KNOW YOUR BRAIN
This brain structure plays a major role in detecting emotionally significant information, including potential threats.
Amygdala
This branch of the autonomic nervous system is strongly involved in mobilizing the body for action during perceived threat.
Sympathetic
Confronting, yelling, pushing back, or becoming aggressive in response to perceived danger commonly fits this survival response.
Fight
A present-day stimulus associated with a previous traumatic experience that produces significant emotional or physiological activation is commonly called this.
Trigger
The ability to recognize what you are feeling in the present moment.
Awareness
This brain structure helps organize memory and provides context that helps distinguish past experiences from current situations.
Hippocampus
This branch contributes to processes such as rest, digestion, and recovery after activation.
Parasympathetic
Escaping, avoiding, running away, or becoming excessively busy to avoid distress commonly fits this response.
Flight
The process of staying away from people, places, thoughts, feelings, or situations associated with distress or trauma.
Avoidance
A technique that helps bring attention back to the present through the senses or environment.
Grounding
Planning, judgment, impulse control, flexible thinking, and decision-making rely heavily on this area of the brain.
Prefrontal Cortex
Racing heart, faster breathing, sweating, increased alertness, and muscle tension are examples of what?
Physiological Arousal
A patient becomes completely still during conflict and later says, “My mind went completely blank.” What survival response may describe this?
Freeze
Feeling disconnected from yourself, your surroundings, emotions, or experiences is known as this.
Dissociation
The ability to manage emotional intensity without immediately acting on it.
Regulation
During intense emotional arousal, a patient says, “I knew what I should have done, but I couldn't think clearly enough to do it.” What type of cognitive functioning was likely temporarily impaired?
Executive Functioning
This cranial nerve is a major component of the parasympathetic nervous system and helps regulate functions including heart rate and digestion.
Vagus
Someone becomes extremely agreeable, apologizes excessively, and prioritizes keeping another person happy when feeling threatened. What commonly used trauma term describes this?
Fawn
This state involves being excessively alert to possible danger, including constantly scanning your environment for potential threats.
Hypervigilance
The capacity to recover and adapt after stress, adversity, or difficult experiences.
Resilience
This brain structure acts as a major relay station for sensory information, helping route incoming sights, sounds, and sensations to other brain areas for further processing.
Thalamus
This term describes the body's ability to maintain internal physiological stability despite changing conditions and demands.
Homeostasis
This term describes a state of reduced responsiveness or immobility that can occur when the nervous system perceives escape or active defense as unavailable.
Shut-down
This term describes the brain's ability to change and reorganize in response to learning, experience, and repeated practice—one reason trauma responses are not necessarily permanent.
Neuroplasticity
This term describes consciously noticing thoughts, emotions, and sensations without immediately judging or reacting to them.
Mindfulness