“Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” is the subtitle of the book, and it accurately describes its contents. When the outgoing yoga instructor left, he gave me a bunch of his belongings, including a few books, mainly dealing with yoga and running. This one caught my attention and piqued my interest. It was very dense and took me about two weeks to read thoroughly. It was a great read, though, with many interesting findings.
The author is a world-renowned doctor, based on all the studies he has published and all the large government and medical institutions he has worked with. He primarily deals with trauma victims and started his work with PTSD vets before PTSD was a recognized condition. He postulates that people were being diagnosed with the symptoms of trauma and given medication to help those symptoms, but never addressed the underlying trauma. He compares it to doctors before they knew about germs and bacteria, treating a fever without addressing the infection causing the fever.
Doctors/governments dismissed the results of trauma for a long time. When vets from WWI came back with “shell shock,” the U.S. and British armies ordered them not to use the term or diagnose anyone with it. They also implied anyone “shell shocked” (traumatized) was a weak man and not a good soldier. It wasn’t until the 1970s, after Vietnam, that PTSD was finally accepted as a valid diagnosis. Trauma isn’t just in war vets. The book talks about many different traumas in various example patients. Some are more benign, such as being abused physically or emotionally as a child. Some are so horrible I had to put the book down for an hour to process what I just read. An example is a Marine vet who saw everyone in his platoon die around him in a rice paddy field and then went to a local village and killed children and raped women as revenge. Sick stuff. This book was filled with very surprising examples of how our bodies are controlled by our subconscious minds. I am going to list some of the most fascinating things I found out in a particular order. But to get all the details in context, and especially if you have suffered any trauma (most people have), I highly recommend reading the whole book.
Did you know… there is a large nerve connecting our minds to vital organs, especially the heart and stomach? When the mind is overwhelmed, it will send distress signals to the organs. This is why, during breakups and other traumas, you will literally feel pain in your heart and stomach. Sometimes, when hearing bad news, you will feel like the air has been knocked out of you. This is your brain saying it is in extreme distress and doesn’t know how to process what is happening.
Did you know… trauma survivors lose sensitivity in some of their senses, and also pathways in their brain become blocked? An example is a study where they blindfolded survivors and placed a familiar item in their hands, like a key or coin. When asked what was in their hands, they couldn’t tell; they couldn’t even guess. The part of the brain that connects feelings to sight and words was blocked.
Did you know… rape/incest survivors often self-harm? They do it because they subconsciously hate their bodies. But even if they don’t self-harm, they have a much higher rate of autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases are when your body literally attacks itself from the inside. So even if one of these survivors doesn’t self-harm, their body does it for them subconsciously.
Did you know… during a traumatic incident (like a car crash), your brain may shut down parts to save itself from the trauma? One of the parts is the linguistic part. So when people say they can’t put into words what happened or what they saw, they are being literal. Their brains can’t use that part of the brain to describe it.
Did you know… when someone with severe trauma/PTSD starts talking about their experience, their voice tone will change, and their vocabulary will go down a couple of levels? When writing about it, their handwriting will change drastically, sometimes mid-sentence. Then letters become more big, blockish, and childlike. He posted some very fascinating samples in the book.
As I said, the book is very dense with a lot of scientific jargon. He goes through all the parts of the brain and how different parts react during trauma, and also how a trauma survivor’s brain works differently from a normal brain.
My biggest takeaway from the book was the hidden epidemic of child abuse. There is a lot more child abuse in the U.S. than we like to think. This leads to a lot of untreated trauma, which creates serious negative health effects. One study calculated if we were to eradicate child abuse in America, the rate of depression would fall by half, alcoholism by 2/3rds, and suicide, IV drug use, and domestic violence by 3/4ths. I concluded that child abuse is among the greatest and most costly health crises in America. The cost of treating it exceeds cancer and heart disease. This is a serious problem, and no one is dealing with it.
The book also goes through many different ways to help trauma survivors. One of the main ones was yoga, which is why I assume the yoga instructor wanted me to read it. Trauma survivors have a disconnect between their mind and body. A lot of times, their body does things to protect them without them knowing why. Yoga, concentrating on breathing and using your breath in your movements, helps restore those connections. Just one of the reasons yoga is great for everyone.
5 out of 5 stars.
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