The Arousal Cycle
The Key to Healing Trauma is to Understand Biology.
We have a built in Arousal cycle that we have inherited from our animal ancestors to protect us from danger. Most people are aware of this Flight or Fight response to danger yet many people are not aware of the Freeze or Appease response.
Anatomy of the Brain
The brain stem is the oldest and smallest region in the evolving human brain. It evolved hundreds of millions of years ago and is more like the entire brain of present-day reptiles. For this reason, it is often called the 'reptilian brain'. It is 'pre-verbal', but controls life functions such as autonomic brain, breathing, heart rate and the fight or flight mechanism. Lacking language, it’s impulses are instinctual and ritualistic. It is concerned with fundamental needs such as survival, physical maintenance, hoarding, dominance, preening and mating.
In complex vertebrates, including humans, the amygdala (Arm-ig-dah-lah) performs primary roles in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events. Research indicates that during fear conditioning, sensory stimuli reach the basolateral complexes of the amygdalae, particularly the lateral nuclei, where they form associations with memories of the stimuli. The association between stimuli and the aversive events they predict may be mediated by long-term potentiation, a lingering potential for affected synapses to react more readily.
Memories of emotional experiences imprinted in reactions of synapses in the lateral nuclei elicit fear behavior through connections with the central nucleus of the amygdalae. The central nuclei are involved in the genesis of many fear responses, including freezing (immobility), tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), increased respiration, and stress-hormone release. Damage to the amygdalae impairs both the acquisition and expression of Pavlovian fear conditioning, a form of classical conditioning of emotional responses.
Our higher brain and limbic system can override the reptilian brain and hold off our flight or fight response and they can also trigger them unnecessarily due to past unresolved trauma. The key players in the limbic system are the amygdalae, the thalamus, Corpus callosum, hypothalamus and the pituitary gland.
Upon receiving input from various sources within the brain, the hypothalamus produces neurotransmitters and hormones, which flood our bodies and connect with receptors to govern our emotional states. Neurotransmitters communicate between neurons and hormones and are blood born. They attach to cells and both have the same chemical composition and are both proteins.
The Charge and Discharge of the Arousal Cycle
For the Arousal Cycle to function properly it needs to be able to rapidly charge itself with energy and to then discharge any unused energy.
This cycle is governed by two opposing nervous systems the Ergotropic and Trophotropic systems.
- The Ergotropic uses the sympathetic nervous system to charge your system up for Fight, Flight, or Freeze. (It is like the accelerator on a car)
- The Trophotropic uses the parasympathetic nervous system to put a break on this energy, to calm you down and relax you. (Like the cars brakes)
Animals naturally complete this cycle and discharge the energy. When they are in a traumatic situation they either get to discharge this energy through fighting or running away. Or if they freeze they later discharge this energy through either running when the opportunity arises or they naturally shake out this energy and allow themselves to come back to equilibrium.
The freeze response is a natural survival technique that buys time. When a predator attacks and their prey freezes a variety of things may happen.
- The predator may think that the prey is already dead and if doesn’t eat them immediately it may drag them to a safe location while it gets its young to bring back to feed on it or they may come back later to eat it.
- The fact that their prey has suddenly stopped moving might confuse the predator. This confusion may cause the predator to stop or slow its pursuit momentarily which creates a tiny window of opportunity for the prey to escape.
- The prey can burst out of playing possum and attack the predator and then escape.
When an animal goes into the FREEZE response, inside it’s body it is like having the engine on full throttle with the hand-break on. Although it looks like it is dead, its heart is racing as though it’s running as fast as it can. This is so that once the opportunity presents itself for escape the animal can release this break and instantly burst into the flight or fight response. This is why Racing Cars are doing exactly this as they line up for the start of a drag race. This stored energy when released, provides a faster off-the-mark speed, than if it went from off to start.
Two common examples of the freeze response are ‘a deer in the headlights’ and a possum ‘playing’ dead. In both these examples the animals are using the freeze response to buy them survival time. Often this response is the primary response in baby mammals. Their mother will leave them in an area where they are camouflaged and then they stay there without moving until she comes back to get them. Stillness is their best defence. This is because prey animals have sight (rather than smell) as their primary sense, but they often cannot see well-camouflaged prey UNLESS IT BEGINS MOVING.
The APPEASE response is when you try and talk your way out of a traumatic situation, like being mugged or raped or you comply with circumstances or perform pleasing tasks, hoping to appease an attacker so he/she will let you go (live). Internally the same biological responses are occurring in an appease response as when people go into the freeze response. This is often what is happening for children or adults who are living in abusive home environments.
Humans and trauma
Yet when these children or adults go into a freeze or appease response they will often blame themselves for not running or fighting and report feeling ashamed, weak and pathetic, helpless & hopeless. The reality is that often in these situations fight or flight wouldn’t help them survive, which is the ONLY reason we have these inbuilt responses in the first place – survival.
When these traumatised people go to release the stored energy from the arousal cycle they face three dilemmas.
- Firstly, when their body starts to shake to naturally release the stored energy most people feel scared and out of control, because they don’t understand what is going on in their nervous system, and they therefore try desperately to stop themselves shaking.
- Secondly, they suppress the energy because when it comes to the surface as it often feels like absolute rage and they worry that if they let it out they will hurt themselves or others.
- And thirdly, because being completely unable to move while being in danger feels like you’re going to die and we will avoid this feeling at all costs unless we understand what’s happening in our bodies is just the discharging of stored energy.
Releasing this stored energy (with trained counsellors) from the body is called Bodywork. It supports people to access that stored energy and release it in a safe way. This process broadly has five stages:
1. You are supported (physically, emotionally) while your body revisits the feelings it had during the original trauma and then you can emotionally express your feelings you had at that time. This is done while being completely aware that you are in the present moment and simply experiencing a body memory of what was.
2. Your body might start to shake and naturally release the stored energy after which it can reset your nervous system and you can move forward.
3. You are aware that in the past at that moment you had the fear of death associated with the immobility response.
4. You safely express and release any fear, rage or other suppressed emotions.
5. You relax into a restored state of equilibrium.
We are always looking for opportunities to complete the arousal cycle and release this energy so unconsciously we recreate these traumatic situations.
‘My belief is in the blood and the flesh as being wiser than the intellect. The body unconscious is where the life bubbles up in us, it is how we know that we are alive, alive to the depths of our souls and in touch somewhere with the vivid reaches of the cosmos.’
~ D.H. Lawrence
For more information visit Peter Levine's site www.traumahealing.com