{"id":97854,"date":"2014-11-06T08:58:52","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T13:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=97854"},"modified":"2014-11-24T12:34:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T17:34:21","slug":"stuck-in-survival-mode-insights-into-turning-down-your-stress-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/11\/stuck-in-survival-mode-insights-into-turning-down-your-stress-level\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuck in Survival Mode: Insights into Turning Down Your Stress Level"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was first published in the Fall 2014 print edition of\u00a0<\/em>UConn Magazine<\/a>. To read more stories like this, visit\u00a0s.uconn.edu\/fall14<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/a> or download\u00a0<\/a><\/em>UConn Magazine’s<\/a> free app<\/a>\u00a0for iPads.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Stress<\/a>
Stress is not good or bad; it is a physical reaction from your body and brain that is intended to help keep you safe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the UConn School of Medicine, Julian Ford has spent the past two decades researching stress and trauma. He has edited or authored 10 books, including co-authoring <\/em>Hijacked by Your Brain: How to Free Yourself When Stress Takes Over<\/a> (Sourcebooks, 2013). Here, he offers a glimpse into his work as well as one approach we can all use in managing our own stress.<\/em><\/p>\n

When stress takes a hold of our daily lives, most of us know how we should handle it: Eat healthfully. Exercise. Pace ourselves. Tend to our relationships. But most of the time, we feel too stressed to maintain the discipline necessary to take these seemingly simple steps. We\u2019ve come to believe that we are just too stressed to use our stress-management skills.<\/p>\n

Stress is ubiquitous in modern life, and stress-related medical and psychiatric illness is increasingly recognized as a worldwide epidemic. Although scientists are working to determine how stress affects individuals, families, communities, and entire societies, and to develop techniques for stress management, there still is no cure for common stress.<\/p>\n

Losing Control
\n<\/strong>My own research over the past 20 years has focused on those suffering from extreme stress syndromes caused by exposure to trauma\u00a0\u2013 such as life-threatening violence, abuse, or disasters\u00a0\u2013 and those who have developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is an acute anxiety disorder in which the sufferer often revisits, or relives, a traumatic event through flashbacks and nightmares. Unfortunately, it is far from rare: Comparable in prevalence to depression, PTSD affects as many as one in every 10 adults in Western societies, and one in every 15 children and adolescents. Developing effective therapeutic interventions to enable traumatized people to recover from\u00a0\u2013 or to prevent\u00a0\u2013 PTSD is one of the most pressing agendas for scientists and health practitioners today.<\/p>\n

“Post-traumatic stress disorder affects as many as one in every 10 adults in Western societies, and one in every 15 children and adolescents.” \u2014Professor Julian Ford, UConn School of Medicine <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In my book Hijacked by Your Brain<\/em>, I explain that there is an alarm center deep in our brains. When we are stressed, that alarm can essentially take control of areas in the brain that manage our memories and enable us to think clearly. For someone victimized by PTSD, that alarm is on high alert. Until it gets reset, the brain is stuck in survival mode, often causing the brain\u2019s memory and thinking centers to \u201ccrash\u201d like a computer\u2019s hard drive, and resulting in persistent feelings of stress that seem unstoppable. Instead of exploring the world so that we can grow, develop, and engage fully in our lives\u00a0\u2013 using what I\u2019ve called the \u201clearning brain\u201d\u00a0\u2013 the brain of a PTSD victim shifts to hypervigilance and a fight-flight state\u00a0\u2013 a \u201csurvival brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resetting Your Alarm<\/strong>
\nThere is no direct biological<\/em> intervention that reliably resets a hypervigilant brain. Medications designed for depression and anxiety help with some PTSD symptoms in some cases\u00a0\u2013 but not consistently \u2013 and they do not fully or permanently restore the survival brain\u2019s capacity to make and to retrieve ordinary memories and to think clearly. However, psychological<\/em> therapies have been shown to reset brain activity in related disorders, such\u00a0 as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Studies are underway in my lab and my colleagues\u2019 labs to test whether victims of PTSD could similarly benefit.<\/p>\n

The most consistently effective psychological therapies for PTSD are designed to change how people remember extremely stressful or traumatic experiences \u2013 but not to enable them to reset their brains\u2019 alarm systems. To address this gap, my research has focused in part on developing practical skill sets for resetting the brain\u2019s alarm when it has become stuck in survival mode. Changing how one feels and thinks when recalling traumatic experiences may indirectly reset the brain\u2019s survival alarm, but there might be a more direct path if we can help people to re-engage the brain\u2019s memory and thinking centers on a 24×7 basis, rather than only when recalling stressful memories.<\/p>\n

The educational and therapeutic program I have developed, \u201cTrauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy\u201d (TARGET), shows individuals how experiencing extreme, chronic, or traumatic stressors can lead the brain\u2019s alarm to react self-protectively and become stuck in survival mode. They also learn how to use their brain\u2019s memory and thinking centers throughout the day<\/em> (and at night) to reset their alarm back into learning mode. TARGET then teaches several common-sense, practical skill sets to engage the brain\u2019s memory and thinking centers and reset the alarm \u2013 strategies that anyone<\/em> can use in moments of high stress. One of these approaches is called \u201cSOS,\u201d which stands for S<\/strong>low down, O<\/strong>rient, and S<\/strong>elf-check. (Try it yourself right now \u2013 just see the sidebar.)<\/p>\n

\n

Feeling stressed? Try the \u201cSOS\u201d approach right now:<\/strong><\/p>\n

SLOW DOWN
\nRe-enter the present moment. Observe what\u2019s happening in your mind and body. Perhaps count to 10, close your eyes, or take three deep breaths.<\/h3>\n

ORIENT TO YOUR CORE VALUES
\nFocus your mind entirely on one thought<\/em>. That thought\u00a0\u2013 an image, an emotion, a goal\u00a0\u2013 is whatever at this moment is most important to you in your life<\/em>. Focusing on just one thought turns down your brain\u2019s alarm.<\/h3>\n

SELF-CHECK
\nTake a moment to assess the level of stress you\u2019re feeling as well as your level of personal control, or your ability to think clearly, on scales of 1 to 10.<\/h3>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

If slowing down and orienting don\u2019t turn down your stress, doing a self-check can help activate your learning brain, leading you to begin feeling better and thinking more clearly.<\/p>\n

Stress is not good or bad; it is a physical reaction from your body and brain that is intended to help keep you safe. Instead of avoiding or trying to \u201cget over\u201d your stress reactions, SOS may be a way to help you regain the one essential skill that chronic stress takes away: the ability to stop and to think clearly so that you can make the right choices.<\/p>\n

Thinking clearly when you are under stress is a challenge we all face as humans. We\u2019ve all got an alarm in our brains, and we all experience stress reactions that can threaten our health, happiness, and success. Fortunately, we all also have potentially highly effective memory and thinking centers in our brain, and we can learn how to harness those capacities. Use your stress reactions as a reminder to pay attention to what really matters in your life. Reorienting yourself to the emotion you want to feel right now is the key to turning down your alarm and effectively managing stress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn Health psychiatry professor Julian Ford shares one simple strategy that you can use right now to regain control of your emotions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[49],"class_list":["post-97854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 05:26:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97854"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98799,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97854\/revisions\/98799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97854"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=97854"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=97854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}