Coping Mechanisms

Here's a core breathing pattern I use to help me reduce stress in real time:

I developed a severe enough case of C-PTSD that I spend the bulk of my daily mental energy actively deactivating my stress response system. 

I get a lot of practice deactivating my sress response system and I'm sharing what works for me in curbing symptoms of stress.  

Here are components of breathing I practice doing under the influence of stress:

I keep breathing, no matter how badly my body wants to pause it. My survival brain may wants to hold still, pause breathing, and preserve the brain power to make sense out of the pain faster. The paradoxical thing is oxygen is what allows my brain to make sense out of the pain as quickly as possible in the first place.

The key is in how I'm breathing: I incorporate the double in-breath of the Physiological Sigh, combined with diaphragmatic belly breathing, I'm breathing out as slow and restricted as possible, and I breathe in through my nose whenever my body is calm enough for me to do so.

I keep the flow of air moving in and out of my lungs, and note that if I had been feeling stressed the flow of my breathing would have been upper chested, fast, rapid, and shallow. If I had been relaxed my breathing would have been belly breath, slow, smooth, and deep.

Mechanically Transition to breathing below the diaphragm, even one out of ten breaths, in between survival breaths, then two out of ten breaths, then three out of ten breaths and so on.

My intention is to gradually incorporate breathing patterns into controlling my body's operation, regardless of the circumstances my mind created for it to run that way in the first place. And most importantly I'm teaching my survival brain I am safe doing this.

I'm learning to give myself grace for the mistakes I make to recover as quickly and efficiently as possible. I know I can keep getting stronger at recovering, and this gives me hope, so I do, and hope is a powerful thing.

We can recover, heal, and personally grow from where we're at now, no matter where this is. 

Consistency is the key here, not perfection, and a little bit of effort goes a long way.

As you can, in between rounds of survival breathing, develop your tolerance to incorporate patterned breathing in, one breath at a time,

Doing this, you are teaching your survival brain you are safe and surviving while you are breathing in a way that helps reconnect your higher mind operation under the influence of stress.

The important thing is gradually transition to breathing in a way that promotes reoxygenation of the higher functioning parts of the brain, to wake it up as quickly and efficiently for use for added advantage as you are actively surviving.

Maladaptive Coping is doing something to feel better without fixing what caused the pain. 

I have done this in many ways, and I am very guilty of maladaptive coping. 

From abusing alcohol to lifting weights at the gym for several hours per day with adrenaline as opposed to form, control, or discipline, I did everything I could to avoid looking at the pain for as long as possible. 

Intellectualization can be done by the human mind with sports teams / player statistics, work projects, etc. It's remaining cognitively preoccupied in the analytical portion of the mind operation, while subconsciously knowing there's still the emotional and physiological portions to deal with. It's kind of like my mind using logic to delay the onset of emotions for as long as possible. 

I have intellectualized lots of things in my life to escape the intense feelings associated with traumatic memories. I have also learned to sit through the biological lifespan of emotions to realize presence on the other side of them to the best of my ability so far. This teaches my survival brain I am safe here and now. 

As I am healing healthier I am becoming more capable of retaining my perceptive awareness in this present moment, through emotions of greater intensity for longer periods of time. My mind dissociates alot, almost contantly at times, but not as constantly as it use to and not as intensely. 

I remember, one day after trauma therapy, considering that if all things being equal, there are the factors of negative, neutral, and positive involved in everything, then there must be negative, neutral, and positive aspects of dealing with trauma.  

After completing 14 weeks of Intensive OutPatient PTSD treatment I needed a break, but remained determined in my healing. I didn't want to jump right into the positive side because it seemed unrealistic, and I wanted to avoid a polarity swing, so I decided to first focus on everything neutral I could about three things:

1. Trauma Remembered 

2. OurSelves as standalone entities to any trauma remembered

3. The process to healing from psychological trauma

The neutral approach opened up all kinds of avenues in Self understanding, the world we live in and on, the understanding about why physisists describe the world we experience as holographic, or what the term, "Life is an illusion" is referring to, without addressing the "Why" it's an illusion component. 

Although technically still maladaptive, I justified intellectualizing and investigating the operation behind trauma experienced, along with the corrective measures to help recalibrate the nervous system / endocrine system after changes from trauma, ultimately to feel better sooner rather than later. 

It made sense to me that if I am going to dive into one subject and intellectualize it, it may as well be understanding trauma to heal from it. 

Intellectualizing this stuff provided me with great relief, however intellecualizing is maladaptive because it involves dissociating. What I am teaching my survival brain to do is return to presence from dissociation. Instead of my mind dissociating negatively in trauma pain, or positively in fantasy, my mind was dissociating neutrally by intellectualizing. 

Actual healing didn't begin until I learned to hold my mind awake and present through the biological lifespan of emotions (usually saying something like, "Yep this is terrible" for at least a little bit longer at a time. Holding my mind awake to the best of my ability allowed me to begin teaching my survial brain that, no matter what no emotions can kill me, they only feel like they can. 

(Note - The biological lifespan of emotions is only about 90 seconds, and not 2 weeks like I once thought, which showed me this is possible to do).

There's a fine balance between understanding something to reduce uncertainty and be better able to deal with it, and intellectualizing a topic (especially an unrelated topic) to avoid dealing with the emotions provoked by specific memories. 

Understanding is necessary, intellectualizing is maladaptive. 

If I detect a sense of Impatience or an agitated sense of Urgency? = Survival Mode

or

Am I Present and able to Observe my thoughts and emotions? = PreFrontal Cortex

Do I feel Apathetic toward myself and the world? = Survival Mode

or

Do I feel Empathetic toward myself and the world? = PreFrontal Cortex

Upper chested breathing fast, rapid, and shallow? = Survival Mode

or

Belly breathing slow, smoothe, and deep? = PreFrontal Cortex

Does pressure knock my mind Unconscious and Familiar Action happens? = Survival Mode

or

Am I holding my mind awake Curiously Observing thoughts & emotions? = PreFrontal Cortex

Are my muscles Tense? Thoughts running in the future/past= Survival Mode  

or

Are my muscles Relaxed? Presently observing allows my muscles to relax = PreFrontal Cortex

Has my mind been getting lost in Dissociation in Fear or Anger? = Survival Mode

or

Am I Observing my thoughts and emotions with a sense of Curiosity? = PreFrontal Cortex

Do I feel Reactive? Am I reacting to something? = Survival Mode

or

Do I feel Objective? Am I thinking objectively?= PreFrontal Cortex

Do I feel Angry or Afraid? = Survival Mode

or

Do I feel Grateful or Curious? = PreFrontal Cortex

Do I Feel the Need to Explain a past event to someone else? = Survival Mode

or

Am I Catching and Releasing the felt Need to Explain anything to anyone? PreFrontal Cortex

1. Patterned Breathing - Mechanically breathe to operate my body in rest / digest mode

2. Muscle Relaxation - Releasing stress stored up in the body as muscle tension

3. Thought Maintenance - Emotions produce thoughts, thoughts produce emotions. Holding my thought stream neutral to flush out my system to experience neutral emotions. 

4. Divergent Focus - 

     A. Holding vision directly forward to prevent my eyes from shifting to memory (left*) or imagination (right*). 

     B. I'm looking up as opposed to down to produce more optimistic feelings as opposed to pessimistic feelings. 

     C. Since stress collapses perspective, I'm consciously toggling vision back divergently to help wake up the PreFrontal Cortex. 

5. Hope and Gratitude - We can feel hopeless or hopeful as well as entitled or grateful. 

     A. I'm allowing myself to realize a greater sense of hope in healing and 

     B. I'm consciously choosing gratitude over entitlement. 

COMPONENTS:

1. Patterned Breathing

   1a. Diaptragmatic Breathing

   1b. Physiological Sigh

2. Muscle Relaxation

    2a. Progressive Muscle Relaxation

3. Thought Maintenance

    3a. Bring thoughts back into presence, focusing on neutral

    3b. Directing the flow of the next round of emotions, flushing my system out to neutral

4. Divergent Focus

    4a. Keep eyes directly forward not R/L

    4b. Keep eyes at eye level or above

    4c. Toggle vision from a zoomed in view of the world to a zoomed out view of the world

5. Hope and Gratitude

    5a. I'm allowing myself to realize a greater sense of hope in healing

    5b. I'm consciously choosing gratitude over entitlement