Trauma Can Make You Feel Disconnected From Your Body. Here’s Why.
At its core, something that's traumatic is an overwhelming experience... Something so difficult to process that your mind may begin to protect itself.
Your memory of the traumatic event may be blurry, for example, or you may feel like you watched it from a distance.
Whether it's a single traumatic event or years of chronic trauma, your body can hold onto the experience in all kinds of ways. You may struggle with pain or illness, anxiety, depression, or flashbacks.
Dissociation is also common—and this can have a big impact on your ability to maintain a healthy mind-body connection.
What Is Dissociation and How Does It Relate to Trauma?
Dissociation is a term used to describe a sense of disconnection between your mind and body... Essentially, from yourself.
When you experience trauma, your body may bypass the fight or flight response and land in the freeze state, instead. It’s here that dissociation occurs as a coping or defense mechanism. It can affect your memory, making events seem hazy or impossible to remember. This is your mind’s way of protecting you from overwhelming emotions, sensations, or physical surroundings.
If you’ve experienced a moment of dissociation, you know that it can feel surreal. You may feel like you’re in a dream, like you’re floating outside yourself, or not present at all.
Dissociation can also feel like you are:
Emotionally detached;
Not part of the world around you;
Numb or like you aren’t experiencing the feelings you “should,” whether physical or emotional; or
Functioning without a clear sense of who you are.
But the impact of trauma can be far-reaching and long-lasting. Anything that triggers the memory of the traumatic event—either consciously or subconsciously—can also trigger the freeze response and another dissociative moment.
When these responses repeatedly happen over time, we can begin to lose a sense of who we actually are… Our mind-body connection becomes weak.
Why Is a Mind-Body Connection Important?
The brain is the nerve center of our whole body. It regulates our heart rate, breathing, digestion, and so much more.
The state of our mind can affect the way our body functions. If we’re anxious or stressed for long periods of time, for example, our hormonal levels can shift to reflect this. We can struggle with increased illness, weight gain, and even chronic pain as a result.
Our mindset, our diet, our activity level, and our environment can all influence our health. If we don't feed the cycle well, we can further our feelings of disconnect and sabotage our ability to rely on our body intuition.
And our intuition is critical for health and happiness—even safety.
That’s because our brains and bodies work together to keep us safe in all kinds of ways. Even when we aren’t aware of it, our brains are assessing our immediate environment for possible threats. When they’re perceived, our bodies react—our heart rate and blood pressure increase, stress hormones like adrenaline are released, and our breathing becomes shallower. These things make it easier for us to run or fight, if necessary.
When we experience trauma, our brains and bodies can become hypersensitive to danger. Our intuition becomes clouded, and we can begin to perceive threats where there aren’t any. Our bodies end up spending a lot of time prepared to flee or fight. That prolonged stress can cause both mental health struggles and physical illness.
How Can I Overcome Mind-Body Disconnection?
If you’ve experienced trauma, you may also be experiencing moments of disconnect and dissociation. You may have a weak mind-body connection.
But there's good news—you can fix it! The strength of your mind-body connection is absolutely within your control.
Here are four ways to overcome mind-body disconnection:
1. Ground Yourself in the Present
When you’re in a dissociative state, you aren’t feeling grounded in the present moment. You’re outside of your immediate surroundings and not connected to them.
To bring yourself back to the present, do something to feel yourself in your body again. You can hold an ice cube (or an ice pack!) or do a quick body scan meditation.
An activity to engage your five senses is a great idea, too. Try the 5-4-3-2-1 technique by naming:
Five things you can see,
Four things you can feel,
Three things you can hear;
Two things you can smell, and
One thing you can taste.
Remember to keep breathing deeply throughout this exercise.
2. Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of bringing your attention back to the present moment gently and without judgment. This state of being doesn’t come naturally to most of us. And when we first start trying, it can feel really, really hard.
But mindfulness is a skill that’s worth practicing. Evidence shows it can lessen stress and emotional reactivity, boost our memory and ability to focus, and even improve our immune function over time.
Mindfulness is a fundamental part of the Mindful Miri Method. Check out my free mindfulness meditations through the Insight Timer app and website.
3. Fuel and Hydrate Your Body the Right Way
Taking care of our physical body is a big factor in strengthening our mind-body connection. Healing from trauma is hard work, and our bodies need proper fuel to function well.
Nourish your body by eating nutritious foods, staying hydrated, and finding enjoyable ways to incorporate movement and exercise into your day.
4. Enjoy Mindful Movement
Our physical health is not complete without some form of body movement. Certain types of exercise can build body awareness and help heal from trauma.
Yoga, for example, works to strengthen the mind-body connection by engaging all muscle groups and encouraging deep, healing breathing practices. It’s an opportunity to slow down, focus on strength and stillness, and quiet our ever-active minds.
The Mindful Miri Method includes follow-along yoga sessions for every level of flexibility and movement to help you find calm and come back to yourself.
The Mindful Miri Method Prioritizes Mind-Body Connection
Disconnecting and dissociating are ways our brains protect us from overwhelming experiences. But in the long run, it can do more harm than good.
And trauma can be sneaky! Even if we think what we’ve experienced “wasn’t that bad,” we can still struggle with establishing a strong mind-body connection over time.
