3 Proven Methods to Heal Trauma and Rewire Your Nervous System

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Trauma is the lasting emotional response to a distressing event, and everyone has some

  Mel's working definition: trauma is 'the lasting emotional response that comes from living through a stressful, distressing, scary or life-threatening event.' On that definition, no one reaches adulthood without it. She stresses that she is not a doctor, therapist or certified trauma specialist. This episode is her personal account, and an expert conversation follows in the next one.

• 02

  Common signs that past trauma is setting off your nervous system

  Mel lists reactions researchers associate with it: feeling on edge, snapping or getting frustrated over small things, taking things personally, or the opposite pattern of shutting down, feeling unseen and struggling to ask for what you need. Others include trouble focusing because you feel 'the other shoe is about to drop', addiction, disconnection, and retreating into your head. Rewriting a text 15 times and adding an emoji so no one is mad at you is another example she gives.

• 03

  Trauma is personal and stored in the body

  What counts is how your body experienced an event, not how big it looks from outside. Two people can come out of the same event with different triggers, as Mel and her mother did after a car crash. The body attaches sensations to the alarm and replays them years later, often when you least expect it.

• 04

  'Little-t' trauma counts

  Beyond 'capital-T' events like disasters, abuse, witnessing death, neglect or combat, Mel describes smaller experiences your nervous system still remembers. Examples include being the only person of your race or religion in class, being called worthless, having to be quiet because Dad's coming home, or constant comments about your body. She dislikes the big-T and little-t labels because 'little' can make people feel their reaction is a defect.

• 05

  You don't need to remember the original event to heal

  Asked by producer Jesse, who grew up in a happy home and can't name any trauma but tears up or shuts down easily, Mel says the starting point doesn't matter. Many of these imprints may form before age five, before we can put them into words. Your map to healing is noticing the moments in daily life when you feel overwhelmed or triggered.

• 06

  It isn't about blaming your parents

  Mel says a frightening tone of voice, or no one comforting you when you were tiny, can be enough. That doesn't make the adults bad. The focus is your body's response and your chance to retrain it now.

• 07

  Talking alone may not change a body-level reaction

  Mel values talk therapy, including couples counseling with Chris, but found she could talk a situation through and still react the same way when triggered. In her case that reaction is lashing out. Her conclusion is that these reactions start in the body as a feeling, not in your thoughts, so repair has to include the body.

• 08

  Your nervous system is like a home's wiring, and trauma is a nick in it

  The nervous system includes the brain, spinal cord, gut and nerves. When the wiring works, lights dim smoothly and smoke alarms stay quiet unless there's a real fire. Trauma is a mouse chewing a wire, a wall knocked down, or a breaker that keeps tripping. The result is flickering lights, or an alarm beeping at 3 a.m. when nothing is wrong.

• 09

  Repair means learning to switch from fight-or-flight to rest

  Mel describes two systems: the sympathetic (fight, flight, fawn or freeze) alarm and the parasympathetic state where you relax, focus, feel confident and let in love. The alarm can get stuck on. She argues three years of pandemic uncertainty left many people there. She says she has given more than 150 talks to companies like Microsoft, Starbucks and JP Morgan in the past year, and focus and productivity problems came up everywhere.

• 10

  The vagus nerve is the switch

  Mel describes the vagus nerve as running through every major organ and the vocal cords, and says 'toning' it signals safety. Humming, singing and chanting work through the vocal cords. She says there are so many studies that she didn't pick one to cite, so treat this as her overview, not a clinical recommendation.