The word trauma is thrown around a lot these days, but what is it? The more I’ve done my own research into what it means to experience trauma, the more I’ve found that trauma encompasses a wide range of things. There’s even subcategories, like medical trauma and childhood trauma. Trauma ranges from happening to be at the scene of a terrorist attack, often the kind of experience people initially think of as traumatic, to a teacher telling you you won’t amount to anything when you were in the 2nd grade. The latter doesn’t minimize the former, in this example the person in the terrorist attack will most likely need more support. It’s all relative to how we process negative events as individuals and no one can minimize how we feel.

While reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, I’m learning about how identifying and working through trauma is so important to keeping not just the mind, but the body, healthy. Physical manifestations of trauma can look like migraines, digestive issues, skin problems, and more. Before doing my research, I had doubts … how does that work? Well it starts deeper, on a level you can’t see.

If a person doesn’t experience a lot of stress on a day to day basis, but then someone rear ends them in the grocery store parking lot, odds are they will go into the stress response (sweaty hands, shaking, anxiety … everyone’s looks a little different), but while they’re home with their family later they will decompress and find a state of relaxation again.

If a person does experience a lot of stress in their day to day, and again, this looks different for everyone and no stress is better or worse stress, they will have more trouble reaching the relaxation response again. Eventually, compounded stress builds and your baseline is no longer the relaxation response. This primes the body to start activating previously turned off genes, lowers amounts of killer cells that fight infections, and sets the body up to get sick. The body is going and going and going, ready to protect and attack, because fight or flight mode is constantly activated.

Our bodies are simply not made to be in this constant state of stress. Something else I’ve learned recently is that if you change beds or go on vacation and sleep in a new place, for that first night half of your brain stays up because it perceives the change in environment and your body enters a state of heightened fight or flight. Wild right?! When our bodies are in this constant state of stress, our brains don’t get quiet time and keep our nervous system awake 24/7. What happens when you pull an all nighter? You burn out very quickly. Well I am here to tell you the same thing happens to your organs and your body.

So all of that is to say, trauma is trauma, no matter how small. Don’t gaslight yourself or let others tell you your fears, stresses, or negative events are small or something to, “just get over.” Trauma is defined as a distressing or disturbing experience. For some this can lead to PTSD, for others it can manifest as physical symptoms, or both. This is why it’s so important to take care of our bodies and make sure we get proper rest and time to process our traumas. We owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to take care of our bodies!