Do you have difficulty concentrating, trouble sleeping?
Are you irritable?
Do you have angry outbursts?
If yes, you might have the hyperarousal symptoms from posttraumatic stress disorder, hyperarousal
can persist long after the trauma.
So what can you do about it?
I'm going to walk you through it.
My name is Barbara Heffernan and I have been helping people for over 20 years transform
their lives by recovering from anxiety and trauma and I created this YouTube channel
to help more people do the same.
So I'm really hoping these videos are helpful to you and I would love it if you are in support
of these videos.
If you would subscribe to my channel, give me a like on this video and comment below
and let me know what you think about it.
All of those things are super helpful.
So while hyperarousal can be incredibly tenacious, there are steps you can take right now to
begin to feel better and that will help you in the long run.
And I'm going to outline six of those steps for you in this video.
And for a diagnosis of PTSD, there are intrusive symptoms, there are avoidance symptoms, there
are hyperarousal symptoms and there are changes in cognitions about the self changes in how
you think about yourself or the world from the traumatic event and all four of those
things are needed for a PTSD diagnosis.
And I do talk about that a little bit more as well as I talk quite a bit about avoidance
in the video that I'll link here called PTSD avoidance and one of the people watching these
videos asked me to do a video on PTSD hyperarousal symptoms and so I am doing this video for
that reason.
So just so you know, if you do have a request or question something doesn't make sense to
you, put a comment below this video and I will definitely answer it and I will likely
produce a video if needed to answer the question.
So I'm going to show you here the hyperarousal symptoms from PTSD.
Reckless or self destructive behavior, hypervigilance meaning you are always on guard and exaggerated
startle response.
Something happens, you hear a loud noise and you jump.
Irritability and angry outbursts, difficulty concentrating and sleep disturbance.
If you have two or more of these symptoms, you meet the criteria for that portion of
a PTSD diagnosis, so trauma treatment really needs to follow two tracks.
One track is that the physiological reactivity of the person needs to begin to lower and
then the other track is that the trauma needs to be treated, the traumatic memory needs
to be processed and the avoidance needs to stop and the negative cognitions about the
self need to change.
And for all of this, EMDR is just an awesome treatment technique and I have a bunch of
videos.
I will link a playlist over here.
EMDR is the most effective technique I've ever seen and just as an FYI, it's approved
by the world health organization.
It's approved by the department of defense.
It's approved by some very conservative organizations, so it's not like a totally woo woo sort of
treatment and there is a lot of research behind it.
I'm going to show you a little diagram right here that shows how this works, but basically
if you're having intrusive symptoms, those are going to make you hyper aroused because
the intrusive symptoms are nightmares, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, they're all the things,
the trauma impeding on your brain and it's going to be giving you a physiological response.
So I think it's easy to understand that until the intrusive symptoms stop, it's going to
be very hard to calm down the hyper arousal symptoms.
Similarly, cognitions, negative beliefs about the self, beliefs about like I'm stupid or
I'm incapable or I'm worthless.
Those things are going to stimulate a hyper arousal response.
And then if the negative beliefs are about the world, I can't trust anybody, I'm in danger.
Obviously that's going to stimulate hyperarousal.
And then similarly, avoidance.
I do talk about how avoidance makes everything worse in that video on PTSD avoidance.
So all of these things cycle together and need to be treated together.
The six steps to recover from hyperarousal symptoms.
Number one, learn diaphragmatic breathing.
Critically important.
It is so important to learn and make sure that you are breathing diaphragmaticly as
a regular mode, that that is your default mode of breathing.
So my recommendation to clients is that they practice diaphragmatic breathing four times
a day every day.
And it can be just for like five minutes at a time.
It can be when you're in your office, when you're waiting for a bus, it can be any time,
nobody will notice that you're doing it.
And it's very important to practice it regularly when you're not particularly anxious so that
it becomes your default mode.
Now I do offer a free mini course, I call it the Omni series and it walks you through
diaphragmatic breathing and a couple of these other techniques and the link to that is below.
But there are also tons of videos on YouTube about diaphragmatic breathing.
So that is something you can do today.
Either sign up for my course or Google on YouTube is it still called Google if it's
on YouTube?
Anyway, stick into the search bar of YouTube, diaphragmatic breathing and spend minutes
learning how to do it and then practice it four times a day.
Number two, progressive muscle relaxation.
Again, there's a ton of YouTube videos on progressive muscle relaxation.
Find one you like and do it once a day.
So both of these things are techniques and tools that really help your body begin to
relax and understand what it is to be in a physiologically relaxed place when it's appropriate.
And if you've been experiencing hyper arousal for a long time, this might be completely
alien to you and your body and all of these techniques are going to take practice, practice,
practice.
You are rewiring how your brain works, you're rewiring how your physiology works.
It takes practice just like learning to play tennis or how to play the piano or the clarinet.
All of these things take practice, muscle memory and coordination between automatic
thinking and the body so that soon it becomes your habitual mode.
That's what we're aiming for.
Set number three, address the self destructive behaviors.
Now if you are engaging in high risk behaviors, whether that is driving way too fast or engaging
in a high risk sport that you're not trained in whatever the high risk behavior is.
If you're engaging in something that is sort of life threatening, there's no way your hyper
arousal symptoms will go away.
Now, I'm not saying that people can't participate in extreme sports, but the people who participate
regularly in extreme sports tend to be trained in them, really learn the safety modes and
learn to do it in a safer way as possible.
You know what high risk behaviors are and there could be sexually risky behaviors, there
can be risky drug use, there's all sorts of self-destructive risky behaviors that are
going to keep you in a hyper arousal state because you're engaging in dangerous things.
So those need to be addressed first.
And how do you address them?
Well that depends a little bit on what type of self destructive behaviors are involved
with and how extensive they are.
If it's not too extensive and they're not too extreme, you might be able to just cut
back yourself, get help from a friend, a spouse, a supportive person in your life, but you
also might need to utilize the help of a therapist.
12 step recovery programs, eating disorder program, a cognitive behavioral therapy psychotherapist,
and then also an EMDR therapist.
There are some EMDR protocols that can help with destructive behaviors.
Number four, address irritability and angry outbursts.
Again, here, if you are constantly irritable, you're constantly like scratching, like things
are never exactly the way you want them to be, it's going be very hard to physiologically
relax.
And if you have angry outbursts then similar to the self destructive behaviors, it's going
to be very hard to eliminate or even lower hyperarousal behaviors because you are engaging
in something which is risky, which is stimulating the fight response.
So sometimes we feel like if we get angry where expelling the angry response, but actually
acting out in anger generally only creates more anger and anger is really a fight flight
mode of being.
So how do you stop irritability and angry outbursts?
Behavioral changes are actually necessary for recovery.
So what you do is as important as what you're feeling or what you're thinking in terms of
recovery.
One of the key things for angry outbursts and actually for many of the situations in
which we get reactive is to stop, take five and breathe.
You might've heard this expression as stop, take five and think, but I prefer stop, take
five and breathe.
So stopping what you're doing.
Count to five in your head slowly and breathe.
Bring up that diaphragmatic breathing and then reconsider what kind of response you
want to have.
It's really one of the most incredible tools and then of course there are anger management
classes and there are therapists who specialize in anger management if that's one of your
key hyperarousal symptoms.
Number five, yoga, meditation and exercise.
These things are all fairly inexpensive.
Some of them can be done almost for free and they are critically necessary.
You don't have to do all three of them, but I would definitely pick two and try to learn
them.
And meditation can be very hard for people who have anxiety and trauma.
So if you are interested in my doing a video about that, please comment below because there
are some tools for meditation that are particularly helpful for people who have anxiety and trauma.
And I understand it can be a difficult thing to do because when you sit and you're quiet
and you begin to relax, that sometimes when all the hyper arousal symptoms jump in, panic
attacks can happen, thoughts can race - a lot of uncomfortable things can happen.
But as you learned meditation, mindfulness, meditation, it will definitely, definitely
help and yoga can actually be an easier entre into meditation for many people with trauma
and anxiety because it is a physical movement combined with breathing, combined with coming
fully into the present moment and into your body and your bodily responses to things.
So yoga is an awesome tool for trauma recovery and then exercise, get it out, get your fight,
flight response out, via running, jogging, biking, whatever type of cardiovascular exercise
you like to do is an awesome way to release the stress and the energy that caused those
hyper arousal symptoms.
And step number six, which is really the key to all of this is learning to feel safe when
you are safe.
So even right now, just right now at this very moment, take a deep breath
look around you
and I assume you're in a safe place or you wouldn't be watching this video and I really
want you to take in what that safety feels like.
breathe in, what that safety feels like.
just breathe it in.
And one of the tools that I teach in that little mini course I have is something called
the safe place exercise.
So again, that link's below.
So as I moved towards the end of this video, I just would like to reemphasize how physiological
relaxation intersects with processing the trauma.
And it intersects with stopping the reckless and the self destructive behavior.
And all three of those things go together.
And once you've processed your trauma and you're no longer having flashbacks, you're
no longer having intrusive thoughts, you're no longer avoiding reminders of the trauma
you have processed it through you're working with changing your negative core beliefs,
then the hyper arousal symptoms will gradually decline, but they will take more time and
they will take a lot of practice, but it can be done.
You can get to the point where you feel safe when you are safe.
So one last thing before I end.
I do work with a handful of people one-on-one via video.
So if you are interested and would like a free consult, the link is below.
And I'd love to hear what you think of this video.
I'd love it if you would give me a thumbs up if you liked it, comment below and I look
forward to seeing you the next time.