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Transcription
This podcast episode discusses healing from childhood trauma and the impact trauma can have on the brain. It emphasizes the importance of taking action to heal and suggests three avenues of recovery: talking to others, taking medications, and the mind-body connection. The mind-body connection involves activities like yoga, journaling, and rhythm therapy. These activities help calm the brain, reorganize damaged areas, and regulate emotions. The episode also addresses the misconception that these activities take up too much time and encourages incorporating them into daily routines. Taking care of the brain now can lead to a happier and healthier life. Hello! Welcome to another episode of The Wheel of Well-Being. I'm your host Nyava, and for those of you who are new, this podcast discusses topics related to the eight parts of well-being. The topics we will be going over today will relate to emotional and physical well-being. Today, we will be talking about how to heal from childhood trauma. I know this may be a touchy topic, but don't worry. We won't be diving too deep into childhood trauma. Instead, this episode will discuss actions you can take to heal from it. But first, what is trauma? Well, according to Impact of Trauma on Neurodevelopment and Learning, trauma is any upsetting experience that can be emotionally, mentally, or physically overwhelming for a person. Traumatic experiences can be a one-time event or a repeated long-term exposure to a person. Trauma can happen at any age, at any time, from when you're a child to when you're an adult in your 40s. When trauma is left untreated, it can negatively alter your brain, especially during your childhood, a time where your brain is most vulnerable to changes. Some of the negatives include hormonal, epigenetic, neurological, and immune system changes to your brain during your brain developmental stages. Writer Amanda Merrick explains, these changes can affect your teen and adult brain later in life. Your brain is your lifeline. It helps you communicate, problem-solve, make decisions, and think. Without a healthy brain, you can't communicate as well, you can't problem-solve as well, and you can't make good decisions. And all of these can lead to a depressing and unfulfilling life. But if you take action today, you can significantly heal your brain and live a life that you want. So, what are ways we can heal from trauma, you may ask. According to Dr. Van de Kolk in the New York Times article called, How to Rewire Your Brain from Trauma, there are three avenues of recovery, which include talking to others, aka therapy or talking to a friend, taking medications, and the mind-body connection. Today, I'll focus on the mind-body connection avenue, which is just mind-body activities. Particularly, I'll be focusing on yoga, journaling, and rhythm. Starting with yoga, yoga is one of the most popular and most known forms of mind-body practice. Yoga incorporates physical movement with breathing exercises that calm the brain. The Cleveland Clinic discusses how trauma sends your brain into overdrive, but yoga can slow down the brain and help you refocus on the present moment and recognize what's going on in your body. Another activity that you can do is journaling. Journaling is another popular form of mind-body connection. You can journal on a notebook or in your notes app on your phone. The F.H.E. Health notes that, Journaling gives us a release, a space in which we can relieve our bodies and brains of carrying the weight of these heavy emotions and thoughts. With journaling, you can translate your emotional experiences into words, which reorganize damages that have occurred in your brain. Lastly, a less known type of mind-body connection is rhythm or rhythm therapy. According to Frontiers.org, a number of popular theorists' ideas have been used to suggest rhythm-based activities are beneficial for people who have had traumatic experiences. These rhythm-based activities vary. They can include listening to music while you're dancing to a beat, or just listening to a beat and really vibing with it. Some examples include, like I said, listening to a song with a consistent beat and you're tapping to the beat while you listen to it, or listening to a song with uplifting words and dancing and singing along with it. Rhythm-based activities can come in many forms. As long as you're moving to the beat while listening to it, you're engaging your brain. Dr. Van de Kolk in the Frontiers article says that, Some may think they don't have enough time to incorporate these activities because of their busy schedule, but hear me out. I, too, am a very busy college student, but these activities don't have to take up the entire day. For instance, you can take a quick five to ten minute guided YouTube video of a yoga meditation that you can do after waking up or before you go to bed. Or you can set 30 minutes before bed to journal out your thoughts and feelings from the day. Or on your daily walk to class, you can listen to some music while tapping your hand to the beat in your pocket. These actions, though small, can be very mighty. I've started to see the benefits of journaling daily, and so can you. Taking care of your brain now will help re-regulate your brain, body, and emotions, thus setting you up for a happy and healthy life that you can enjoy. So start taking steps to heal your brain today. That's all for today. I hope you enjoyed. Stay tuned for next week's episode. Bye!
