Trauma Recovery Tools To Fit Into A Busy Schedule

Jennifer (host) 

 Welcome to More Mind, Less Grind: Mental Health Strategies for Busy Professionals. This podcast brings you evidence-based insights from licensed clinical psychologists at the Utah Center for Evidence-Based Treatment. It’s designed for busy professionals, managers, and business leaders who want to lead, perform, and grow without burning out.

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Well, hello and welcome back to today’s episode, and today we’re gonna be discussing trauma recovery tools that could fit into a busy schedule. Many people. May wanna work through their past experiences, but feel like they don’t have the time for intensive therapy or longer self-care routines. You know, you see a lot about like one hour daily meditation and things like that.

So the good news is that there actually are some practical evidence-based strategies that can help. And to help us navigate this topic, I’m joined today by Dr. Alex Ertl. So Dr. Ertl here is a licensed clinical psychologist, and he specializes in helping individuals build resilience and process trauma and create sustainable healing practices. So, Dr. Ertl, welcome back and let’s just jump right on in. Okay. So what are some quick daily practices that professionals can use to work through trauma, even with a packed schedule? 

Dr. Alex Ertl

Yeah. Yeah. So I love this question. I think I would wanna make a distinction of, you know, there’s, there’s a difference between really deep diving and doing trauma processing and trauma treatments, and I think there’s a little bit of a difference between that work and what is.

Like coping. What is maintenance? What is sort of like real small incremental progress that works towards that bigger goal? I’m not gonna recommend that someone goes and divulges their, uh, trauma impact statement at work and really kind of opens up that huge can of worms. Uh, I think that’s better left for like a therapy context, but there’s so much that we can do in the meantime too.

Not just cope and maintain how we’re doing, but to start kind of like doing these little re rethinks that can help calm our nervous system and retrain our nervous system. And I think that’s where we can kind of make those incremental, you know, added together, turn into something larger strides is by doing these little practices that I would recommend that people do while they’re in trauma treatments.

And also can really give people a leg up if they’re doing them before. So, so with that, it, you know, it, it really is ideal of like, oh wow, how great would it be if you woke up every day at 5:00 AM and gave yourself an hour to meditate, uh, and exercise and all that. But that’s so unrealistic for so many people.

Mm-hmm. Even when I’m teaching people like a 20 minute mindfulness exercise, I’ll usually. Do some form, some sort of format where it’s like this is 20 minutes and also here if you’re interested, is a way to do it in one or two minutes, uh, because there’s still quite a bit, bit of benefit that you can get from that.

Jennifer (host)

So, well actually I’m curious. I always ask all of the clinicians at our center to send me some of their book recommendations and regardless. If they are focusing on trauma therapy or not, almost everyone recommends the book, the Body Keeps Score. Mm-hmm. And it kind of sounds a lot like what you’re talking about now, that working on the body for trauma is probably the best place to start, but can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Like, it’s a, it’s a pretty thick bug, but can you give me a little synopsis of, of why it’s important to focus on the body when doing this work?

Dr. Ertl

Yeah, so if we think about our cells as an entire beta, like our nervous system is not just our brain, like our nervous system is our brain, our spinal cord, and then all the nerves that go out to all different parts of our body.

I had a EMDR trainer say something that always stuck with me of like, people forget that their heads are connected to their body, so our brain can send signals that increase heart rate. But this being a two-way street, our brain also gets information from our body. Meaning if we sort of cut to the chase and and can find a physical way to slow our breathing, slower, our heart rate.

That works into this two-way street feedback loop that signals to our brain that we are experiencing safety. Uh, so that’s something that I like to really keep in mind of like, it’s not just all, you know, your thoughts leading to this experience in your body, but it’s reciprocal. So you know, I can much more easily.

Control my breath, then I can control what my brain thinks about, right? Mm-hmm. If I say, don’t think about a pink elephant right now, I’m probably gonna think of a pink elephant. The harder I try not to do that, the more I’m gonna think about it. So rather than embark on the impossible task, let’s, let’s think about ways we can intervene at the body level, calm you physically, and also that’s going to send these signals of safety back to the brain.

So one example of this is doing some deep breathing. Mm-hmm. And I wanna make a distinction of what is good deep breathing. What versus what is unhelpful? Deep breathing. So if we think about different ways that we’re breathing, if you’re, if you were to think of a situation where you are hyping yourself up, like maybe you’re about to go out on a.

I don’t know, a lacrosse field or something and you’re trying to like get your adrenaline pumping and you’re doing some big breathing. Uh, or if you’re about to be, uh, I always use the example of like attacked by a tiger, a need to fight back. We’re gonna breathe in ways in those kinds of situations where our shoulders are really going up and our chest is really expanding.

Like, if you can think of that kind of like idea of like, I’m really puffed up right now. It’s this sort of like aggressive stance. It’s this place where we’re getting ready for action. Um. So if we’re trying to breathe for relaxation and we’re breathing with the upper portion of our torso, we are actually inadvertently sending those signals of like, I’m ready for action.

My heart rate needs to be up. I need to be able to, to jump or run, or whatever it is right now. Where we get the benefit and we see that relaxation is if we breathe more so with your belly, we call it belly breathing, diaphragmatic breathing. The same way, if you were thinking, if you were laying down on your back, if you had a book sitting on your belly, we’re gonna try to make that book go up and down.

The idea is we want to breathe from our belly because that’s what promotes safety and relaxation to us. Uh, I’ve read studies that. People who practice this regularly, you can actually notice changes all throughout to their, their body, even even down to the DNA level, uh, that this has this really profound effect.

Uh, changes the blood oxygen concentration in our body, changes the p uh, the PH levels of our blood if, if we’re engaging this. So it has some like, uh, on the mono, on the molecular level, a really strong impact. Um, yeah, so, so what I would suggest to people is to find even just a minute to do that belly breathing.

And the biggest point is to have the exhale be longer than the inhale. ’cause the exhale is where we are getting that real ex, uh, impact of like, this is providing a sense of safety.

Jennifer (host)

So it sounds like just sitting in your car at a stoplight, you know, doing like one or two breaths here is all that it takes, and, or, or do you recommend, you know, actually setting aside quiet undisturbed time for that?

Dr. Ertl

The latter is the ideal, and I very much recognize that may not happen, and those one to two minutes, or even even the 20 seconds can have a, have a cumulative impact on us. Maybe you’re about to go into a meeting or leave a meeting, or maybe you’re in the middle of a meeting and. You’re recognizing that you’re getting hyped up.

Like I would much rather see someone during an hour’s long, stressful meeting do this twice, which is nice. You know, you can do it and no one’s gonna know what’s going on.

Jennifer (host)

Very cool. Okay, and so we’ve got some good breathing exercises, diaphragmatic breathing, where the exhale is longer than the inhale pepper.

A few of those throughout the day. Mm-hmm. What else you got? What are some other quick daily practices?

Dr. Ertl

So that’s really helpful for getting in touch with their body, becoming aware of their body. It’s good for those people who that is not inherently frightening. Right. For, for a lot of people, especially if they’ve experienced trauma, it’s really terrifying growing and awareness of what are the sensations in my body, because maybe it’s these sensations in my body that were really.

That’s where I felt pain and that’s where my suffering showed up. Uh, during a trauma. A lot of people try to escape the experience of their, of their kind of inner world in that way. So I would say on the opposite end of that spectrum, uh, a good exercise to do if one is finding themselves getting slightly elevated or again, looking for some sort of grounding that isn’t so internally focused, would be a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 exercise.

And I love that. Like, I feel like in. I don’t know. The longer I practice therapy, the more often I share that with people and people are like, yeah, I’ve heard it before. I’ve seen it before in media. So I think it’s something that is becoming a little bit more commonplace. And it’s also something I would say, let’s keep this in the toolbox.

So five, four, three, two, one is what we call a grounding exercise in the sense of like we are getting connected to the ground below us. We’re not just kind of floating out there in our own anxiety and our own sense of panic. So what we do is we go through each of our five external senses and we kind of get in touch or connect with each one of those in a slowed down sort of way.

So I might say to someone, okay, what are five things that you can see? So if I’m in a place where I’m stressed or I’m panicked, we can’t just do it quick of like lamp, pencil, picture, bookcase. I would wanna slow it down so that the person is like, oh, I’m noticing this lamp is in front of me. It’s got a white shade and a black stand and a pull chain.

You don’t necessarily have to say all that out loud, but for yourself, kind of take that into account. So would say, what are five things that you can see? And then we pick another sense and do four things that we can detect. I usually recommend what are four things that we feel? Mm-hmm. So this, I would say the pressure of my legs and the top of my seats.

I feel the fabric of my sweater against my arms. I feel the plastic of my glasses against the bridge of my nose, and I feel coolness in my feet right now. And then three, I usually recommend what are three things we can hear? Two things that I can taste and if, or smell. We just need one. So in this, in this process of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, uh, usually what happens is it takes us out of the panic in our body or the stress that we’re experiencing and showing up in our body, uh, and moves that outward often can have the effect of helping us get out of our minds too, if we’re really just sort of hyperfocused on, on the thing we’re ruminating onto.

Jennifer (host)

Got it. Okay. Very cool. You mentioned specifically doing that when you’re feeling a little panicky or stressed. Is there value for doing that when you’re feeling totally cool, or is it mostly just something that you do when you’re noticing you need some extra support?

Dr. Ertl

You can’t do it at a wrong time.

These are all part of kind of like the broader category of mindfulness exercises, which to me means that we are focused, not so much on the internal noise of our thoughts, but are more connected to the, uh, actual sensations that we’re having. So this to me, it’s great. We’re, we’re actually becoming more aware, more mindful of our environment and we’re more connected with the present moment rather than so much focusing on what we’re worrying about for the future or what we’re remembering from the past.

Same with that body breathing. Like you cannot enough connect with your body and become aware of what your body is, if that feels safe for you.

Jennifer (host)

So you’ve mentioned some, uh, the breathing and the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 grounding exercises, and it sounds like those are things that people can do whenever they think about them or whenever they realize that they might want or need that during their day.

Is there any other time or situation that would be especially important to incorporate some of these skills into?

Dr. Ertl

You know, what we can best help people to do is create habits around them. And an easy way to do that is to think about what are, what are the habits that I already have? Or what are the built in pieces of my routine, and how do I start pairing this with those times?

So even just like getting up from a desk and walking to the bathroom, that could be a time where, you know, we didn’t necessarily talk about this. But there’s a place for mindful movement and walking meditation. So if you can, maybe the next time you’re getting up from a spot to go to the bathroom, see how mindfully you can take that walk.

Both in sense of, rather than just kind of thinking of like, I need to get through this, or what is the next thing I’m doing? Kind of being in a stuck in the mind notice like what is the sensation of my. Feet pounding the ground. And in this rhythm, what is the environment? As I step out of my cubicle or my office, maybe I take a deep breath and I notice like, what does the air smell like?

What is, what is sort of one element that we can tap into to promote this sense of grounding, which in turn is gonna promote a sense of safety again, depending on how safe we’re feeling, our environment, if the hallway is a neutral place for us, I’d rather tap into that and be like. Okay. This is a spot.

I’m noticing my body moving. I’m noticing I’m in control of my body. And this would promote a sense of safety and grounding over that Continued rambling of the mind. Mm-hmm. Or fixation on a past memory.

Jennifer (host)

Okay. And so it sounds like that might be an opportunity to practice general mindfulness, is that what you, what you’re saying?

Dr. Ertl

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, kind of that more general mindfulness in terms of breathing, you know, being at your desk at the top of every hour. I had an old coworker who I aspire to become more like one day who, uh, had like an old Casio watch that would beep at every hour, and he Oh, wow. Uh, actually carried through and would do a short breathing exercise.

Uh, he was on another level that I aspire to, to actually carry that out consistently. But we all have, you know, smartphones, often in session, I’ll have people pick up their phone and say, like, tell Siri to remind you every hour to do some mindfulness. So if you can build that in, or if you’ve got, you know.

Uh, a structure where every hour is a new meeting or something like that. Mm-hmm. Take that as a time for two breaths before the meeting begins. So really integrating these things into, to the way, into the habits or the, or the flow that you’ve already got in your day. Got it. Now on the hour, every hour might sound a little intense, but it sounds like you’re also saying that there’s value in even just doing it a couple times a day.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So not to stress too much about Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Scheduling.

Jennifer (host)

Okay. All right. Well, it looks like that concludes today’s episode on integrating Trauma recovery tools into daily routines. So thank you, Dr. Ertl, for sharing your expertise on how professionals can help integrate this into their daily lives.

And to our listeners, I hope this conversation helps you feel empowered to build small but impactful healing practices into your life.

Thanks for joining us on More Mind Less Grind. If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it with a colleague. For more strategies from our licensed clinical psychologist at the Utah Center for Evidence-Based Treatment, be sure to subscribe. Leave us a review or visit our website at ucebt.com. Until next time, we hope you’re inspired to lead well, live well and support mental health in your workplace.