By Johanna Bassols
When you’ve experienced emotional trauma, the Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD) that ensues can make you feel as if you are the only person in in the world that has ever had to endure emotional heartache, anxiety, lingering mental tension, or even stunted spiritual or personal growth, but with the right tools you can turn your traumatic experience into gold.
You can turn all that suffering into something that actually serves you. One of the key ways to do this is to encourage the release of specific neurotransmitters in the brain. By naturally unleashing the right chemical compounds within your own biochemistry, you can move process and move past trauma.
Balancing Neurochemicals to Blast Past Trauma
As the founder of Healers of the Light, I point out in my book, How to Break Your Identification with Emotional Trauma in 10 days, that you need to restructure your identity.
Right now you are a collection of stories. Some of the stories that you identify with may be coloring you would in a negative light.
You then think and act in ways that create additional circumstances to reinforce that previously held belief which was likely created in the instance of your trauma(s). By reestablishing the awareness of your true self, you can arrive at an optimal state of being, and this becomes much easier when your neurotransmitters are firing as they should.
A neurotransmitter is nothing more than a chemical messenger that talks to just about every other part of your body. Although neurotransmitters talk to the neurons or brain cells in your brain, they also talk to your nervous system, your digestive system, and every other organ in your body. They impact your heart rate, how you sleep, what you want to eat and how much, your mood, and regulate fear and anxiety. They even help you to bond with other people in a meaningful way.
Often, in cases of moderate to severe trauma, our neurological process has been “frozen” in a certain pattern of fight, flight, or insulation. For instance, normal levels of serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, and dopamine may have been hijacked by a traumatic experience and instead, you repeatedly experience low levels of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline being released into your bloodstream.
Let’s take a closer look at what these important neurochemicals can do to your mood and world view:
Serotonin
Serotonin has been scientifically documented to deregulate during early childhood trauma. This early trauma exposure causes the Serotonin Type 1B receptor, and the entire serotonin system plays a critical role in behavioral and emotional regulation. Serotonin dysfunction is implicated in the neurobiological processes of PTSD, and other emotional disorders, including anxiety and depression.
Serotonin also regulates your social behavior (whether you are willing to take a chance and introduce yourself to someone new), your digestion, your memory, sleep, and even your sexual desire. Without enough serotonin, you may struggle to make friends, get along with colleagues at work, or even maintain a healthy romantic relationship.
Prescription drug use, heavy metal exposure, and a poor diet can impede serotonin levels along with trauma, but guess what can boost serotonin levels by 15 – 25%? Meditation!
To increase your serotonin levels, you can also make sure you:
- Get more sunlight during daylight hours
- Eat more foods that contain tryptophan (the precursor to serotonin) like nuts, seeds, and pineapples
- Practice deep breathing for at least five minutes daily.
Oxytocin
Oxytocin is negatively impacted by trauma as well. Studies suggest that trauma affects the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the oxytocinergic system. This system is responsible for handling our reaction to stress.
Oxytocin also allows us to “love” and bond with others. It’s the hormone that allows nursing mothers to bond with their babies and the neurotransmitter that is released during sexual union.
This hormone can be two-faced though. It can strengthen memories of trauma, especially trauma around bonding if those patterns are not properly integrated and released.
This important neurochemical messenger can be regulated with:
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Getting 8 hugs from other people during the course of your day
- Any form of positive human touch
Dopamine
If you want to know how your brain rewards you to do things that help you stay alive, then you’ll want to get to know dopamine a little more intimately.
Dopamine is what gives you the motivation to get out of bed in the morning as well as go after your dreams. It is the “reward” molecule, but it also regulates your attention span, memory, and even allows you to be physically present in your body.
You can boost dopamine levels by:
- Meditating
- Getting at least 8 hours of sleep every night
- Eating lots of plant-based amino acids
- Getting a positive text from a friend
- Marking something off a to-do list
- Getting regular exercise
- Listening to uplifting music
- Take a probiotic supplement
If you want to learn more ways to boost your neurochemistry to overcome trauma or to just live a happier, more exuberant life, you can check out HealersoftheLight.com.
About the Author
Johanna Bassols is a specialist in the semantics of consciousness. She uses various practical methods to stimulate the state of conscious awareness.
She is a law graduate and entrepreneur who found her life purpose after an intense and transformational experience of awareness, which leads her to write books and to create classes explaining the ramifications of experiencing awareness in an intense or frequent manner, a process known as the elevation of consciousness.
Johanna is the founder of the Healers of the Light, alternative healing academy. She created a unique healing method for reprogramming energetic imbalances, called the Soul Reprogramming Method, and is the author of the series The Power of the Elevation of Consciousness, and How to Break Your Identification with Emotional Trauma in 10 days.
