Do THIS immediately after a trauma to avoid PTSD

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]So, I recently started EMDR therapy, and it starts with a timeline of basically everything traumatic that you've ever experienced in your life. And while I was doing this timeline, I realized a couple of different things. One of them being that I experienced multiple traumatic things over the course of the past year, but only one of them turned into something I had a lot of difficulty shaking, the reason that I started EMDR in the first place. The second thing I realized was that of all the traumas I've experienced in my life, severity did not necessarily correlate to how much of a trauma reaction I had. Because when something traumatic happens to you, it's not so much about what exactly happened, but rather what happened immediately after the trauma. Whether a trauma gets encoded as traumatic or not often has more to do with the aftermath than with the trauma itself. So today, I thought I would share exactly what is so important to do immediately after a traumatic event to decrease the likelihood that it will turn into a chronic mental health condition for you.

[00:00:54]And this is based on what science has shown to be protective and based on what I've done that's helped me avoid a trauma reaction in some situations versus what I wasn't able to do where it did turn into a trauma reaction. Now, I do want to give a disclaimer that some traumas are truly so horrific that even if you do everything right, you might still experience a trauma reaction.

[00:01:15]Developing a trauma reaction doesn't mean that you're a less resilient person or that you did something wrong. We all have different tools at our disposal.

[00:01:22]But I hope that by the end of this video, you will have a much bigger toolkit so that if you do experience something traumatic, you'll give yourself the best possible chance of surmounting it smoothly. Let's talk about it.

[00:01:44]So, right off the bat, let's define what is a trauma versus what is a trauma reaction. A trauma, the old school original definition was exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or violence directly witnessing or learning of it. So, it had to be something pretty like life or death.

[00:02:01]More modern definitions include basically anything that has the potential to cause you long-term harm.

[00:02:06]So being chronically belittled by someone, for example, would fall under the category of trauma. But you could still experience a trauma without it turning into a trauma reaction. Like I know somebody who was raised by one of the most volatile people I've ever met, and they made it out like 99% unscathed.

[00:02:25]They are extremely well adjusted. They have a healthy outlook on life. They haven't perpetuated the cycle. they have no mental health symptoms. That's because experiencing a trauma and experiencing a trauma reaction are two different things. A trauma reaction are just the negative persistent effects of a trauma. Things like reexperiencing symptoms which include flashbacks and nightmares, avoiding triggers like staying cooped up inside cuz you're too afraid to go out into wherever the trauma happened. painful thoughts or feelings like depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, identity disturbances, emotional dysregulation, hyper arousal, which means your nervous system is constantly on edge or hypervigilant for threats, like maybe you have difficulty falling asleep or turning off your brain, or maybe you feel paranoid. The trauma reaction could turn into something like PTSD, which is a more like classical trauma reaction, or it could turn into something more like CPTtsd, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which is not a formal diagnosis yet, but encompasses more symptoms than the ones we currently have under PTSD. PTSD was more of the like male presentation following combat.

[00:03:28]CPTTSD is also what happens when you experience multiple recurrent chronic traumas across your life, such as emotional abuse rather than a one-time life and death thing. So, in theory, someone could develop a trauma reaction to something that's not like a capital T trauma, and someone could experience a capital T trauma, but not develop a trauma reaction and not developing symptoms. The fact that a trauma reaction doesn't occur doesn't mean the trauma wasn't real. It probably has more to do with what happened immediately after the trauma. So, let's get into it.

[00:04:01]What should you do immediately after experiencing a traumatic event to prevent it from turning into a traumatic reaction? Number one, regulate your nervous system. When something traumatic happens, your body goes into fight, flight, or freeze. And if you don't help your body get out of that state, it can sometimes get trapped there. You know, like there's something that happened to me during a time in my life when I was very physiologically vulnerable. And it affected me a lot more than some of the like capital T traumas that I've experienced in life simply because I wasn't able to regulate my nervous system at that time due to other things that were going on in my life. So for example, if you're detained by law enforcement and you're not able to regulate your nervous system by talking to a loved one or taking a hot bath because you're literally incarcerated, that might help it turn into a trauma reaction. Or if you're in combat and you go from watching your friends get blown up to then needing to flee, you're not able to take a beat to calm your nervous system. If you're freshly postpartum, you might not be able to do things for your personal self-care following a trauma, like journaling, making yourself some comfort food. Plus, your nervous system is already crashing due to hormonal changes. You're not able to sleep. Or maybe if you're under the influence and you watch your friend OD under the influence as well, your nervous system is going to have an additional layer of dysregulation.

[00:05:15]simply because of the substance in your veins. And side note, this is part of why it's so important to not numb or self-medicate yourself after a trauma using substances because it will make things much much worse in the long run.

[00:05:27]In some situations, people develop a trauma reaction because they're simply not able to regulate their nervous system in that moment. And if this is due to situational factors over which you have no control, there's not too much that can be done about that. But if you do have the capability to regulate your nervous system, what does that look like? Here are some concrete science-based techniques. Controlled breathing, taking a deep breath, holding it for a number of seconds, and then exhaling for a number of seconds. There are different techniques out there that sort of vary in the amount of seconds.

[00:05:56]Physical movement, physically shaking off the trauma, physically walking away from the environment where it happened, getting out that energy with some really intense cardio. Those things can help.

[00:06:06]Cold showers or taking a cold plunge or just putting your face in ice water, that can help calm your nervous system.

[00:06:11]It's a technique from DBT. When you are experiencing that physiological state, your body's basically incapable of being in fight orflight mode. It's preserving energy. It's trying to keep you calm because basically it thinks that you're like plunging in cold water. It thinks that you might drown. Grounding exercises can also be really helpful.

[00:06:28]Looking around you and noticing everything that you can sense with the five senses. Physical affection from someone who loves you. or if you don't have somebody that you love nearby, literally just envisioning a hug from them for 30 seconds can help bring your nervous system down to a regulated state. So, as soon as you have a moment after the trauma, pick a couple of these things and put them into motion. Now, if you're going through some sort of nervous system dysregulation or if you're just looking for some medical care for whatever reason, one place you could go for that care is Midi Health, who are kindly sponsoring this portion of the video. MIDI is a virtual clinic that was initially created for menopausal and permenopausal women, but really focuses on women across the lifespan to truly see, hear, and understand and help women through the best clinical care practices. They offer virtual care for things like mood and memory, skin and hair, longevity, weight, hormonal issues. They can order lab tests, do advanced screenings, discuss those results with you, prescribe skin care like tininoan. When you meet with them, you can discuss your results together, make a treatment plan designed to help you target whatever problem you're coming in for. There are no memberships or hidden fees, and they charge insurance just the same as any medical provider would. So, to schedule your first virtual visit, go to trymidi.com/da, that's Dr. Anna, and join the more than 200,000 women who trust Midi Health for their care. Thank you to Midi Health.

[00:07:49]So, after you've regulated your nervous system, what's the next thing that you should do? Verbally process what you experienced. Ideally, do this with a therapist or if that's not an option with a loved one who you trust. If you don't have one of those, if you don't have a therapist or somebody that you trust, then at least try in writing.

[00:08:05]Typing it can be fine, but handwriting does tend to be best. It helps us process things more deeply. Like, for example, studies show it's more effective for remembering things when you're trying to study. And when you're verbally processing what happened, it's important to try to go chronologically, especially for putting together pieces that may have become dissociated in your mind. turn it into a story with a beginning, middle, and end so that it becomes this like cohesive event in your mind rather than just a cluster of chaotic moments. But the most important part to process isn't really the exact events that happened. It's your emotions about what happened. Naming emotions has been shown to take away some of their intensity. It forces you to shift from the limbic system in the brain, which is very emotion focused, especially fear focused, to the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of things like critical thinking, executive functioning, basically helping you think straight.

[00:08:51]But if it feels too impossible to write everything out, you might try a different art form instead, like making a piece of visual art that represents what you went through. The important part is just that you symbolically make sense of what happened and form it into a cohesive event in your life. Very important caveat here. Do not force yourself to rehash the event if you don't feel ready. And don't let yourself be around people who will force you to rehash it because they can actually make things much much worse, much more likely that you will experience a trauma reaction. Number three, lean on validating, supportive people. I've mentioned this already, but it deserves its own point. When people are left to grapple with challenging experiences on their own, it's much harder to bounce back than when they're surrounded with human support. So, in actuality, this looks like calling up your friends and family, opening up to them about what you've gone through, physical affection if it's not triggering depending on, you know, the type of trauma that you experienced, quality time with people like going for a walk together. An important caveat here is do not be around invalidating people because that will make things much worse. Let me give you an example. Imagine for a moment that you're alone on a really scary flight that goes through really bad turbulence where you almost have to make an emergency landing. The fact that you experienced it on your own is already a risk factor to this becoming a chronic issue for you. But if you land and you reunite with your family and their reaction is deeply invalidating, like saying, "You're fine. Don't think about it anymore. Turbulence isn't dangerous.

[00:10:17]I thought you were stronger than this."

[00:10:19]Now you've not only gone through something scary on your own, but the people who should have supported you just made it worse. Being invalidated can have lifelong repercussions. When we look at Marsha Lahan, the creator of dialectical behavioral therapy, which is very useful for treating things like borderline personality disorder, her theory about why borderline personality disorder forms is called the biosocial theory. And it basically says that you have a temperamental predisposition to being emotionally dysregulated and you experience chronic invalidation growing up. That is why, for example, a child who's being abused by their parents is much less likely to become traumatized long term if they have a different adult in their life who's safe to lean on.

[00:10:59]Being around very supportive people is very important, especially if you're also around unsupportive people. Number four, this one's going to be kind of surprising to some of you. Return to regularly scheduled business as soon as possible. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should push yourself too quickly. But there's a reason why so many people go back to work or their usual routine even after something horrific has happened because it can help them cope and helps them develop resilience. We tend to think that when something awful happens, the earth stops spinning on its axis. In reality, human beings have an immense capacity to get up after they fall. Not only do they manage to get back to regularly scheduled business, it's actually protective if they do. Now, the science behind this phenomenon is that if you start to avoid doing things that you previously did, this puts you at great risk of avoidance symptoms in the future. So, you might completely avoid anything that reminds you of what happened and slowly your life gets smaller and smaller and smaller in terms of what you're willing to tolerate.

[00:11:54]Instead, going back to your regular routine teaches you that the world is not always unsafe, that you're still able to continue your life as normally.

[00:12:01]It puts the traumatic event within the context of your larger life. You're not just the person who experienced a trauma. You have a wide range of experiences which, yeah, includes this one traumatic thing that happened, but includes also a lot of events where you were safe. It also helps you maintain a sense of self-efficacy and a well-rounded identity to keep doing things in your life that you were doing before that are important to you. So, what does this mean concretely? Keep a regular sleepwake schedule. Sleep is super crucial because it's how you consolidate and organize memories in your life. Traumatic events are no exception to that. But trying to wake up at around the same time, trying to go to sleep around the same time is super important. Trying to get enough sleep and just generally having a regular routine. Are you still doing your skincare? Are you still showering? Are you still going to the gym? Are you still cooking? It's really hard, but it's also really important to try to get back to those things as soon as you feel able to. And yeah, also going back to work as soon as you have the capability.

[00:12:53]You might be surprised how it's able to sort of get you to stop constantly ruminating about the trauma. And number five, be very careful what meaning you make of the event. Let me paint you a picture. Janie loses her entire home in a hurricane. She keeps asking herself, "Why me? Why did this happen to me?" And she concludes that the world is filled with unpredictable danger, that she must always be on guard and calamity is right around the corner. Two houses down, Manuela loses her home in the same hurricane. And although it's equally horrible for her, she tells herself that this is just a temporary moment of pain.

[00:13:24]She feels grateful to have survived the natural disaster. She's touched by the exchanges of kindness she experiences.

[00:13:29]She finds a way to apply her personal values to the situation by writing her graduate school thesis on hurricane first aid protocol. Now, there are probably a lot of reasons why Janie and Manuela acted differently with regards to the same event. Temperament, genetics, upbringing, previous experiences, social supports available.

[00:13:48]But the truth is that anyone can train themselves to have a resilient reaction to a trauma no matter the circumstances.

[00:13:54]What matters most is not what happened exactly or what has happened in the past, but what we believe about what happened. It's how, for example, when babies fall, they pay a lot of attention to the meaning their parents make of it.

[00:14:06]If their parent is like, "Oh my god, no, are you okay?" They sometimes get scared and they start crying. But if the parents just like, "Oops, you fell."

[00:14:13]They just get right back up. It's the same with us. It's the same with our relationship with ourselves. If you can make meaning of things in a way that isn't so frightening, then you're able to get back up easier. So, what does this mean exactly? How do you make meaning of something traumatic in a way that predisposes you to resilience? I have a few journaling or reflection prompts for you for this one. First of all, what did I learn from this? Even if it's something horrible, something that was not your fault, I'm guessing there's still things about life or about yourself or about other people that you learned. And make sure that those lessons are positive, not things like the world is not a safe place. Number two, how do I want to proceed from here?

[00:14:50]How would my best self show up moving forward? Who do you want to be as the person moving forward from this trauma?

[00:14:56]And number three, how do I apply my personal values to the situation? What is most important to you? What is the core of your being? How can you embody that? You know, like last year, I had a traumatic event where for like the first day and a half or so, I was just completely destroyed. I was completely emotional. I was so upset. And then one morning, I woke up. I sat down in my journal and I wrote down these two questions. What did I learn from this?

[00:15:20]And how do I want to move forward? And instantly my mindset just switched and I went from being completely disregulated to suddenly having a very clear vision of who I want to be moving forward. And I was able to show up as my best self as a result of that. Literally just sitting down and setting the intention to reflect on these things can be so powerful. In conclusion, if you want to give yourself the best possible chance of not developing a trauma reaction after a trauma, do the following.

[00:15:46]Regulate your nervous system through some concrete way of getting yourself out of fight orflight mode, such as a cold shower or exercise. Tell the story of what happened in a cohesive way, even if it is just by journaling about it.

[00:15:58]Ask for support from validating loved ones. Tell them what you're going through and let them support you. Return to as much of a regular schedule as soon as you can. And be very intentional about the meaning you make of this traumatic event. Whatever you're going through, I hope that these tools are helpful.

[00:16:15]Tell me, tell me, tell me what you want.

[00:16:18]Tell me, tell me, tell me what you want.

[00:16:22]Tell me what you want.