Hypervigilance and Trauma - How to get your brain to quiet down.

Can you relate to this poor horse? He's been through neglect, he's been sold to a slaughterhouse and rescued, but he doesn't feel safe enough to lie down, even when he's exhausted. Now, in essence, trauma is a protective response to danger. The body has learned on a deep level that something bad could happen, and you've developed a safety mechanism of constantly being on high alert. This is called hypervigilance. Maybe you worry about what you said, or you overthink everything, or your body just seems to alternate between being high strung and exhausted. Now, today, we're going to take a trauma-informed approach to figure out how to get your brain to quiet down. Because the good news is, just like this horse, you can gradually rewire your nervous system, your brain, and your body to feel more safe and to relax. And I'll teach you three practical skills to do this. Plus, at the end, I've got one life-changing question that might help you see why you secretly don't want to let your guard down. Okay, so hypervigilance is when your brain and body are stuck in high alert mode. Your brain acts like there's danger nearby, even when you're safe. Here's how it shows up. Feeling like you're always on edge or unable to relax. Scanning people or environments or conversations for problems. Analyzing, planning, and overthinking to prevent issues from coming up. Jumping at small noises or surprises. Constant muscle tension and exhaustion. Or difficulty focusing because part of your attention is always watching for danger. Maybe you have trouble sleeping or fully letting your guard down. So what's actually happening? Your brain's threat detection system, especially the amygdala, is overactive, while the part of your brain that says, you're safe right now, isn't fully overriding it. So your system keeps asking, what if something goes wrong? Even when nothing's wrong. Constantly scanning or overthinking is your brain's way of trying to keep you alive. Thank you brain! Now, short-term stress isn't actually bad. If your house is actually on fire, noticing the smell of smoke triggers that physical rush of adrenaline to help everyone run out of the house safely. But when your month's past, that dinner that went up in flames, and you're constantly scanning for fire, that hypervigilance is going to burn you out. Um, sorry for the bad pun. Hypervigilance's bestie is hyperarousal, where your nervous system gets stuck in that on mode. It keeps your body stuck in chronic stress because to our nervous system, the perception of danger triggers the exact same physiological reaction as physical present danger. Thinking about worries sets off cortisol and adrenaline and primes your body to take action to fight, flight, or freeze. Now, this is really common for people with unresolved trauma. So for most people listening to my videos, that chronic worrying doesn't go away easily. You feel like you're in danger when you check your emails, when you sit quietly with nothing to do, when you're running late, when you're trying to lay down to sleep. And that's when those what-ifs and worries just constantly creep in, even when you're actually safe. It might feel like your brain or your body is broken, but it isn't. Your brain is just trying to protect you. And somewhere along the way, your brain learned that staying vigilant protected you in some way. Maybe it helped you anticipate someone's mood. Maybe it helped you avoid conflict or harm. Maybe it gave you a sense of control in uncertainty. Maybe you learned that if things were too quiet, something bad could happen. But now the same system is stuck in the on position, even when it's no longer needed. Maybe feeling on edge feels normal and you're unfamiliar with what relaxed feels like. Hypervigilance is like having a smoke alarm that's too sensitive. It goes off not just for fires, but for toast. Now, the goal isn't to rip out the alarm. It's to retrain your nervous system to only go on high alert when there's real danger. Okay, so are you ready for the first skill to help you regulate and feel safe enough? This is going to sound paradoxical because even though worries and planning keep us stuck in a chronic fear response, I don't want you to stop worrying yet. I mean, if I told you to stop worrying, that probably wouldn't work. But that's because hypervigilance, it thrives on vague danger. So the first thing is to make your worries more acute instead of chronic. Now, like I said, most people think that all stress is bad, but our bodies are really good at handling acute stress, short term, time limited stress. We're good at that. It's the chronic stress that wears us down. So let's lean into that. When you're feeling anxious, stressed, or vigilant, get clarity and ask, is there actually a fire? Am I actually in danger? And if the answer is no, then remind yourself that here, in this moment, you are safe enough. Now, if the answer is yes, ask, is there something I can do about it? Okay, so the smoke alarm goes off. If there's a fire burning in your kitchen, don't try to sleep through it. Don't try to regulate your nervous system and just calm down. Jump up, get the fire extinguisher out and spray it down. If you notice a new health symptom like a weird mole, instead of just worrying about it, schedule an appointment to see a dermatologist. So with hypervigilance, there's a few ways we take our constant worrying and we make it more acute. So write down your worries. It might be something like getting passed over for promotion or missing the tax deadline. And then ask, am I actually in danger? And then also ask, is there something I can do about it? If there is a problem that you can solve, take some concrete and physical action. Okay, lay down. Get down. Lay down. If there's a problem that you can solve, take some concrete and physical action. So this might look like speaking up for yourself or asking for a raise or scheduling a time to sit down and deep dive into your taxes and get them done or file an extension. You'll notice how all these things are kind of anxiety provoking, but remember taking action shows your nervous system that you can keep yourself safe. And it makes the stress more short-term instead of chronic. Now again, you can handle acute stress. It's the chronic stress that wears you down. Okay, let me give you another practical way to create clarity around these worries. Ask yourself, what exactly am I afraid will happen? And what evidence do I have right now? And what's a more likely explanation? So example, they didn't text back. What exactly am I afraid of? That they're upset with me and they'll ghost me. What evidence do I have right now? Well, they didn't text back. What's a more likely explanation? Well, they might just be busy or they didn't see my message or their phone battery is dead. Then going back to our first question, am I actually in danger? No, like even if they're upset with me, that's not dangerous, right? Maybe your worries are about a situation that you can't control. To get clarity on that, you can play the what-if game all the way to its end. Now, this might be best done with a therapist. So you start with a worry that's been playing on repeat in your thoughts and then you give a voice to what's behind it. So for example, you might be worried like, what if I can't find a job? Then what? Well, then I won't be able to pay my mortgage. Then what? Then after a few months, the bank would foreclose and I would lose the house. Then what? Okay, then I would have to move in with a family member. Then what? Well, I would survive. It wouldn't be the end of the world and I'd keep looking for a job, right? Now, I can see how a lot of people would take this what-if game all the way to the end and catastrophize and that's why this is really important to do with a therapist or at the very least like on paper because you don't want to get sucked into a spiral. Instead, you want to remind yourself that you have options at every point and that you're going to survive. Okay, back to creating safety to tone down the hypervigilance. Here's the next strategy. Your brain has a natural default mode of scanning for danger. It's called negativity bias. In order to keep you safe, it's going to pay more attention to the mountain lion that might eat you than the delicious food you could harvest in the field. Now, this mental shortcut keeps you safe, but left unchecked can make you kind of miserable. Plus, once we start scanning for danger, we'll see it everywhere. People aren't trustworthy. Bad things are sure to happen. So then what we start looking for, we see more of. A wise therapist, Dean Anderson, once told me the story of how he started shopping for a car for his family. They needed a Suburban for his five kids and after they started shopping, they learned about the color pewter for Suburbans. They'd never heard of it before and they thought it was a cool color. And so now everywhere they went, they started noticing pewter Suburbans at the store, at the church parking lot, on the freeway. What you look for, you get more of. So traumatic experiences can be kind of like this. Once something scary happens to us, it's easy to constantly scan for more scary or dangerous things. So you get stuck in hypervigilance, just constantly noticing the smallest signs of danger. But what if we look for safety and goodness instead? Will we see more of that? This is what I love about the brain. One way to do this is called orienting. So pause for a moment in the room you're in. Look around. Swivel your head. Use your peripheral vision. That's the sides of your eyes. There is no fire. Slow down and say, I am safe enough right now, here in this room. You can train yourself to notice how safe you are. Now it's easy to scan for triggers. And what I want you to do is to start to scan for glimmers instead. Glimmers are these small micro moments of joy, safety, or connection that calm the nervous system and foster these positive emotional responses. So what we look for, we get more of. Here's a couple of ways to draw attention to the fact that here in this moment, you are safe. Scan for the good each day and have a place to write it down. This might be like a gratitude journal, or you could use an app like gratitude plus or day one on your phone. You can prompt it and it'll, it'll prompt you to put a positive picture in every day. You could also just take the time to share the good that you see. Maybe it's just sending a picture to a friend or a family member. Supportive connection is the best antidote to the perception of danger. Hang out with safe people, make eye contact with them, hug them, or write down three good things you accomplish each day. By paying attention to the good things, to the actual safety that you experience every day that you have been ignoring, you can start to shift your nervous system to feel safe when you actually are safe. Okay. The next one's a powerful way to show your brain that you are actually safe. If you notice your worry thoughts cycling around an upcoming event, it's an opportunity to train your brain to turn down that hypervigilance. Write down what you're worried is going to happen. So you might say like, Oh, I'm going to embarrass myself in front of my peers. And then after the event record what actually happened. So, um, write down, Oh, I didn't embarrass myself. We had fun. Right. And over time, you'll start to see a pattern. Your brain over predicts danger. So when you start to pay close attention to the positive outcomes, you rewire your brain to trust that you are safe, that you are capable and you don't have to worry all the time. Now, remember we have negativity bias. So we're much more likely to pay attention to all the times where things didn't go good than all the times where they went just fine, or actually quite well. This is why writing it down and tracking it. It's really important way to retrain your brain that it does not have to worry all the time. Okay. Here's my third skill for you to turn down hypervigilance and hyper arousal. You're going to use your body to show your brain that you are safe. Hypervigilance lives in our nervous system. When we have tense muscles, it sends a message to our brain that we're in danger. Rushing multitasking and keeping busy all the time sends messages that there's a fire when there isn't. Your nervous system listens more to what you do than what you say. So you might be saying like, calm down. I'm safe. I don't need to fear, but your body is saying, I'm keeping busy. I must be running from something. So staying busy and tense tells your brain and body that you must be in danger. So instead, one of the most effective ways to decrease hypervigilance is to send your mind a message of safety from your body. Several times a day, drop your shoulders, unclench your jaw, let your hands hang loose, and exhale really slowly. And you can say out loud, I don't need to brace right now. You're teaching your brain that you're not under attack. You'll probably need to set multiple reminders on your phone to do this. Your body is one of the most powerful messengers to your brain, so use it to send a message of safety. Okay, my free grounding skills course will teach you more ways to do that. Okay, so what if you've tried all this and nothing helps? Let me ask you a hard question. Maybe you hate this hypervigilance smoke alarm. Maybe you wish it would go away. But be real with me for a minute. Is there some part of you that actually finds worrying helpful? Maybe pause the video and write this down. What are you afraid would happen if you stopped worrying? Who would you be? Now most people resist the skills I just gave you because they secretly have a rule somewhere that says worrying keeps me safe. I have to keep doing it. Now, if you don't check yourself for these mental rules, then when you try to implement the changes, you'll subconsciously undermine them. So I want you to check yourself right now for any superstitious beliefs around all this worrying. Now, when I learned about scheduled worry, which really decreased my worrying by like 90%, I caught myself thinking, what if I stop worrying so much and then God has to send me trials to keep me humble? That is a superstitious thought. Here's another one. If I worry about it, then it won't happen. This trains your brain to think that worry is a lucky rabbit's foot that magically prevents bad things from happening. Here's another sneaky thought. It's better to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised than to hope for the best and get disappointed. It's like you secretly think that expecting the worst will protect you emotionally from feeling sad or surprised or hurt, but expecting the worst is keeping you stuck, feeling anxious and stressed. So are you clinging to worry and hypervigilance because you secretly think it keeps you safe? Just ask yourself, is this working for me? Is this how you want to live your life? Most people would say no. Rewiring hypervigilance takes some time, but it is something that you can do with practice. So if you're willing to let go of your constant worry, here's a recap. When you do notice that you're feeling tense, armored, jittery, take the time to ask, am I safe enough right now? Is there an action I need to take? If you're safe enough, then scan for safety. Take special notice and write down the good that happens to you each day. And take the time to slow down and soften your body. You don't need to force yourself to calm down. You don't need to force your brain to be quiet. You can just gently remind it that you are safe enough, that you are capable in this moment. And little by little, you can wire new pathways to let go of hypervigilance for your nervous system to settle down and feel safe. Okay, thanks for being here. Really appreciate you. Thank you for watching, and please take care.