Has Your Brain Got Bent Out of Shape

Rewiring Your Nervous System with Love (Part 2)

Did you know an extended period of stress can cause your nervous system to get stuck on high alert? Most of us know trauma can reshape brains, causing us to constantly, painfully scan our environments for dangers and threats. But can a season of prolonged stress do that? Experts say yes. 

Fight, Flight, Freeze

At Not I But We, we work with survivors of human trafficking whose nervous systems have not yet realized they are safe. They live at a high alert level, easily dysregulated or very shut down. Most are stuck living in survival modes of fight, flight, freeze… unable to surface from these exhausting emotional states. Their brains are literally bent out of shape. So, one of the things we offer are practices that rewire their nervous systems. 

However, trauma is not a necessary ingredient for your brain to get stuck on high alert. Chronic stress can also lead to shrinkage in brain areas associated with regulating emotions and memory. Prolonged stress of months or years may mean your nervous system thinks being on high alert (fight, flight or freeze) should be your normal state, making harder to find calm and balance. Safety can even begin to feel unsafe.

 The signs we noticed in the office

• Critical feedback on work is met with extreme anger or tears. 
• A careless word from a co-worker may causes instantaneous rage or crippling insecurity. 
• A habit of creating drama to keep their nervous system in “fight”.

Once we were familiar with the signs, we realized we know lots of folks who haven’t been trafficked, yet are living with dysregulated nervous systems! Maybe you recognize the signs in yourself or someone you love?

• Anxiety, obsessive thinking, frustration, jumpiness
• Rage - either turned outward or inward at oneself
• Being extra sarcastic and/or passive aggressive 
• Cannot slow down and must always be distracted or busy
• Or, actively withdraw and avoid people, places (Flight)

Sometimes when we encounter triggering situations, it can take a while before our nervous system regulates again. We might even need some help to bring it back into balance. 

Living in fight, flight, or freeze is truly exhausting and causes anxiety, insomnia, a weakened immune system, digestion and sleep problems. You can only live in these reactive nervous system states for so long until you eventually enter the most extreme state of shutdown, the land of depression. Here, life setbacks can cause suicidal ideation and isolation. Doom scrolling and excessive sleep are modus operandi. One of our dear survivor/artisans experiencing shutdown would sometimes need to take an extended nap at work just to cope. We have a giant bean bag in our Compassion Room, just for such occasions. (These are the perks of a trauma-informed workplace.)

But, the good news is that your brain can heal! In fact, it can heal rapidly.

• Practicing mindfulness for 8 weeks decreases the size of your amygdala which is responsible for fear, anxiety and stress. And, it thickens the prefrontal cortex: responsible for planning, problem solving, creativity, language, controlling emotional responses.
• Walking 40 minutes 3x per week increases the size of your hippocampus which is responsible for memory and learning. 

But, perhaps the easiest, most life transforming (and fun) practice I can offer you is training your awareness.

Did you know that it takes 15 to 30 seconds for something beautiful, good, or noble to make an impact chemically and neurologically on your brain? Shaping it. But, something negative impacts your brain instantly!

Why is that? It’s essential for our survival. When you’re on a nature walk and see a long, dark shape on the path, your nervous system will take over your body instantly. It doesn’t wait for you to figure out what that shape is. Your threat detector screams: SNAKE! YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!  Your body jumps out of the way of its own accord. The threat detector part of your brain cannot tell the difference between a real danger and an imagined one. So, it’s not until your thinking brain (frontal lobe) comes back on-line that you laugh at yourself: “That was just a stick!” Even so, your body still feels the pulsing rush of stress hormones and you have to work to calm your beating heart. 

Unfortunately, this part of our brain has not adapted to modern life. If you’re triggered by social media; your threat detector screams: Danger!  You’re worrying about finances: it yells, You’re going to die! Your neural pathways and body get flooded with the same stress hormones as if you were being chased by saber tooth tiger. Our magnetic attention to all things that feel threatening may keep us alive, but it also shapes our neural pathways and nervous systems towards dysregulation.

“Thinking is a great gift, but a terrible master.” – Dr. David Benner

Mindfulness as a daily routine

By simply training your awareness, you train your neural pathways to return more easily to joy, peace, wonder, and safety! We teach our survivor/artisans that shifting awareness is like lifting a weight. Each time you shift your awareness back toward gratitude, that fluffy cloud, or a kind word from a co-worker, you’re strengthening these neural pathways. By regularly shifting the focus of our awareness, we can reshape our brains, restoring our nervous systems in the process. 

“Where you spend your attention is where you spend your life.” James Clear

Why don't you start today?

At Not I But We, we are convinced it is the great and serious work of every human being on this planet to train our brains to linger over beauty and goodness and giggles… to take it into ourselves and let it strengthen our neural pathways toward peace, compassion, and kindness. You should try it for a day. How about today? You may have some serious struggles going on, but that flower is still bright yellow and that stranger really did compliment you. For 20 seconds, let your awareness stay with each glimmer of beauty or kindness, and see how the tone of your day changes, even if your circumstances haven’t. Now, try this for a lifetime.

“Suffering is ever-present. Joy is ever-present. They are here together and always will be. So how will you live within this reality?” – Joe Primo

Written by Tonya Stanfield

Don't miss out to read Part 3 of this blog series and learn why we flip our lids.