Psychological trauma affects people’s health both physically and mentally, it affects people’s work, study, daily life and relationships. So how to recognize and overcome psychological trauma.
What is psychological trauma?
In every person’s life, there are countless unexpected events, unexpected incidents, unexpected things happen. If these events are beyond a person’s tolerance, causing feelings of stress, insecurity, helplessness, fear… will create psychological shock. The lasting effect and cause serious damage to people’s mental health from psychological shock is called trauma.
The causes of psychological trauma are varied. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), trauma is “an emotional reaction to a horrible event such as an accident, rape, or natural disaster”. However, trauma can happen with any event. And the traumatized person may not be an insider of the event, they may just be an eyewitness. For example, children often witness their parents arguing, hitting quickly, parents getting divorced, someone witnessing an accident happen…
Trauma can come from once-in-a-lifetime events (accident, natural disaster, earthquake, bereavement, etc.) or repeated events in everyday life (planetary violence) spirits, child abuse, etc.).
Psychologist, Master Coach Cao Kim Tham shared: “Trauma has many causes. Psychological shock can occur when the loss of a loved one, accident, failure, divorce, adultery, serious illness. Having psychological trauma from childhood: Living in a family environment with too much pressure, witnessing violence from parents or divorced parents, or suffering too much emotional trauma from family cause psychological trauma”.
Trauma can happen to anyone, at any age, and no one can gain immunity to this psychological reaction.
How does psychological trauma affect people’s health and life?
In general, psychological trauma affects people’s mental and physical health.
From a medical perspective, psychological trauma affects organs in the body such as the central nervous system, weakens the body’s immune system, affects the cardiovascular system, and can even lead to an infarction. myocarditis, peptic ulcer, irritable bowel syndrome. Psychological trauma also affects the endocrine system in the body such as pituitary gland, adrenal gland, thyroid gland, pancreas …
“Physically, people with psychological trauma often experience fatigue, stress, heart palpitations, sweating, poor sleep, nightmares. Mentally, they have panic reactions, always feel lonely, feel helpless, do not dare to interact with outsiders… These can seriously affect work, health, study exercise, activities and social relationships”expert Cao Kim Tham shared.
Trauma, if not recognized and treated promptly, can become post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
However, the impact of trauma is different for each person because it is a personal experience. If we pay attention, we can observe and see that, witnessing or experiencing the same event or event, but each individual has different reactions, ways of coping and showing. This depends on a lot of different factors.
“The difference depends on each person’s personality, environment, family background, genetics, upbringing, internal strength training of each individual… Therefore, when something goes wrong, something unexpected happens. As expected, some people can get through it, but some people can’t.”psychotherapist Cao Kim Tham explains.
How to overcome psychological trauma?
Doctor of Psychotherapy Philip J. Lanzisera: “If you want to be better, run towards your problems, not run away from them.”.
When you experience stress, anxiety, fear, insecurity, … even psychological trauma, depression, anxiety disorders. The first and most correct step is that we need to recognize our problems and feelings and face it without avoiding it. “I’m feeling insecure…”, “I am scaring…”. Recognizing your emotions will help you recognize your problems and find the right solutions.
Sometimes we avoid these unpleasant emotions by using social networks, surfing facebook, watching some funny videos… These ways only work for a short time so that you temporarily forget about the problems pain, anxiety, fear, insecurity… but the problem is there and it can be bigger if we keep avoiding it.
“A person has a psychological shock or trauma because their internal force is lower than the external impact. Therefore, they can overcome psychological shock and trauma if they have training and desire to change. At that time, they can train their inner strength to overcome psychological trauma.”psychologist Cao Kim Tham shared.
There are many ways to recover from trauma. You can overcome this problem on your own or with the help and support of a psychologist.
Here are a few simple and easy ways to overcome trauma by yourself, shared by psychologist Cao Kim Tham:
- Find relatives, friends, people who can listen and empathize to share problems, sorrows and pain that you have encountered.
- Exercise and sports: Walking, jogging, badminton, yoga… You can practice any sport you love. Exercise helps the body to produce positive hormones that help you feel more excited and love life.
- Reading positive books, watching motivational videos help you form positive thoughts and thoughts about life.
- Practice a healthy lifestyle.
Besides, you can do some activities to help your body produce happy hormones to make you feel happy, increase your inspiration to live, feel more meaningful in your life, and improve your memory. better and more flexible body.
Hormones are chemical substances produced by different glands in the body that move through the bloodstream, act as signal transmitters, and are involved in many body processes. A lack of happiness hormone is also the cause of what medical experts say causes depression problems.
Dopamine, Serotonin, Endorphin and Oxytocin are known as the 4 happy hormones that can be produced on our own when we perform certain activities such as participating in outdoor activities, exercising, laughing a lot. more, cook and enjoy meals with loved ones, listen to music, raise pets, sleep well, massage…
Some activities recommended by experts:
- Being active in the sun for 10-15 minutes a day helps the body to increase the production of Serotonin and Endorphin hormones.
- Exercising for 30 minutes a day helps release Endorphins.
- Music can promote the production of Dopamine so you can dance, sing, beat the drums… depending on your preferences.
- Meditation not only helps to sleep well, reduce stress but also helps release Endorphin.
- Eat foods: Yogurt, eggs, beans, almonds, low-fat meat help release Dopamine
- Eating foods rich in tryptophan such as eggs, cheese, tofu, and salmon can increase Serotonin levels.
- Spicy foods can increase the release of Dopamine.
If you have tried to implement self-help solutions to overcome psychological trauma but have not been effective, you should seek the help of psychologists, psychotherapy centers to quickly overcome this problem. let it affect your health, work, study, activities or relationships.
