It is very important to know how to cope with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) triggers and anxiety. Because PTSD can leave you feeling stuck with a constant sense of danger and painful memories in your daily life if you don’t deal with PTSD appropriately.
However, with effective and new coping skills, you can feel safe again and move on from the trauma.
On the same line, anxiety is a double-edged sword. But how do you know when it’s against you or when to tame it? In this read, we are going to provide a few simple and straightforward tips on dealing with both anxiety and PTSD.
What is PTSD?
In most cases, after a traumatic encounter, it is very typical for a patient to feel sad, frightened, disconnected, and anxious.
However, if the upset does not end, a patient might suffer from what is called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
PTSD can occur any time after a traumatic experience and makes a person fear for their safety. This can be after events such as rape cases, accidents, military or war, or attacks among others.
But any event or series of events, that overwhelms a person with feelings of hopelessness can trigger PTSD, especially if the event feels unpredictable and uncontrollable.
PTSD can negatively impact individuals who personally encounter the traumatic event, or witness the event, including those who acted in helping the patients recover such as law enforcement officers and emergency workers or doctors.
Despite the cause for your PTSD, by seeking effective treatment, developing new coping skills, and reaching out for support, you can learn to deal with your symptoms, and move on with your life by reducing painful memories.
What causes PTSD?
There are several factors that may cause PTSD. In most cases, when a person experiences a stressful event, the nervous system of the person reacts with a fight-or-flight response.
The person’s heartbeat pounds faster than usual, as his/her blood pressure rises, while the muscles tighten, which increases the strength and reaction speed of the body.
After the incident, a person’s nervous system calms the body, which lowers heart rate and blood pressure, resulting in a normal state.
However, PTSD takes place when a person experiences too much stress, even though the threat has ended making the nervous system get “stuck” from returning to its normal state
Recovering from PTSD encompasses helping the nervous system get back to its normal state or “unstuck” so you can heal and move on from the trauma.
How to cope with PTSD
1. Mindfulness
The practice of mindfulness aims to help you focus on the present moment using your five senses. The sound of traffic, the smell of perfume in the air, or the taste of lunch you just had.
It helps ground you and nudges you to accept or be willing to accept the feeling or thoughts you might have. Close your eyes and focus on the present moments.
Thoughts will distract you but watch them as they come and go. Regular practice helps you cope with negative thinking patterns or difficult feelings and stress in your daily living.
Related: 12 Major Foods To Avoid If You Have Anxiety
2. Self-Monitoring
This is where you intentionally recognize mood shifts that happen to you when you are triggered. What triggers the remembrance or even the dwelling on the past trauma?
In addition, what causes the reactions you might have on different occasions? This helps you stop the anger or sadness that you feel when you recognize similar situations in day-to-day living.
Being self-aware allows you to get ahead of those emotions and control them. For help with this gets in touch with Claritychi.
3. Journaling
Record daily or significant moments of your life that happened because of uncomfortable feelings and emotions.
Engage in what is referred to as expressive writing, clearly detail these events and while you review these notes, find emerging patterns and figure out ways to manage these emotions and control your reactions toward them.
4 . Physical Movement
Find exercise programs that best work for you. Physical activities not only help one’s physical body but also affect one’s social and psychological being.
Engaging in something that leaves you happy, reduces your anxiety by filling your body with endorphins and it also helps your social life as well since you interact with others.
Running a treadmill might be very exhausting for you and you might prefer yoga.
Experiment with a few options; get a friend to do the exercises with you to help you appreciate the activities.
5. Social Support
Look for someone to confide in. Someone you can trust to vent to and have them listen as you express your experiences.
Over time this might become overwhelming or uncomfortable to them and not helpful to you as well. At this point, consider getting help from a professional or engaging in group therapy for those who might have gone through a similar experience such as yours.
This might come with the knowledge on how to deal with anxiety or depression or triggers in your daily life.
6. Deep Breathing
Deep breathing is one of the best techniques one can use to prevent or reduce PTSD anxiety at home.
Factually, natural breathing encompasses the movement of your diaphragm, a large muscle in your abdomen, which can help reduce fatigue and relax the muscle, thus, reduces anxiety when performed effectively.
And when you breathe in, your belly should expand and when you breathe out, your belly should fall allowing your body to achieve greater functionality.
Over time, people forget how to breathe this way and instead use their chest and shoulders. This causes short and shallow breaths, which can increase stress and anxiety.
Luckily, deep breathing is proven to help protect yourself from stress, anxiety, and other mental illnesses.
Therefore, you need to practice simple deep breathing exercises to improve your breathing and combat trauma and anxiety.
7. Avoid Alcohol and Drugs
Individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often struggle with frequent and intense symptoms of anxiety.
This often makes individuals with PTSD to rely on unhealthy ways of coping with PTSD such as taking drugs or drinking alcohol.
However, taking drugs or alcohol is not the solution for coping with PTSD because it will not provide a solution but rather lead to other health problems.
Factually, you will end up not solving or reducing PTSD anxiety, but cause other chronic illnesses and family issues.
According to studies, drinking alcohol and taking illegal drugs only increases PTSD and causes other health complications such as cancer, ulcers, blood pressure, and other cardiovascular diseases.
Therefore, you need to stop taking any drug abuse and avoid alcohol to reduce PTSD effectively.
8. Involve in Distraction Activities
Distraction activities are anything you do to temporarily take your attention off of strong emotions that you feel after the traumatic event.
This can include playing video games on your phone or laptop or doing other activities that derive you away from thinking about the traumatic event you encountered.
Factually, sometimes, focusing on a strong emotion can make it feel even stronger and more out of control.
Moreover, purposeful use of distraction techniques, such as playing video games, can be of essential in coping with stronger emotions such as anxiety, stress, and depression that make you feel uncomfortable.
Therefore, by temporarily distracting yourself, you may give the emotion time to decrease in intensity, which makes it easier to manage anxiety.
9. Eat a healthy diet.
It may sound silly, but the fact is that eating healthy meals is the greatest way to live a healthy life free from anxiety, depression, and trauma.
Eating food rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties helps in healing several illnesses.
Therefore, start your day right with breakfast, and keep your energy up and your mind clear with balanced, nutritious meals throughout the day.
For instance, eating food rich in Omega-3s plays a vital role in emotional health. You can eat food such as fatty fish, walnuts, and flaxseed.
However, limit eating processed food, sugary meals, refined starches, and fried food as they can increase mood swings and cause fluctuations in your energy.
10. Get enough sleep.
You need to get enough sleep because sleep deprivation can trigger anger, irritability, and moodiness which may increase PTSD and anxiety.
Therefore, when you have PTSD symptoms, you need to sleep for 7 to 9 hours every night. You can also use CBD and CBN oil to improve your sleep and reduce PTSD anxiety.
Related: top 14 Reasons Why You Need Good Sleep
The types of treatment available for PTSD
You can also seek treatment for PTSD in case your condition is worse. The available treatment methods you can use include;
- Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy
- Family therapy
- Medication
- EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
A word from Tannos Online
PTSD is a serious problem and should not be taken lightly. Any patient suffering from PTSD needs effective and proper care. You can cope with PTSD at home or you can visit healthcare near you for assistance.
But what you can do is to learn about trauma and PTSD, perform outdoor activities or regular exercise, practice relaxation techniques, confide in a person you trust, and avoid drugs and alcohol.
You can also spend time with positive people as you enjoy the peace of nature to effectively cope with PTSD.
Above all follow the coping mechanisms discussed in this article as you seek medical advice from your doctor or find a therapist for PTSD.