5 surefire ways to deal with trauma that you should try

Experiencing a traumatic event is perfectly natural for anyone in his life. These experiences can include experiencing violence, serious injury, significant loss of someone, sexual harassment, natural disasters, and many more. In fact, you can share in the trauma just by watching someone closest to you get hit by something. Then how do you deal with trauma? Find the answer below.

What is meant by trauma?

Trauma is actually an emotional response to various bad events that have happened to you and those closest to you. Usually, right after the unpleasant experience, you feel it in shock or surprise, or feeling denial or rejection.

However, as time has passed, the reactions you experience to the event can be more mixed. For example, emotions that cannot be predicted beforehand, to physical responses such as headaches and nausea.

This is considered normal, but there are some who actually become stressed if they are reminded of these past events. Especially, if you still can't come to terms with the events of the past. So, do a variety of ways to deal with trauma to be free from prolonged stress.

There are various ways to deal with trauma that need to be tried

If you are constantly haunted by traumatic events in the past that you feel stressed out and depressed about, there are several ways to deal with trauma that you can practice, such as the following.

1. Trying to accept the feelings that arise

If you are already feeling stressed because you can't stop thinking about traumatic events in the past, you may feel negative emotions such as anger, guilt, and more. Of course this will not have a positive impact on you.

However, keep in mind that having these feelings is a natural reaction. Moreover, if you have just had an experience that was so terrifying or painful for you. Therefore, the best way to deal with trauma is to accept those feelings first.

The reason is, not a few are actually rejecting these feelings without trying to make peace with the traumatic incident in the past. No wonder it causes prolonged trauma.

In fact, trying to accept these feelings is an important part of the process healing or healing from the trauma itself. Therefore, try to give yourself time to feel the feelings of anger, fear, sadness, disappointment, and so on.

Everyone has their own time and process. So, don't force yourself to go through this healing period right away. If you feel that you have had enough of these feelings, start slowly to make peace with the memories and live the new day with renewed vigor.

2. Exercise regularly

The next way you can deal with trauma is to exercise regularly. When you exercise, your body will produce more endorphins to restore a better mood.

Not only that, regular exercise can also help repair your nervous system, so you can be free from the feeling of trauma that has been haunting. To realize how to deal with this one trauma, you can try to exercise for at least 30 minutes every day.

The choice of sports that you can do actually varies, from walking, running, swimming, playing basketball to dancing. During exercise, be sure to always focus on your body and how you feel as your body moves. This is important to help you avoid getting injured during exercise.

3. Don't be alone too often

When you feel stressed, sad, angry, and disappointed, you may prefer to be alone rather than interacting with other people. However, at times like these, spending too long alone can actually worsen your condition.

Therefore, the best way to deal with trauma is to spend time with other people as much as possible. You don't have to talk about the trauma you felt if you felt uncomfortable. There are many things you can talk to other people about that can help you feel more comfortable.

Also, don't hesitate to participate in various activities or do activities outside the home with other people. For example, meeting old friends, volunteering, or meeting new people. Do various activities that have nothing to do with the trauma you are experiencing.

4. Eat and sleep regularly

One of the ways you need to deal with trauma is to maintain your own health by living a healthy lifestyle. According to HelpGuide, you still have to pay attention to your diet and sleep patterns even though you are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for something bad that happens in life.

The reason is, the food you consume has a huge effect on your mood. Therefore, food also determines whether or not you are able to deal with the stress caused by trauma.

Choose healthy foods, avoid fast food, sugary foods, and various other unhealthy foods because they can worsen PTSD symptoms. Instead, increase the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables, protein, and foods that contain healthy fats.

This is because these foods can help you deal with trauma. Not only that, having the habit of eating healthy foods can also improve the overall health of your body.

Meanwhile, poor sleep patterns, especially if you are sleep deprived, can exacerbate the symptoms of the trauma you are experiencing. In fact, this unhealthy habit will also make it difficult for you to control the emotional balance that is in yourself.

5. Seek medical help

If these things are still not enough to help you deal with the trauma, try this one method. Yes, there's nothing wrong with seeking help from others, especially experts, if you feel you can't help yourself.

Actually, feeling anxious, confused, feeling guilty, so that it seems as if your life has fallen apart are still relatively normal feelings, especially if you have just experienced a bad incident with yourself. In fact, these feelings will disappear by themselves.

However, if the feelings you have are intense enough to interfere with daily activities, it is better to immediately seek medical help to deal with your health condition.

Some of the signs you need to watch out for include:

• These feelings have lasted more than six weeks and you are not feeling better.
• You cannot carry out activities like normal days.
• You often experience nightmares, or memories related to the cause of the trauma.
• You are getting more and more difficult or unable to communicate with other people.
• The emergence of suicidal thoughts.
• You are constantly avoiding things that are reminders of the cause of the trauma.

If these symptoms appear, it's better to immediately check with your doctor for further treatment.