Stress vs Trauma

‘Stress’ might be the most used and most misunderstood word in modern times. 

When people talk about stress, they are often referring to a negative, unnatural feeling. 

But stress is a normal and natural reaction to an outside event or threat. We need it; it makes us aware that something has changed. 

Stress is impossible to prevent or stop; without it, we would be in trouble. 

We can, however, increase our tolerance of perceived threats, so that we have less chance of experiencing prolonged stress. 

For example, the first time you talk in front of a group of people, it might be stressful, but if you do it often enough, it can feel as normal as walking.

Before we look at stress in more detail, there is a distinction to be made between stress and trauma. 

We can be stressed without trauma, but trauma cannot occur without stress. 

With trauma, which is an inappropriate reaction to a stressful event, stress becomes linked to the memory, and so can arise at any moment and cause us to go into defensive or survival mode without any reason or threat.

What exactly happens to our body when we are stressed? Ideally, we would all like to be calm and focused all the time. 

These states are regulated by our autonomic nervous system, which has three branches, but here we are concerned with only two of them: the sympathetic branch, which makes us alert, and the parasympathetic branch, which makes us calm, for rest and digestion (mental as well as physical).

When we are stressed, the sympathetic branch of our nervous system becomes active, because it wants us to move or do something (this state is also called arousal). It’s not as simple as an ‘on/off’ switch, as there are different levels of stress:

• Eustress: The optimal amount of stress for the activity we are undertaking. It’s a good type of stress that means when we need to work, we are alert.
• Hyperstress: When there is too much arousal, which limits our ability to move and think clearly.
• Hypostress: When there is not enough stress, so that we feel tired or lethargic, bored or restless, even depressed.

As we have seen, being alert is useful, but too much alertness is not. If we are in this state, it will be harder for us to focus on things other than self-preservation, and we become less creative and organised. This is far from the ideal state to be in. 

At school, children are now more cautious than ever, because everything they do can be filmed by other children and with one click can be shared with the world. This can put your child in a constant state of over-alertness, which is draining and unhealthy. 

The above levels of stress exist on a continuum. We can be in a state of calm alertness, above that a more focused alertness, above that hyperstress, and above that panic. 

In the other direction, we can go from calm, to tiredness, to lethargy, to depression. Because most people don’t consciously control their stress levels, they can spend their whole lives at its mercy. 

When you add uncertainty to stress, you get fear. Almost all bullying starts in the verbal zone and a lot of it stays there; there is a threat, but in most cases not a direct one. 

Nevertheless, we perceive it and fear enters our mind. Fear can arise when false evidence or expectations appear real. 

Thinking will tell us whether the threat is real, whether we are in physical danger or whether our fear is what Michael Gervais calls FOPO: Fear Of People’s Opinions, or Fear Of (our) Personal Opinions. Or, to interpret the acro-nym another way: fear of possible outcome, or fear of perceived outcome.

Even though the system is ‘autonomic’, it is something we can consciously control. In fact, stress operates rather like a thermostat. We can turn it up or down depending on how much we need – if we know how and we practise.

One easy way we can do this is through our breathing. The phrenic nerve passes down the spine between the lungs and heart and controls the diaphragm.

This means it can control breathing. If you are agitated or having a panic attack, inhale twice through your nose, then exhale through your mouth. Repeat this three times. 

As well as being able to calm ourselves through slow, controlled breathing, we can also breathe in a way which will increase our alertness and ability to respond quickly.

In the case of bullying, stress is a normal reaction. What we don’t want to happen is for this stress to become trauma. 

The key is to realise that the threat is not real, and so it is a normal reaction but at an inappropriate time.

Andrew Huberman says when something is not being done on an automatic pilot, our brain likes to predict three things: duration, path and outcome. In other words, how long it is going to take, how we are going to do it, and what the (desired) outcome is. We have reimagined this as an SOS signal. When something is uncertain, imagine your brain sending out an SOS signal for help, asking you to identify:

• S = stretch (how long it will take to resolve)
• O = outcome (what you want to happen)
• S = strategy (how best to achieve that)

This process can help prevent stress from becoming trauma. We all have bad moments, but it is important to realise that they are only moments. We sometimes say we are having a ‘bad day’, when in fact we have had only a few bad moments on that day. 

Our brain processes information through sensation, perception, emotions, thoughts and actions. We often try to respond to negative experiences by first trying to feel better, by telling ourselves to calm down, but this is like mental juggling. What we need is to turn down our stress thermostat.

We must also train ourselves to increase our stress threshold, so that we can stay in uncomfortable states without losing mental clarity, answer the SOS and work out what to do. 

We should first ensure that general vitality is high, because when our vitality is low our stress threshold also goes down. 

We should also develop control of our breathing and challenge ourselves more often. This will enable us not only to raise our threshold but also, when we reach that threshold, to recover more quickly.

Our task is to break the link between the stressful event (bullying) and the future (trauma). This is an incremental process, which is another reason why it’s so important to mentor our child, because it’s easier to prevent the problems from occurring than to fix them after they do.

Understanding how stress and trauma work will put you in a better position to mentor your child to read and regulate their own state, depending on what is necessary, to prevent present stress becoming future trauma.