The effects of trauma can be brutal. Trauma symptoms can wreak havoc on your life, and you may not realize it until you’ve lost your job or ended up in jail. If you wonder why you get so upset at minor conflicts, you might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

For the past 30 years, I have suffered from PTSD. Trauma can show up in different ways from agitation, hyper vigilance, numbing out, or crying uncontrollably for no reason. Most commonly, it can look like uncontrollable outbursts at the slightest trigger. A trigger is something that happens that sets us off or make us to become angry and emotional. Triggers can be different for every person. That means something that is traumatic to one person may not be traumatic to someone else. When something your system registers as traumatic happens to you though, it is highly likely PTSD may become part of your reality.

Since many of us cannot afford the luxury of a 30-day inpatient treatment center to heal (which I don’t think solves it anyway), I am going to give you five secrets to regulating your nervous system and keeping you afloat after trauma.

1.        Meditation

2.        Mindfulness

3.        Nature walks

4.        Exercise

5.        Breath work

If you’re tired of blowing up for no reason, sitting in endless therapy sessions getting nowhere, and trying countless medications just to stay alive, then you are one of us. We got you.

How I Stopped Letting Trauma Control My Life

When I was three years old, something happened to me. I always felt it in my body, but I didn’t have the memory. I was full of anxiety by the time I was 13 and by 15 I was cutting and sleeping around. I was constantly searching for the answer to what was wrong with me. I felt defective, discouraged, and like a failure. The worse I felt about myself, the more my body count went up, letting the number of boys I slept determine how much I was worth.

Until one day, I found a free PTSD study: Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). They were asking for participants to attend that had tried everything but failed to get better, which was basically me and a bunch of war veterans and other women who were sexually abused as kids. By that point, I had left my party days behind me, so I wasn’t thrilled about taking MDMA, but when the only place you feel safe is your bedroom closet, desperate times call for desperate measures. I was fed up and had nothing left to lose.

This changed my entire life. I realized I wasn’t living in the same world as everyone else. I was in this, what I call, the "PTSD fog". An illusion. Everything I did, I experienced through this filter of fear and hopelessness. After the study, I had to unlearn 30 years of unhealthy coping skills. My nervous system was still operating under the constant threat, but I could finally see the world everyone else was living in.

The most important thing was keeping my nervous system calm and regulated. Trauma gets stuck in our bodies because we are trapped in fight or flight. The traumatic experience gets stuck in our [amygdala] and can’t process the experience through our frontal cortex, so we remain in the effects of that experience.

MDMA helped me feel safe enough in my body to process the trauma. It made my body relax so that I could come out of survival mode and uncover the memory of what happened to me. I literally processed the trauma out of my body. The Body Keeps the Score is one of the best books on the market that talks about this process.

Once I cleared this core trauma, I had to relearn how to live in a relaxed way. I developed the following tools to keep me sane:

Secret #1

Keep Your Nervous System Regulated

The most important thing to do to keep your brain calm is to use your body and practice something physical to change your mental state, such as:

· Meditation: Meditation is a free way to keep your nervous system calm. For years, I was mediating with my eyes close until I discovered Zazen, which is a Buddhist practice. Their belief is that you must mediate with your eyes open so that you are calm and aware, when you are awake. Meditating with your eyes closed works perfectly too. Start small with one to three minutes, working your way up to 20 minutes. You can even play music or find a free guided meditation on YouTube until you can sit in silence.

·     

Practice Mindfulness: Meditation makes you mindful. Mindful of your thoughts, reactions, and triggers so you have a chance to respond and not react to triggering situations. Your breath is the perfect way to connect to the present moment. During mediation, you focus on your breath and practice being in the present moment. Being in the present moment helps you become aware when your mind is spinning out of control.

·     

Walk in Nature: Nature can calm us down like no other medicine. When you’re out walking, pay attention to your feet, the way the ground feels underneath you, how the air feels on your cheek, and the colors that you see. Connecting with nature is a natural relaxant. Laying on the ground will heal your body for you.

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Breath Work: There are a million types of breath work out there, but I like box breathing best. Inhale for four counts, hold for four counts, and exhale for four counts. MAPS therapists say that breath work is just as powerful as taking a psychedelic medicine to heal your brain from trauma.

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Exercise: I hated exercise from the time I was a teen until I hurt my back and couldn’t ignore it anymore. The best advice I have about exercise is to find something you enjoy doing. Basketball, running, dancing, hiking, whatever it is, just be sure you like doing it. Cardio has the power to change our brains and relax our nervous system like nothing else. You only need 20 minutes a day, and you can do anything for 20 minutes. I'm currently practicing yoga with Asana Rebel five days a week, but there are plenty of free yoga and pilates teachers on YouTube if you don't want to pay $35/month.

Once I put these practices into a daily morning routine, I was changed for life. I had to make them a habit though, so I didn’t practice just when I felt like it (which was never). They had to became automatic, like clockwork. They say it takes 21 days to make a behavior a habit. Now, I don’t ask or question whether I am going to work out or meditate, it's just built into my morning.

Once I finally implemented a solid plan into my routine to regulate my nervous system, my life changed. I could handle uncomfortable situations, life’s twists and turns, and triggers that previously made me act out of character. I want this for you too.