The Neuroscience of Trauma: How Somatic Therapy Rewires the Brain.
Trauma leaves a profound imprint on the brain, leaving you with chronic anxiety, feeling emotionally dysregulated, and can keep you in a constant state of hypervigilance. Somatic therapy helps rewire the brain due to neuroplasticity, the brain’s incredible ability to forge new neural pathways.
Think of it like toning a muscle. If we’ve only ever exercised in one way for years, then the muscles we haven’t used can become tight and weak, causing pain and discomfort. But if we change our exercise routine, then over time, these previously underused muscles can become toned and flexible.
The key is patience and a willingness to explore compassionately and with curiosity.
What is Happening in the Traumatised Brain
Neuroscience tells us that trauma affects the nervous system by creating patterns of thinking and reacting that can become deeply ingrained. These patterns influence how we respond to stress and perceive safety.
The brain’s limbic system, particularly the amygdala, becomes hyperactive and enlarged when we experience something that traumatises us. This can cause it to signal danger even in non-threatening situations. In contrast, the prefrontal cortex, which is our centre for rational thought and emotional regulation, becomes underactive and effectively shrinks.
Somatic therapy offers a revolutionary approach to healing trauma by bringing awareness to our experiences within the body rather than solely the cognitive experience. Through mindful awareness of physical sensations, somatic therapy helps to regulate the nervous system and release the trauma held within the body’s tissues. This practice encourages the nervous system to transition from its survival mode — fight, flight, or freeze, the sympathetic and dorsal vagal responses — back into a state of calm and balance, our parasympathetic nervous system or ventral vagal state.
Neuroplasticity - Our Brain’s Unique Ability to Heal
By working directly with the nervous system, somatic therapy facilitates neuroplasticity, the brain’s incredible ability to rewire itself.
Techniques such as breathwork, conscious movement, and guided body awareness activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This helps the brain to create new neural pathways that support safety, comfort, and emotional regulation. It is in this state that we connect with others, rest and sleep, meditate, eat and digest.
Integrating somatic therapy with approaches like Internal Family Systems (IFS) helps you access internal ‘parts’ that carry trauma — your psychological wounds. The combination of parts work and bringing awareness to bodily sensations brings together a profound and compassionate framework for self-healing.
Connect To Self
Somatic therapy rewires the brain not only by calming the overactive fear response but also by forming a deep, loving connection to your body.
This mind-body integration empowers you to reclaim control over your wellbeing, transform the long-lasting effects of trauma, and live more fully in the present moment.
Through this neuroscience-informed approach, healing becomes an embodied process that honours both the mind and the body as essential partners in recovery. And allows you to make a heart-centred connection to your Self energy. This means being Self-led, guided through life from a place of centredness.
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