9 Effective Ways to Cope with PTSD

Symptoms of PTSD

A person with PTSD anxiety has four main types of difficulties: Difficulty sleeping, irritability, poor concentration, being easily startled and constantly looking for danger signals, and being hypervigilant are signs of being 'stressed out'.

If someone has experienced other traumatic events earlier in their life, they sometimes find that these past experiences come up and need to be dealt with. A healthcare practitioner may diagnose PTSD anxiety if a person has symptoms in each of these four areas for a month or more that cause significant distress to their ability to work and study, which affects relationships and day-to-day life.

• Intrusive Thoughts and Memories: Individuals with PTSD often experience intrusive thoughts, memories, or nightmares related to the traumatic event. They may have flashbacks, which are intense and involuntary re-experiences of the event that can feel as if they are happening in the present moment.
• Avoidance and Numbing: People with PTSD might go to great lengths to avoid anything that reminds them of the traumatic event. This could include avoiding certain places, people, or activities. They may also feel emotionally numb, have difficulty experiencing positive emotions, and become less interested in things they once enjoyed.
• Negative Changes in Mood and Cognition: Individuals with PTSD often experience negative changes in their thought patterns and emotions. This can include persistent negative beliefs about oneself or others, distorted blame or guilt, memory problems, and an overall negative outlook on life.
• Hyperarousal and Reactivity: People with PTSD may experience heightened levels of anxiety and arousal. They might have difficulty sleeping, become easily startled, experience angry outbursts, and have difficulty concentrating.

It's important to note that not everyone who experiences a traumatic event will develop PTSD. Some people may experience acute stress reactions immediately after the event.

Healthy ways to cope with PTSD anxiety

1. Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy or psychotherapy is also called talk therapy. Through this, the patient talks with a mental health professional to help them deal with the mental disorder. It can be done in two ways – single or group psychotherapy. Talk therapy treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder can usually last from a few months to a year. This therapy is of two types.

2. Exposure therapy

This special therapy enables patients to face their fear and control it. It helps them to get the events they experienced out of their mind in a safe way. During this therapy, the patient is asked to visualize the incident, write it down, or visit the place where the incident happened.

3. Cognitive restructuring

This therapy helps patients make sense of the painful memories they are suffering from. Many times people remember these events differently when in reality they happened differently. They themselves begin to imagine things for which they are not fully responsible either. The therapist helps people with PTSD see these events in a realistic way.

4. Manage stress

Stress is one of the main factors for post-traumatic stress syndrome. Although there is no way to completely eliminate stress from life, you can certainly reduce it by using stress management techniques. So, join regular meditation and yoga sessions. This will help you fight stress and stay creative.

5. Exercise

The right exercise can improve your mood and energy. It will make you feel content and energetic. Working out and doing different types of physical activity like dancing, swimming and walking can reduce the symptoms of this disorder and lift your mood.

 6. Avoid alcohol & substances

Consuming alcohol or drugs in this situation will only worsen the situation. Due to this, the apprehension of developing other disorders can increase. Consumption of alcohol in moderation is fine, but if you have a genetic risk of depression, you should avoid it.

7. Stay connected

Staying connected with close friends can be a big help in this situation. There are many ways you can let a loved one know how you feel. During this time stay connected and talk to your friends, family members, or psychiatrist.

8. Social support 

Research has found that finding support from others can be a major factor in helping people overcome the negative effects of a traumatic event and PTSD. Having someone you trust that you can talk to can be very helpful for working through stressful situations or for emotional validation.

9. Medicine

Antidepressant medications are effectively used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, which helps with PTSD symptoms such as depression, anxiety, anger, and feelings of numbness. Other medications may be helpful in treating specific symptoms of PTSD, such as sleep problems and nightmares.

If you are experiencing survivor reactions to a traumatic event, there are several things you can do to help yourself.

• Talking to supporters and explaining your feelings can help you take a step back and put things into perspective.
• Don't try to overcome your reactions by talking to yourself - accept them, try to understand them, and give yourself time to forget them, but be aware that logical thinking can be emotional about a traumatic event. 
• Control overreactions - Accept that you are 'only human'. Anyone can do what their situation allows them to do in an emergency.
• Try not to compare yourself to others. Instead, try to evaluate your situation on merits, and don't expect more than you can handle.
• Don't try to 'wash away' guilt by setting high standards of achievement as this rarely reduces feelings of inadequacy. Instead, try to deal with whatever is triggering your emotions.
• Instead of treating the experience as a solution to a problem, try to accept it as part of life's journey.

What are common survivor reactions to a traumatic event?

When a traumatic event occurs, avoidance of the event may depend on training, experience, and heightened reactions. It may also depend on where you were in relation to the threat when the incident occurred. If you have survived a traumatic event, whether you were injured or physically unharmed, this recognition.

It is important that trauma also causes emotional damage. Survivorship is often associated with complex emotional reactions that cause distress and make it difficult to resume day-to-day life after the event. These are known as 'survivor reactions'. As a survivor of a traumatic event, you may be experiencing several common emotional reactions:

• Guilt and self-blame - a feeling that your survival is at the expense of those who died or were injured
• Inadequacy – a feeling that people should be forgiven because they are special, good, worthy, or have a special talent – and feeling that those conditions do not apply to you.
• Loss of connection with one's past life - A dramatic, unusual event does not fit the life one previously lived and one does not feel able to return to normal, day-to-day concerns when many other lives are permanently affected. Change happens, and people around you may not understand it.
• Anger and blame at others - Often there was a preoccupation with whose fault it was and strong feelings of anger and blame towards them, the emergency services, the government, or other authorities. These feelings can block acceptance of events and cause ongoing distress.

Positive feedback - You may find that the experience of being alive has a dramatic positive effect on you, making you feel that:

• Life has new meaning (perhaps the event has inspired or strengthened human or spiritual values)
• Appreciate the things you do every day 
• You have a renewed sense of purpose to make the best use of the time you have
• You have a greater appreciation of your relationships with family and friends
• You value community more strongly
• Any survivor of a traumatic event can experience these emotions, including bystanders, witnesses, emergency first responders, family members, and health care providers.

When to seek help for survivor reactions to a traumatic event

Survivor reactions are a common result of being involved in a traumatic event. However, if they don't start to resolve after a few weeks, it can cause a lot of trouble. For some people, it can cause mental health problems (it can worsen mental health problems they already had before the event), such as post-traumatic stress, depressive reactions, or anxiety conditions. Early support from trained professionals can prevent complications and aid in the healing process. Seek professional help if:

• Your reactions are interfering with your daily life and relationships
• The incident is not forgotten and your feelings about it are not reduced
• No matter how you look at it, the event has no meaning
• You are isolating yourself
• You are having difficulty sleeping, eating, your mood, relationships, work, or relaxing
• You continue to feel strong emotions such as anger, fear, guilt, and conflict
• If you are concerned about self-punishment or self-harm, you are taking risks that you would not normally take.

Reactions to Trauma

Depending on role, age, and personality style, each family member will react to a traumatic event in their own way, even if they all went through the same experience. If family members do not understand each other's experiences, it can lead to misunderstandings, breakdowns in communication, and other problems. Even if you don't fully understand what another member of your family is going through, being aware of common reactions and their impact on family life will help everyone cope better in the long run. It can help to do it. In a family, different members may experience different reactions and this needs to be understood.

Examples of common reactions to trauma are:

• Feeling that you are on 'high alert' and 'aware' of anything else that might happen
• Feeling emotionally numb, as if in a state of 'shock'
• Feeling isolated or isolated from other family members
• Being emotional and upset
• Feeling extremely relaxed and tired
• Feeling very stressed and/or anxious
• Being very protective of others, including family and friends, and wanting to let them out of their sight

Despite these painful reactions, many families look back and find that if they communicate with each other during the recovery period, the crisis has actually helped them become closer and stronger. However, if you are unsure whether your family is struggling to heal, do not hesitate to seek professional help.

• Intense emotions - include anxiety, fear, sadness, guilt, anger, hypersensitivity, helplessness, and frustration. These feelings will not only apply to the incident but also to other earlier general areas of life. They don't take it personally and remember that they are happening because of what happened and they diminish as you recover.
• Physical symptoms - include headache, nausea, abdominal pain, insomnia, sleep disturbances, nightmares, changes in appetite, sweating and tremors, aches, and pains, and worsening of pre-existing medical conditions.
• Affects thinking - including difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly, short-term memory, difficulty making plans and making decisions, inability to absorb information, repeated thoughts of traumatic events, thinking about other past tragedies, pessimistic thoughts and decisions Inability to take is included.
• Behavioral changes - decline in work or school performance, changes in eating habits, use of drugs or alcohol, inability to relax or stay still, lack of motivation to do anything, increase in aggression or self-harm including engaging in destructive activities.

Traumatic stress can cause very severe reactions in some people and it can become persistent and can lead to permanent changes in family lifestyles that are unwanted. You should seek professional help if you:

• Don't feel normal emotions, but continue to feel numb and depressed
• Cannot establish communication with other family members
• Continue to feel isolated, disconnected, or disconnected
• Realize that you are not starting to get back to normal after three to four weeks
• Experience disturbances in sleep and nightmares continue
• Try to deliberately avoid anything that reminds you of the painful experience
• Note that the communication in the family has changed and is not okay
• May get into accidents and use more alcohol or drugs as suppressants
• Can't return to work and can't manage responsibilities
• Feel very stressed and can be easily startled.

Conclusion

A sudden accident, a strange incident, a shocking incident, or the sudden death of a loved one can cause anxiety. The wounds of such events are so deep in the mind that the consequences are felt for many years to come. But what exactly is this psychosis called? What are its symptoms? Sometimes there are events in one's life that leave scars on one's mind for years. Not only is it difficult to forget such a coping with trauma, but the mental suffering caused by it is more. 

The sudden death of a person close to you, an accident before your eyes, just as it misses the beat of your heart, it affects your mind very deeply. A traumatic event can have serious effects on the mind. So, dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can be a challenge that can be resolved using medicines, therapy, and family support. The symptoms of this are usually seen three months after the incident and sometimes even after a year. 

Scientists have found that the amygdala of a person's brain (the part of the brain responsible for mental activity) can detect surprised and neutral facial expressions. Increased activation in response appears to be linked to developing post-traumatic stress disorder. A team led by researchers from Tufts University, US, used fMRI studies to measure brain activation.

Staying connected with close people can prove to be a big help in this situation. There are many ways you can let a loved one know how you feel. During this time stay connected and talk to your friends, family members or psychiatrist to overcome PTSD successfully.