How It Works

The brain kicks into high gear during a stress or trauma event.

• Our attention narrows, enabling quick, directed thinking to evaluate danger and make rapid decisions. 

• Our brain ignores irrelevant information in order to conserve resources

After the stress or trauma event and/or if the stress is ongoing, these changes in the brain can have lingering impact.

• Memories can be fragmented, difficult to retrieve, very vivid or blacked out

• Learning new information can be challenging as it requires memory “updating”, which is limited

• “Brain fog”, forgetfulness and inattention can occur because our brain is occupied with the stressor

• Cognitive-emotional overload is expressed as shock, confusion, indecision

How to Use

Identify your brain symptoms of stress. Identify the implications and possible management strategies. For example: if you are struggling to listen, to follow directions (learn new information), slow down, try 5 Finger Breathing or Trace 8 Breathing, let your body help your brain. If your thoughts are racing or you are hypervigilant ( hyper-alert, scanning for stressors), use grounding skills 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding or Look Around.

When to Use - Signs of Stress/Trauma

Use to promote self/other stress assessment. The earlier we identify symptoms of stress, the earlier we can activate healthy coping.

Use when experiencing any brain symptoms of stress.

What It Can Do

• increase brain awareness, helping to differentiate between stressed state and resting state

• learning brain symptoms of stress normalizes experience – taking it from “what’s wrong with me” to “this is a normal response to stress”

• eliminate stigma by understanding the brain’s normal response to stress

• promote support seeking behavior

• promote recovery from stressor using healthy coping skills