward. Let's talk about effective tolerance. Effective tolerance is the ability to tolerate or deal with an affect or emotional state. One of the main goals of effective tolerance is to enable us to survive crisis situations. To aid in this process, I designed what I refer to as force field strategies for effective tolerance. These activities will increase your resilience and give you tools to keep you strong, especially when you cannot do anything about what's happening in the world. The force field strategies include getting enough sleep, eating nourishing food, connecting with others, even if that means only via the cell phone or maybe video chat. Force field strategies include moving your body and getting exercise, even if that means you just do burpees in your living room. Force field strategies include taking your medicine and your vitamins and doing emotional work. Mastery tools for emotional resiliency are discussed extensive, extensively in the Anxiety Breakthrough Program. And in the time that we have remaining, I want to introduce you to four key steps for emotional resiliency during a time of crisis. The first step hold space for the emotion. Acknowledge out loud in a journal or to a loved one the gravity of the situation. Talk about what's going on. Name the emotions you experience and talk about your worries and your fears. Attend to the reality of your situation as it is with the COVID 19 outbreak, I have gone through a cycle of anger, fear, despair and disbelief. I was storing all of that pain and emotion inside of me and I didn't realize that I had started to shut down. I began to miss half of what my husband was saying to me. I wasn't engaging with my puppy who still wanted to play and go on walks. I was not attuned to what was going on. My amygdala was pushing me into freeze or playing dead mode. Finally, thankfully, my husband and I talked about how we were feeling. There were a lot of tears and a lot of release. Knowing I was not alone and acknowledging how I was feeling helped so much. Even though the circumstances had not changed, my higher order self was reclaiming her position and putting anxiety back in its place. Place backstage. What do you need to express right now? I want you to take a step back and without judgment, just notice the emotion coming up. The emotion will come in waves and just notice the waves of emotion as they ebb and flow. Don't suppress or block the emotions. Don't try to evoke or amplify them. Just simply acknowledge them, hold space for them and then express them in whatever way feels right and authentic to you. Number two is to notice the body. Notice where you feel the emotions in your body and remember the sensations are your body sharing information with you. This could be fatigue. It could be that wired and tired feeling. It could be panic and restlessness. Whatever it is, observe the patterns of the waves as they go through your body. Notice the physical sensations as they ebb and flow. I have an exercise called Somatographic Imagery where we go through this in extensive detail and I'll make that available for you. The third step is to remember your truth. Know, my love, that your emotions are valid. You are not your emotion, but you experience emotions. Your emotions do and will change. Your emotions cannot harm you. Remember, there are times when you have felt differently. There will be times where you feel differently again. You are not alone. What truth do you need to remember, my love? The third step is radical acknowledgement. This is where you respect your emotion, you refrain from judging your emotion, and you release the need to change your emotion. It is what it is. The brain likes to swing from chaos to rigidity. Chaos to rigidity, where an emotion can feel really big and out of control and too intense and. And then we embrace rigidity where we try to suppress it or ignore it or change it. And what I am encouraging you to do is just radically acknowledge that it is what it is and don't try to change it. Your emotions are valid. The fourth step is redirect. Honor, hold the space and then redirect. We talked a lot last time in a conversation about how there's multiple truths in a situation. There is the darkness, there is the fear, there is the grief. But there's also light. If you look for it, where can you see the light? Where can you redirect? This may mean literally changing your location and going somewhere else. It might be just focusing your brain on Something else. What do you have to be grateful for? Maybe you had a good meal or maybe you have good provision. Listening to this podcast is a great privilege to have that connection and connectivity and technology. Change your shoes, Change the perfume in your home. Use an essential oil. Change what you're doing and who you're talking with. Maybe phone a friend. Remember your force field strategies. The force steps will help you to go through the process of a crisis in a way where you're not stuffing and storing and becoming more and more of a captive to the emotion of anxiety and panic and fear and despair. By following the space and holding it for the emotion, by noticing the body, remembering your truth is valid. Acknowledging radically without trying to change it, and then redirecting and moving on, you are going to gain emotional agility, emotional resiliency. And this will make you a warrior. This podcast is dedicated to the warriors who served on the front lines of COVID 19 worldwide pandemic. We cannot thank you enough for your sacrifice. We are forever grateful and eternally in your debt. There's one more thing I want to talk with you guys about, and it's I have a free Facebook group where there are people who are warriors of their anxiety that are in there and they're supporting each other. And I am in there. And if you have questions, you need ideas or tips or support or whatever it is, I'm interacting and I'm there for you. You are not alone. You don't have to be alone. And so check it out. Go to Facebook and find my information. Dr. Nicole Cain. And we have an anxiety freedom group. And so you are very welcome to join that. Know you're not alone. Dig in. Call your community, call your loved ones and stay in tune. And sometimes those feelings of freeze can be really sneaky and they can creep up on you. I mean, this is what I do for a living, babe. And it crept up on and so be proactive. Follow these force field strategies. Do your four steps every day. The more you practice, the easier it'll get, the more automatic it'll get. So check out that information on Facebook and know, babe, that I've got your back. Hey, everyone, thanks for listening. This has been Dr. Nicole Cain. If you want more free information on how to get your life back, check out my website@drnicolecane.com you can send me questions, learn about consulting with me directly, and even preview my online courses. And now for the disclaimer. The recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Caine, Naturopathic Doctor and while these opinions are based upon literature, hurt counseling, education, medical training, and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as a definitive opinion on the subject. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological, or other form of treatment. If you are in a Crisis, please call 911-OR call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. If you are in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a local counselor in your area. I am so passionate about people getting their life back. If this resonates with you, and if you think this podcast would help someone you love, please share it with them. Stay in the conversation with me about writing the next chapter of your life the way you want it. I'll see you next time. Here's to your next chapter.