The Trauma Cycle
The Effect of Stress on Total Health
To have total health, we need these 5 key elements working together to support each other and our bodies and minds.
Each system, like the systems in our bodies, need each other to function at their best and create an environment for healing.
When trauma/Stress occurs…
Stress affects all of these factors. If we no longer have time to eat properly or see the value in hydration, this has a dramatic effect on our ability to manage stress - we no longer have the building blocks to remain calm and collected. Our sleep can be negatively impacted leaving us too tired to interact with others or exercise. Our total health - physical, mental and social - begins to snowball.
Immediately, this affects our digestion and immune systems as well, leaving us more vulnerable to physical disease and other symptoms.
Trauma can be a precursor to auto-immunity, IBS, cancer, hormone imbalances, and more.
Sometimes we are short-sighted with symptom chasing and moment-to-moment reactions, but being healthy isn’t a moment we reach. Health is a resilience we build - so we won’t have to work so hard to be healthy. If we think of health as a river, we work to slowly move the path of that river closer and closer - through practice - until it flows right to us.