Emotional trauma and impact on health in later life
Emotional trauma such as you might experience when living with a parent with mental health illness or who is emotionally or physically abusive has been shown to have a profound impact on health risks in adulthood. The nature of trauma can vary tremendously. From exposure to violence in the home, to economic hardships to marriage breakup and bullying or even constant humiliation. They have all been shown to correlate negatively to health and wellbeing.
Health impact of ACEs
Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs) are toxic stress experiences such as those listed above that occur in childhood from birth until the age of 17. They have been clearly shown to correlate to an increased risk of health issues in the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study. This was one of the largest studies ever undertaken looking at the impact of trauma on health and wellbeing. ACEs can be one-off incidents or can be on going traumatic events.
Attachment trauma
It is now recognised that attachment trauma which can occur between birth and the age of three can also impact on health in adulthood. Likewise, inter-generational inherited trauma has been shown to impact health. So, for instance living through a period of war during your gestation can impact how you are ‘wired’. If mother was chronically stressed during pregnancy this can impact on the brain of the unborn child. Chronic stress in utero can disrupt different body systems such as the nervous system as well as the genes.
What does emotional trauma do to your body?
It can affect the body in many different ways, and everyone is unique. If you experienced trauma from a young age or even pre-birth, you may be wired for hyper vigilance. Hyper vigilance is the ‘flight or fight’ response. You may not even be aware that your sympathetic nervous system is hyper vigilant because that is the only state you have ever known. Alternatively, you may feel totally detached from feeling as a protective mechanism and find that you are unable to express emotion. This too can take a massive toll on the body. The diagram illustrates all the various parts of the body system that are impacted by high cortisol.
Emotional Pain and health:
Hippocrates stated over two thousand years ago, that: “All disease begins in the gut”. How right he was! Even psychological stress impacts the gut micro-biome, which in turn affects how the immune system and the neurotransmitters are activated. The micro-biome affects how we absorb our nutrients and what cytokines are produced. Whether we are in a pro or anti –inflammatory state, at increased risk of gut permeability or how we handle stress.
Mindbody connection
We use expressions such as having butterflies in the stomach when very anxious. We lose our desire for food when our emotions are all tipsy turvy. Whilst we may recognise that the mind affects the brain, and vice versa, few realise just to what degree this connection can impact the body. Dr Sarno has written extensively about how repressed feelings of hurt, anger and pain can manifest as painful psychosomatic disorders. This doesn’t belittle the disorder which can be incredibly painful and severely impact on quality of life. However, once you have established that you don’t have a physical cause for your condition, it is well worth considering whether unconscious emotions are a factor. Dr. Sarno’s book, the Divided Mind and Healing Back Pain explains how the mind and body connection manifests through dis-ease. The wonderful news here is that this connection once recognised can lead to amazing healing!
What you eat can also support your mental health
Wellbeing Coaching and Nutritional Therapy can help you to understand how what you eat can support your mental health. This isn’t surprising given that most of our neurotransmitters are produced in our gut and can be modulated by your gut microbiome. In turn your gut bacteria can be modulated by your diet. I have written more on this at Depression or anxiety? Food helps mood!
