Steps that happen before communication:
When we are in the midst of an emotional trigger, frustratingly, we oftentimes aren’t in a place to reason our way through the moment. We first need to attend to our physical sensations. When we are triggered, our body’s sympathetic nervous system (our fight, flight, and freeze response), is activated. When it’s activated, it moves us out of our parasympathetic nervous system, which is the system that allows us to relax and rest. This explains why when we’re told to relax while triggered, we physiologically cannot.
In the same way that our beating heart and breathing lungs are rhythmic, we can move our nervous system back to the parasympathetic nervous system through rhythm. Luckily, rhythm is everywhere. We can get creative with this, adjusting it to our surroundings, needs, and personal taste.
Ideas to use rhythm to move the body from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system:
· Breathe deeply, keeping it measured and repetitive, slowing your breath to about six breaths per minute (See “Paced Breathing” below)
· Throw a ball back and forth with someone
· Play music and dance or gently sway to it
· Hum, chant, rap, sing
DBT has incredible distress tolerance skills. One of those is called TIPP Skills:
o Temperature
· Hold your breath
· Place bags of water or ice on your eyes, cheeks, and forehead, or put your face in a bowl of cold water
· Hold for 30 seconds
· Take note of the physical and emotional shifts in the body
o Intense Exercise
· Engage in short, intense physical activity
· Expend your body’s stored up physical energy
o Paced Breathing
Breathing exercise: Box Breathing
· Breathe in for 4 seconds
· Hold for 4 seconds
· Breathe out for 4 seconds
· Hold for 4 seconds
· Repeat, taking note of the ways the body relaxes while holding the out-breath
o Paired Muscle Relaxation
· Breathe deeply into the belly
· Deeply tense your body muscles
· Breathe out while saying “relax” in your mind
· Let go of the tension
· Notice the difference in physical sensation, then repeat
Once we’ve done those steps, we’re ready to start thinking again. This is when we can ask ourselves what feelings the trigger brings up. If the trigger is activated in a conversation, we can practice communicating what we’re feeling, saying, “I feel _____ when you _____ because _____.” This format assertively communicates how we feel, how another person played a part in the experience, and expresses the individual’s perspective neutrally, opening up the floor for a conversation.
This is also the time to notice what situations we’ve been avoiding while we were triggered. We can reintegrate into them with the knowledge that we’re safe now. This takes practice. I want to stress that identifying our feelings that the trigger unearths is not likely to happen while we are triggered; we need to first learn what strategies work for us to ground and move out of the triggered state. This helps us be able to move into a place of reason.
References
Kolk, B. A. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma.
McLean, S. (2016). The effect of trauma on the brain development of children. Australian Institute of Family Studies CFCA Practice Resource, 1-15.
Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. (2017). The boy who was raised as a dog: And other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook -- What traumatized children can teach us about loss, love, and healing. Basic Books.
Jacob Lundy is a Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern at Cypress Wellness Center, where he works with individuals 18 and above; employing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) techniques to identify distorted thinking, manage anxiety and depression, and move towards mindfulness and awareness. In network with Cigna, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and United Healthcare.