Trauma

Trauma is a difficult thing to address. Often, people want to get as much distance from the trauma they have experienced as possible. This is an understandable response. Trauma, however, can have a way of impacting your life today. You may not expect something that happened in the past to have a profound effect on your life now. The ways trauma influences how we feel, think, and behave are powerful. Whether the traumatic event was yesterday or fifty years ago, it can result in negative feelings today. One of the most common symptoms of trauma is fatigue. People who have experienced trauma can feel tired, unmotivated, or drained. These feelings are real and directly connected to the trauma you experienced. The effects of trauma on the body, mind, and spirit are powerful, and they may exhaust you. Ten ways trauma may be draining your energy Increased stress hormones. Trauma causes stress in your life. This can be emotionally or physically. Either way, the body responds with increased levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. These increased levels, especially for prolonged periods, can result in fatigue. Interrupted sleep. Some people go into a hyper-vigilant state after experiencing trauma. This is a self-preservation attempt to protect from additional trauma. Hyper-vigilance is exhausting when experienced during the day. It also impacts your sleep. Even as you sleep, the hyper-vigilant state of your mind can cause interruptions in sleep leaving you tired when you wake in the morning. Repeated nights of this have a compounding effect. Intrusive memories. Many people have memories of the traumatic event or events. Unfortunately, these can creep in at any time. Handling these memories is worn mentally and emotionally. Even attempts to block memories can be tiring. Reliving trauma. Going through a hard thing again and again, even if it [...]