Survival Mode vs Excellence, Ep34 Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®, Erin Dunn

Because you're not operating in those moments from your prefrontal cortex anymore. You're operating from your amygdala. And your amygdala's only job is to keep you alive, not to keep you. Excellent. What Aaron's showing us today is that sensory overload is not a character flaw. It's a nervous system response. Once you understand what's happening, once you can distinguish between an actual flashback and sensory overwhelm, you can intervene. Think about Aaron's strategies. Know before you go. Evaluate which senses can be stimulated. Cross out two of those if you're going to a concert and you know that sight and sound are locked in. So maybe skip the meal beforehand and reduce the taste and the smell triggers. Maybe you wear comfortable clothing so that touch isn't adding to the load. Think your brain. Your fight or flight response isn't broken. It's overactive. Level setting expectations helps us to recalibrate. When Erin deployed to Baghdad and heard constant explosions, she didn't get triggered because her brain expected it. The environment matched the alert level.