How To Exercise Your Way To Trauma Recovery
After witnessing a traumatic event, it’s normal to feel frightened, confused, and stressed. These trauma recovery tips will help you work your way to recovering.
Some people even develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), wherein they have to deal with the effects longer.
Dealing with trauma isn’t easy because it affects you physically, emotionally, and mentally, which may interfere with your everyday life.
6 Steps To Trauma Recovery
According to experts, a person can easily recoup if there’s a willingness to feel better. Trauma recovery is a process requiring time and patience.
There may be different ways on how to recover, but it’d still depend on the coping mechanism.
Here are some of the ways on how you can exercise your way toward recovery:
1. Stay Connected
You may feel the need to be alone when you’re traumatized, but having a support system like your family and friends will help you cope easily.
During your trauma recovery, it’s essential to surround yourself with encouraging and caring people who’d make you feel loved. You don’t have to go through this dark moment alone.
If you’re suffering from betrayal trauma, you may have a hard time opening up to other people. To be able to get through it easily, you may join support groups.
It’s thought that trauma recovery may be faster if you’re able to talk about your experiences to someone who truly understands the way how you feel because you’re sharing the same sentiments or they’ve been there as well.
Support groups consist of individuals who can lift you and who can give you tips on how to deal with your worries and fears.
2. Take Care Of Your Body
You may be emotionally down, but you also need to attend to your physical needs. Taking good care of your health strengthens your ability to cope with stress and anxiety brought about by the trauma.
The signs and symptoms of being traumatized include:
- Loss of appetite;
- Insomnia;
- Alcohol and drug abuse.
If you break these habits, you’re well on your way toward making yourself happy and healthy, so stress, anxiety, and fear wouldn’t foster.
During recovery, self-care is important because no one will help you but yourself. You may be surrounded by your support group but without a healthy mind and body, it’ll be difficult for you to achieve a peaceful mind.
It’s also important to have the drive to be better.
3. Do Something Relaxing
One of the ways on how to reduce stress and help you focus is to do relaxing activities like meditation, yoga, full-body exercise, listening to good music, and taking a warm bath.
If you plan to do physical activities, it’s important to get a clearance from your doctor first, especially if you incurred injuries during the traumatizing event.
It’s believed doing physical activities you love helps the body in burning stress chemicals such as cortisol and releases good hormones like endorphins to make you feel good.
If you aren’t fit to get out and move, you can still feel relaxation through practicing proper breathing, gentle stretching, and walking.
4. Face It And Don’t Avoid It
People with trauma have intrusive thoughts about the event, so they don’t want to talk about it as much as possible.
You may get advice from your peers saying in order for you to forget the traumatic event you’ve experienced, you must forget about it.
However, according to experts, totally erasing it from your memory is impossible. You may get relief by trying not to talk about it, but it’s just a temporary solution.
The best way to deal with it is to face it. You don’t have to rush yourself if you aren’t ready since it takes time.
However, if you feel you’ve gained your physical and emotional strength again, now’s the perfect time to learn how to accept your memories and be used to what triggers trauma without the need to avoid it.
If you can already talk about what happened without shedding any tears or without the nervousness and fear, it’s a sign you’re already in the recovery state.
5. Get Back To Your Routine
After the traumatic event, it might be difficult for you to do the things you usually do. Sliding back into your routine is the best way on how to set things normal again.
As a guide in staying on track, create a list of the things you routinely do in a day. Since you’re still in the recovery stage, you may start with small tasks if you aren’t completely recovered physically and emotionally.
Getting back to your routine gives a sense of accomplishment, and it effectively diverts your attention to lessen your stress and worries.
Aside from the tasks you can do, you may also plan to do an activity that’ll serve as a little reward every time you accomplish a routine like watching your favorite television show or eating your favorite dish.
6. Seek Help From Professionals
If you’re experiencing feelings of guilt, confusion, anxiety, fear, and despair even after a couple of weeks, it’s time to seek help from professionals.
You may need to undergo psychological trauma therapy to better handle repressed emotions from painful memories and stress management.
Their offered services aren’t only for those who are still under trauma but also for those who are still learning how to manage their emotions.
Not all people are comfortable asking help from a psychologist or psychiatrist because of their fear of judgment.
However, these professionals are trained to provide interventions to productively deal with PTSD. They help ensure the struggles you’re experiencing wouldn’t affect your way of life.
Final Thoughts
The different ways on how to exercise your way to trauma recovery are through:
- Staying connected with your loved ones;
- Taking care of your body;
- Doing something relaxing;
- Facing your fear;
- Getting back to your routine;
- And seeking help from professionals.
There’s no definitive way on how a person can handle trauma. It’d still depend on the intensity of emotional pain being experienced.
Nonetheless, consider the ideas mentioned here as you work your way to recovering.
