4 Science-Backed Methods to Help Your Brain Process Trauma

I bet your doctor doesn't give you information like this. What is really needed is a protocol, these are just guidelines where YOU have to guess amounts and times. 
From The Best Brain Possible by Debbie Hampton.  

4 Science-Backed Methods to Help Your Brain Process Trauma 

Healing a traumatized brain takes effort, repetition, and time, but it can be done. Just as we are biologically equipped with mechanisms to deal with threatening situations, our brains are capable of re-establishing normal operation and feelings of calm, security, and happiness. While it is possible to activate these positive states through self-care, healing your brain and life after trauma often requires the guidance of a professional. Here are some methods research has shown to be helpful in assisting the brain in processing trauma.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an interactive psychotherapy technique proven to be an effective treatment for trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). During EMDR therapy sessions, you relive traumatic or triggering experiences in brief doses while the therapist directs your eye movements with a light.
EMDR is thought to be effective because recalling distressing events is often less emotionally upsetting when your attention is diverted. This allows you to be exposed to the memories or thoughts without having a strong psychological response. Memory is an active ongoing process. Every time you recall a memory, your brain reconsolidates it, incorporating and filtering it through who you are and the circumstances at the time of remembering. So, over time, EMDR can lessen the emotional impact of memories.

Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback is a specialized form of biofeedback in which a person’s brain learns at a subconscious level to permanently alter the brainwaves. It has existed for over 40 years and has applications ranging from the treatment of brain injury, epilepsy, migraines, depression, ADHD and autism, and chronic pain to performance enhancement in sports. I did neurofeedback extensively, and it played a crucial role in my recovery from a brain injury.
In neurofeedback, EEG sensors are placed on the scalp and ears to read the amount of electrical energy put out by the brain in the form of brainwaves at different sites. The brainwaves are monitored by computer software that interprets the data giving feedback to the person training. With repetition, the brain learns to self-regulate and actually makes permanent physiological changes to perform more optimally. A person’s brain will continue to make adjustments even when not training.

Talk Therapy

Resolving trauma can be as simple as talking about it with a trained therapist. Research shows that the more we try to push away troubling memories, the more the thoughts tend to intrude on our minds. Studies show that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most effective forms of therapy for PTSD.
In his article, The Healing Power of Telling Your Trauma Story, Seth Gillian, Ph.D., tells  that talking about trauma helps in the following ways:

• Feelings of shame subside.
• Unhelpful beliefs are corrected.
• Memories become less triggering.
• The trauma becomes more organized.
• You gain a sense of mastery.

Psychedelic Therapy

In clinical research on PTSD,  MDMA, also known as ecstasy, has proven to be a highly effective treatment. War veterans struggling with PTSD have reported significant reduction of symptoms after MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. According to one study,

…after three doses of MDMA administered under a psychiatrist’s guidance, the patients reported a 56 percent decrease in the severity of symptoms on average. By the end of the study, two-thirds no longer met the criteria for having PTSD. Follow-up examinations found that improvements lasted more than a year after therapy.”

The science of psychedelic drugs is in the early stages and ongoing. Research on psilocybin (the psychoactive ingredient in “magic mushrooms”) and MDMA is in FDA-approved trials in the U.S. Until more is known, these drugs should be approached with caution. However, they do hold great promise.

More at link. 

 

The late effects of stress: New insights into how the brain responds to trauma

My stroke was probably the most stressful event in my life. What protocol needs to be created to stop these damaging stress effects from the stroke? It looks like we might have days to treat this so possibly no need to get this done in the first hours. But never mind, NOTHING will get done on this because we have NO strategy to update and NO leadership to execute that strategy. 

The late effects of stress: New insights into how the brain responds to trauma

Mrs. M would never forget that day. She was walking along a busy road next to the vegetable market when two goons zipped past on a bike. One man's hand shot out and grabbed the chain around her neck. The next instant, she had stumbled to her knees, and was dragged along in the wake of the bike. Thankfully, the chain snapped, and she got away with a mildly bruised neck. Though dazed by the incident, Mrs. M was fine until a week after the incident.
Then, the nightmares began.

See Also: Study identifies cause of disruption in brain linked to psychiatric disorder

She would struggle and yell and fight in her sleep every night with phantom chain snatchers. Every bout left her charged with anger and often left her depressed. The episodes continued for several months until they finally stopped. How could a single stressful event have such extended consequences?
A new study by Indian scientists has gained insights into how a single instance of severe stress can lead to delayed and long-term psychological trauma. The work pinpoints key molecular and physiological processes that could be driving changes in brain architecture.
The team, led by Sumantra Chattarji from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS, India) and the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem), Bangalore, India, has shown that a single stressful incident can lead to increased electrical activity in the brain's amygdala. This activity sets in late, occurring ten days after a single stressful episode, and is dependent on a molecule known as the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA-R), an ion channel protein on nerve cells known to be crucial for memory functions.

Learn More: Deep dive into NMDA receptor variation and link to epilepsy, ID

The amygdala, a small, almond-shaped groups of nerve cells, is located deep within the temporal lobe of the brain where it is known to play key roles in emotional reactions, memory and making decisions. Changes in the amygdala are linked to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental condition that develops in a delayed fashion after a harrowing experience.
Previously, Chattarji's group had shown that a single instance of acute stress had no immediate effects on the amygdala of rats. But ten days later, these animals began to show increased anxiety, and delayed changes in the architecture of their brains, especially the amygdala. "We showed that our study system is applicable to PTSD. This delayed effect after a single episode of stress was reminiscent of what happens in PTSD patients," says Chattarji. "We know that the amygdala is hyperactive in PTSD patients. But no one knows as of now, what is going on in there," he adds.
Investigations revealed major changes in the microscopic structure of the nerve cells in the amygdala. Stress seems to have caused the formation of new synapse connections in this region of the brain. However, until now, the physiological effects of these new connections were unknown.

The lingering burden of seeing a past trauma as central to your identity

How is your doctor and psychologist treating your stroke trauma? My stroke is central to my identity but in a positive way, it focused my life. I'm having the time of my life now, all due to my stroke. 

My story: I would still be leading a life of quiet desperation if still married.

Why my stroke was the best thing to ever happen to me

Well, at age 50 I had my stroke and the result of that is making me happy for the rest of my life.  Got divorced at age 58, fired at age 56. All leading to moving to Michigan and finding lots of new friendships. Travelling the world now.

The lingering burden of seeing a past trauma as central to your identity

Horrific experiences often cast a pall upon our lives, but for some people it’s worse than others. A new study in Applied Cognitive Psychology explores a key reason for this difference known as “event centrality” – when we consider an experience to be core to our identity, the trauma that follows is typically more serious and longer lasting.

Ines Blix and her colleagues surveyed 259 ministerial employees caught up in a particularly grim piece of Oslo history: the July 2011 far-right terrorist attack upon government ministries. At one, two and three years after the attack, the participants reported the severity of their post-traumatic symptoms, such as feeling jumpy, continually vigilant, or numb and closed off from others. They also reported the degree to which the terrorist attack was central to their lives, for example through their agreement or not with statements like: “This event has become a reference point for the way I understand myself and the world.”

Participants who considered the terrorist event very central to their life one year after the attack experienced higher levels of trauma, both at that time and through the subsequent years. However, they recovered at a faster rate from the trauma, meaning the greater severity of their symptoms compared with the other participants reduced as time went by. This likely reflects the fact that they had more recovery to do. Essentially, seeing a traumatic event as definitive to your life fixes a particular trajectory: Blix’s team characterise this as ‘launching’ the trauma.

It’s not just that event centrality reflected how much the participants were caught up in the carnage – when the researchers controlled for whether the person was injured themselves, had witnessed killings, or seen dead bodies, the association between event centrality and trauma severity held true.

There was also some evidence that trauma and event centrality remain intertwined longer term. The two measures were in general highly correlated and in most participants both eventually declined. This might just be a coincidence and the two factors aren’t linked, but arguing against that, it’s notable that when event centrality increased at the 2013 assessment (two years after the event), trauma recovery also tended to stutter. However, even if the two measures really are linked, we still don’t know whether centrality exacerbates trauma or trauma exacerbates centrality.

These new findings add to previous work, such as an earlier study on post-traumatic stress in Vietnam veterans that found higher rates in those vets who attended the experiment wearing medals and other regalia, suggesting that the war was more central to their identities.

It’s important to to understand how victims think about their traumatic experiences – their  ”mental models” of the event – because these models can be interrogated and changed. For example, in a study published last year, a course of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy successfully helped a group of women who had suffered abuse to reduce both event centrality and traumatic symptoms. This new Norwegian study suggests that it may be better to target such treatment early, to help survivors reject the idea an event is life-definitive and prevent it launching them down a path of greater trauma.

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Blix, I., Birkeland, M., Solberg, Hansen, M., & Heir, T. (2016). The Launching and Ensnaring Effects of Construing a Traumatic Event as Central to One's Identity and Life Story Applied Cognitive Psychology DOI: 10.1002/acp.3224