TRANSCRIPT - Trauma and the Brain

>>Donna: Alrighty, it is time for. TSBBI Outreach Tech T time. This is our last tea time for the school year and we're going to wrap it up. As we get our goals together and keep in mind that we are working on building a community of practice for technology that allows us to support each other and our. In the spirit of that goal. We want this to be as interactive as session as we can make it. You're encouraged to converse in the chat or in the QA. If you're sending a question to myself or to Rebecca, please use the Q&A so we can keep it separate from the. Chat feature and If you're commenting to each other, the chat feature would be the best. Today is Rebecca Russell coming to visit us from ESC 10 and she's going to talk about From hurt to healing supporting children after trauma. So I am going to stop my share here and turn it over to Rebecca. Welcome.

>>Rebecca: Thank you. I'll go ahead and get my screen shared in just a second. I'm Rebecca Russell. I'm a behavior and all of consulted here at region 10. And. Of coming and doing things like this and sharing information. But, my, is a social worker and I've been in schools for about 17 years. Really passionate about supporting teachers and just kind of helping build your toolboxes. So, to have the opportunity. We're gonna get started. I know we're closing out the year with kind of a heavy topic, so I apologize for the the happiness of today. But really important information for us to be able to go through and. And learn about if it's not something that you already, if it is something you know about, then you're just gonna have a nice refreshment today. So we're gonna talk about the impact of trauma. Understanding what trauma is strategies that we can use to support. Our students, family or friends, honestly, anybody who's been in. Thinking about, to support you, whether you're a parent, a teacher. A student. Really the need to make sure to take care of ourselves because supporting someone going through a hard time could be hard for us as well. So we'll talk about that today. Start out with our definition of trauma. Hmm. We're gonna use the 3 E's if you've never heard of it. It's event experience and effects. So. Event is an event series of events or set of circumstances. So we have an event. And we own experience. Not by an individual, it could be physical or emotional. That's viewed as harmful or threatening. And then the key part, right? Cause those things happen often. We have events. And sometimes they could be potentially harmful. Mostly or physically, but the effect is really the key part to has to be there as well as does it have lasting adverse effects on individuals functioning? Whether it's physical, whether it's social, emotional, spiritual. It has those lasting effects so drum experiences can really overwhelm our ability to cope. Which often leads to us finding the way of coping with that may work in the short term that could potentially cause real harm in the long run. And that's what we're gonna think about and talk about today, but really important to remember all 3. Sometimes we talk about. Trauma and I would say overuse the word and we call everything a trauma. So sometimes we have, I'm gonna go back. We have an event. That was scary. The experience was scary and we generalize it as a Trump. However, we can all experience different things. These are some examples of traumatic events. That might cause strong emotions or physical reactions. That may or may not persist after that event and have that long lasting effect. So. You could have somebody who experiences a tornado. And does have a trauma response to it while somebody else may not. And another big event that we all mostly experienced is COVID. And not everybody had a traumatic response to COVID. But we do have kids who experienced a lot of neglect, a lot of fear. Lot of isolation and death. During COVID and then I have like I have a friend They went out and traveled they camped. And hiked and her kids have no clue that there was a negative impact. They just thought they got off of school and got to go half-five. So we have the same event, but different experiences and reactions. So being careful not to over generalize. We know that traumatic experiences with those strong emotions. Also don't have to be experienced directly So a child may witness a traumatic event. They might see it on media. They might be told about a trauma. Look through some details. Or hear about things that maybe isn't big, our age appropriate that really impact them. So every kid is different. How their impact is going to be different. But thinking about those 3 E's again, we have our event we have our environment and then our effects. Okay, lots of examples up there. You might have some more in your head. The next piece that we're going to talk about is, the 1st childhood experiences. This may be something you've heard of. If it's not, we're gonna do a quick crash course in it and watch a video on it. But the Center for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente. Conducted a study between like 95 to 97 asked about 17,000 adults. About childhood experiences including emotional, physical. And sexual abuse. Under that neglect category. Household challenges, parental separation, substance abuse, incarceration, violence. Mental illness nearly 2 thirds of the participants noted at least one case. So, at least one adverse childhood experience. And more than one in 5 noted 3 or more. So that started researchers to identify a link between. The 1st childhood experience exposure and a higher likelihood of negative health benefit, negative health benefits, negative health. And behavior outcomes later in life, not benefits. Some of that might be heart disease, diabetes, premature death. So we're going to watch a video. Learn a little bit more about those aces. Thank you. Thank you. What does your parents divorce have to do with your risk for heart disease? If your mother had a drinking problem when you were growing up, are you more likely to suffer from depression as an adult? Here's what you should know about ACEs. ACEs stand for adverse childhood experiences. Extremely stressful events that can happen to a child growing up. Some experiences are so stressful that they can alter brain development, as well as the immune system, increasing the risk of lifelong health and social problems adulthood. The term comes from the adverse childhood experiences study. Landmark research that shed new light on the root cause of everything from stroke and liver disease to substance abuse and mental illness. In the late 19 nineties, an epidemiologist from the Centers for control and a preventive medicine doctor at Kaiser Permanente, set out to understand the association between childhood experience and lifelong health. They asked over 17,000 people in the Kaiser Health Plan in San Diego about their health history. Well as difficult questions about their experiences growing up. Anda and Philitti tallied up 10 different kinds of adversity in this largely-ed up 10 different kinds of adversity in this largely middle-class and college-educated population. They were stunned to see how common aces were. 19% grew up with someone who suffered mental illness. 28%. Had been physically abused. And 2 out of 3 respondents had experienced At least one ace. The researchers next looked at how someone's ace score or the number of adversities they experienced related to a wide array of serious health and social problems. Saw that the more aces someone had, the greater their risk for poor outcomes compared with someone with no aces. Someone with an A score of 4 had twice the risk of heart disease cancer. Someone with an A score of 5 had an 8 times greater chance of being an alcoholic and those with an A score of 6 or more on average died 20 years earlier. With every major problem they looked at in the ACE study, the risk went up for each additional adverse experience in childhood. As Dr. Robert Andas says, what's predictable is preventable. It's important to remember that aces are not destiny. ACEs are a tool for understanding the health of a population as a whole. For individuals, an A score can be a tool for understanding their own risk for health and social problems. Power them to make changes for themselves and their children. Aces tend to get passed down from generation to generation and are common across all income levels, races, and cultures. But increasingly, people of all different professions and backgrounds are coming together to discuss how ACEs affect their communities. They're finding new ways to treat and prevent ACEs. Many doctors are starting to screen their patients for ACEs as part of their medical history. More schools are becoming trauma informed. Considering the source of problem behavior when disciplining their students instead of immediately suspending or expelling them. To learn more about interrupting the cycle of adversity and improving health and well-being for the next generation, please visit KPJR films.co. Thank you.

>>Donna: Rebecca, it looks like we have one question and and And I have, I have a little bit of a comment there too once we're done addressing that one.

>>Rebecca: I did just see that question. Hmm. Oh, go for it.

>>Donna: The question is, is a density suppression or passing considering considered an ace item?

>>Rebecca: Oh, did you want to see your comment first? st

>>Donna: Oh, and my comment was I liked Not like, but that's not the right way to phrase that. What you mentioned vicarious experiences of trauma. So. Especially when we're looking at technology for our students who are using Braille devices that may not be known how to use it by other parents or other teachers. And so there's less supervision. Of the use of those devices that have social media and and YouTube and these other platforms. I could see how the access. To that technology. Might tip the scale for our kiddos. In the exposure to these experiences that may not have on students that have more supervision. In a common platform, like a standard tablet or computer. So that, I mean, that kind of sparked my thinking there on. Social media and other platforms as experiencing that trauma vicariously. If they're not ready for that kind of situation.

>>Rebecca: And I mean, thinking about. Your population. All of our kids and even us as adults can experience that vicariously through technology. And what we view online. So yeah, when, when we take away supervision. And maybe we're spending more time on that. Then the exposure rate goes up. 100%. For our QA question is I deny suppression or passing considered an ACE item. I would have to look up and see if they specifically identify that. That's not one of the identifying questions. However, If that experience was viewed as. Abusive or neglectful. So when we're looking at that emotional use right. Then that would fall under that category. So it's all in the child's experience and how they're interpreting that. And I make some assumptions about how they're interpreting that. And then it might fall under that emotional abuse category. But that's also, again, really comes back to the end of it. That question, feel free to ask again in different way and I'll try to re-answer it. But looking at that video, this is kind of just a little. Visual to help you come back to those. Kind of that information we have that pyramid of showing that the more aces that we have happened, the more impairment we have. Which means we might not know how to deal with it in the best way. Might develop some negative poking mechanisms and those might be more risky. You Which are going to affect health, which create. Potentials for more disease and disabilities and even an early death and that's really how we rise through that little pyramid on there. I love the end of the video because it talks about You know, these are the things that happened if not addressed. But we can't address these things and we're gonna talk about that. Because we can set good healthy situations, but if we don't, what ought to help be social, emotional foundation. And they're going to be gaps in development. That are gonna result in diseases and disability social problems and early death and Hmm. You may even be looking at this, this is the 1st time. And looking at yourself or people in your life something like come in. It's, You know, I have some gut issues and that's pretty common. People have experienced mobile basis. The reality is our body. Her brain. In our trauma is all held here and it's held differently for everybody. Our body keeps us forward. You may have heard of that book. But it's also just a statement that is very true or body. Does keep the score in. Our kids bodies keep the stores, right? We have kids who come in with tummy aches. With Don't make sense. They seem really out of it. They're not with it. I'm having digestive issues, wanting. Wanting things that don't make sense to us. Reacting in ways that don't make sense to us. And. Because our body holds it. You might have a kid who's experienced physical abuse or just very inconsistent things and Then we have that movement memory and they might something might happen near them and they might react in a defensive way. We're like, whoa, I was just putting my hand on your. But our students may have experienced something different. And just being really aware of that and not thinking what's wrong with you, but what is happened to you? Why is our body holding onto that? So I am gonna take a minute. To excessively talk about the brain. For a second. Our brain is super complex, but even though it is complex, we're gonna break it down a little bit today. We're gonna use our hand model if you've ever done the hand model. Then you'll be excited because you'll know some of this. But we also Can learn by repeating it? Cause it sticks in our brain better. So looking at the slide. We have 3 parts. We have that executive prefrontal state. Our emotional state is our Olympic system and our survival state, which is our brain stem right now here. You So this part of the brain is always on and working. But it can't override or shut down other parts of our brain. If it perceives a threat. Severe enough to trigger, the light. Bite freeze response. I have really hard time saying the 3 F's so flight freeze. Got it. Our survival brain. We all need right this is a part of us that helps let us know for safe them helps keep us breathing as well. So some people call it their primitive brain. It protects us from real danger. Also perceived danger. Just keeping us alive down here. It shuts down all the other parts of the brain like I said. And it's gonna quiet them down if we're in sort of survival mode because it needs to take up all the time and energy. To really think. And then we have our emotional brain. That's kind of the middle of our hand as we move up to that blue part on that slide. We move to that limbic part of the brain between our eyeballs in our mouth. We're thinking about where it's out on our head. We share the spring with all mammals on the planet. It's responsible for emotions and attachment. It's where we get the desire to belong, to be loved. To be listened to, to have. Relationships and both community. So when a child is feeling safe in love, they're able to regulate, they're able to learn. So this part of the brain. And also helps them differentiate to the size and severity of the problem. Sometimes we ask our kids like, is it really a big deal? And they don't, they can't differentiate it because. This part might not quite be ready yet. Inside of our Olympic brain, we have our, in here, That little white almond on the slide. So in our hand model, let me bring that thumb in. We remember this is responsible for scanning for danger. We're driving down the road and a caramel sits us and we react, right? So near this accident, a tornado, when we touch a hot stove, we pull back. It gets triggered and pushed. And our survival brain comes into effect. It's like, oh, you push the emergency button. This is kind of our smoke alarm and uses all of our energy to address the danger to save our life. Hmm. If it's triggered too much, then we're not going. We're going to be in a lot of stress and we're going to talk about toxic stress in a minute. Who are triggering it too much that we're not gonna be able to take care of ourselves to do restorative activities that kind of bring us that sense of calm and help re regulate our Olympic system. Right on. This is our executive. Brain. Set this apart from the, right? We all have this as humans. It helps us think rationally, problem solve, see perspectives, have empathy, sustained focus, attention, all those things that we want our kids to be able to do in school. If our brain is exposed to nurturing and positive relationships, and it's safe, predictable environment. Hmm. We develop that brief. From toal cortex fully by age 25. Hmm. We know it doesn't develop fully, but this does not fully develop to the age of 25. So we're looking at our 16 year olds and sometimes we think you know better than this. Hello. And a little bit still it's not fully developed. And knowing that about our brain and about our students. In children that we serve or have at home is really important. So trauma increases the rest of misinterpreting. Let me stop signals, right? So you might have students who do things and get really upset. Because of a trauma trigger that doesn't make sense to us. And then what we have is a faulty alarm and it will blow up and we flip our lid because it's misinterpreted. It could just be a facial expression. I turn a voice. It could be perfume associated with something. Some people after tornado, certain smells or sounds. Okay, push that alarm and flip the lid and they might not even understand why. Most likely they won't understand why. So we're gonna learn a little bit more about the brain. We're gonna watch and about toxic stress, which I just referenced. Thank you. The reality is that we all need a certain amount of stress. To perform one. If we don't care about that exam that we're going to have tomorrow, we'll probably fail. We're going to cross this tree and if traffic is coming at us, we have release of our. We have release of a hormone that we call cortisol. We want to jump out of there and adrenaline and cortisol are going to help us do that. So there's that good amount of stress But if all day long you're feeling like a truck is coming at you, day after day after day that's going to take a toll on the body. And the amygdala obviously here is has greater activation. Yes. In the PT. We were able to image children that had experienced trauma and compare those brain images with children that didn't have an experience of trauma, didn't have symptoms. Right, an exaggerated fear response. Unexaggerated fear responds with decreased activation in areas that we need to control that emotion in the frontal areas. Exposure to early adversity and trauma literally affects the structure and function of children's developing brains. To the kid next to them hits them or the teacher reprimands them in a way that they're uncomfortable with. Right? Literally what they're feeling, that activation. Is like there was a truck coming at them. You can give something that will mask symptoms, right? For example, if someone has a car, you can give them a really strong cough serum that will suppress their enough. But if it's because they have tuberculosis or lung cancer, then what you're doing is merely masking the symptoms while the disease process continues to fester. We know what's happening. In children's brains and bodies with the experience of toxic stress. So the question now is what do we do about it? 3 videos don't like Thank you. Thank you. We all have toxic stress, right? That's what it's talking about. But sometimes when that takes over and that becomes a trauma response. That's when you start to see our survival, bring it triggered and that fight like freeze. Really take over. When we're thinking on our kids, these are the things on the screen. I don't wanna read them all to you, but that you might see. So when we have fighting, we might see they're acting out or aggression. We might just see arguing defiance. Now you might bring your going for flight. I think when we say the word flight, we think of someone literally running away, which is possible, but sometimes that can just look like withdrawal. And just engaging. So we think about our kids who are very withdrawn and disengaged. Those are things are also ways that we escape. So thinking of flight is an escape. And we have freezing, which again can. Also kind of be that withdrawal numbness. Refusing to respond being really slow Again, that disengagement kind of taking it to another level. Sense of stiffness refusing to meet their own needs. So. Okay. Refusing to shower basic needs, eating, things of that nature. Our kids are often often operate at a high level of arousal and fear. So if they perceive they are exposed to an increased danger, that's when we're gonna start seeing those things, whether it's anxiety, hostility, aggressiveness or withdrawal. Even if it doesn't make sense to us and that's really what's important to remember is that a trauma response. Doesn't always make sense to the observer. A lot of times I'll talk to people, they'll say, well, like there was no triggering of it. Nothing happened. And sometimes we don't know their trauma and we don't have to know their trauma to see the sites and symptoms and go, huh. This doesn't make sense. There's probably a reason that it doesn't make sense when we start to look at the why. Why are they, why might they be doing that? And we think about trauma. And start thinking about what you're learning. Oh man, that can come from a trauma spots. And again, I don't have to go find out what that trauma was in order to see those signs. And provide support and coping strategies for that kid. We're gonna talk about that. So we'll talk about those resiliency and protective factors. Cause that is where. We get to help. That's like we spent all of this time. And talking about how horrible it is and what it is to our brains and how what it does to our bodies. But hopes not lost. And that is so important to remember. We set it at the end of that video. We're saying it again now. They can be counterbalanced with those protective factors And we talk about having trauma informed classrooms and trauma from schools. And really those are trauma informed practices that are going to help us counterbalance. And and be the change for that. Child or adults. No, I didn't put it in. I couldn't find it, but it talks about the mirror neurons in our brain and the synapses and how they start to change and rebuild. And when we have these good resiliency and protective factors in place. So. We're gonna talk that. So we have protective factors. We know they help build resiliency. And help build those new positive connections in our brain. Definition. Protective factors or conditions or attributes of individuals. Families, communities, for the larger society that mitigate risk and promote healthy development and wellbeing. You So there's lots of them. These are 4 that's being highlighted here. Social and emotional competence in children. So teaching that, that's a big push right now. I'm in the state of Texas or wherever you happen to be, but really teaching those social and national competencies. Having concrete support in times of need. Huge huge huge huge one is supportive social connections. It just takes one person. That one person to build that relationship to be a consistent person can really help build those new connections in our brain. Knowledge of the parent of parenting. And child development. Is also a protective factor so that we know what we're looking at and how we can help. When we have those protective and promotive factors, we're gonna see. When we increase those, that's when we're gonna have more prevention. So when we have those social connect, we build with that resiliency. And. Service factors. So we want to reduce the psychological stressors. Reduce the. And potential for re traumatization. And then. They stable and fired, right? So if we have an unsafe, unstable environment. We're going to continue to have risk factors. So we're going to want to flip that. We were thinking about something that we're going to be going to our 5 buses. So something to put in your pocket if you need to remember. You So the 1st one of the 5 S's. Is a safe. Environment. This is huge. We all wanna feel safe. If you were at home, you don't feel safe if you're at work and you don't feel safe. And our survival breed is gonna kick in because we need to build a sense of safety. So safe and nurturing environment. Is huge for traumatized children. It's huge for everybody, but even more so for our kids who've experienced trauma. So this is physical safety and emotional security. What that looks like is creating consistency. Creating predictability and emotional support. Is a part of that. So that's going to contribute to creating an environment where the kids still save. Where they can express themselves, they can develop a sense of stability. Also, we're going to see learning occurred is when we feel safe. And you talk about in the school environment having a schedule. We know that's good for all kids, but it's even more important for our kids. Who've experienced a trauma because that provides consistency. Letting them know when things change having consistent staff responses. So one day we have a nurturing loving staff number and then because you had a bad night at home, we're not so nurturing and loving the next day that kind of breaks that consistency that we need. To really build that safe environment. So thinking about our role in that. Not just a physical environment, but the emotional support. That we're providing. The second component of that, the second S is supportive adult relationships. You've already said, I'm gonna say it again, I'll scream it from the rooftop, it's so important, it's the most critical. One of the most critical factors in the presence. A stable and supported relationship so children who have a better hearing adult figure in their lives are better equipped to navigate the challenges of trauma. But even if someone enters that like after the trial. That stability helps build trust. And positive mentorship can significantly contribute to resilience. So it's important to remember that you can still impact and change and help build all of that in the brain. The 3rd one says self regulation and coping strategies. Model and teach so it's equipping kids with positive coping strategies. I feel like that's another like work that we use all the time. Like, oh, we need to have better coping strategies. But this is really. Something that's gonna help. And be a protective factor. So healthy ways to manage stress, express emotion, develop self-regulation skills. And empower them to navigate those challenges more effectively. I'm going to say that as an adult. I don't always use the best coping skills. I sometimes use things that are easy. Even though I know what's best. So I have to think about. In that mindset. Modeling in front of kids and teaching that, making sure that we're modeling and teaching appropriate coping strategies. This line if you've looked at the link or open that up from the chat. Actually goes to a page at region 10. I guess I'll take on it and show you, talk about it. Virtual calming corner and I'm highlighting it a couple of different times. But it's gonna have a lot of resources for some strategies that we talk about. It has some guided meditation, sounds and music. If you just need something for yourself, you can flip on some live animal camera. I personally prefer the panda. I'm sorry really good resource to utilize for yourself and for others. I really could have put the link on number 3 for self-regulation or for self-care, but I just wanted to highlight that really quick. So that's something that you could come back to. Okay. What we're gonna do in a minute, I'm gonna finish up our 5 S's and then we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into those self regulation and coping strategies and some things that you can do with kids. And on the day to day pieces or for yourself, whichever one. So the 4th is strength and resilience. Building. That strength and resilience in our traumatized children. Our strength are 1st the capacity to overcome challenges. So while resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity to noticing the difference. So let's say one more time, strength reversed the capacity to overcome a challenge. Where as resilience is the ability to bounce back. So we're encouraging a growth myself. Where challenges are viewed as opportunities for growth can empower kids to see beyond those circumstances. And then fostering that sense of self identity to help them recognize their, what they're capable of, what they can do. Our last one is self care and we're going to talk a little bit more about that one a little bit later too, but we know that we touched on it with that little resource that we just chatted about. Let's take a minute. We're gonna talk about self regulation strategies. Perfect, like, freeze, Got all the words right. So these are strategies that I can help us when or fight flight breeze gets triggered. Which we know is when our hind break takes over. So. We want to remember when we think about the strategies that everybody is different. Everybody has preferences just because deep breathing is good. Technique and research-based. Does it mean that everybody is ready for it at the same time? Or if we haven't. Properly taught it and modeled it. Trying to use it in a time when we're already triggered, it's not going to be effective. So we want to create a safe support of environment where our students can feel understood. And these things. So that when they're in the fight, freeze that they can start utilizing these strategies. There are a lot more than what I have here. I just wanted to give you about 9 to walk away. So the 1st and deep breathing. There is a 1 link you can type in breathing. Like guided breathing. Into Google and get hundreds of videos. There's also guided breathing on that website I just showed you. For different ages and for minutes and things like that. But this one is called box breathing. You Can I go to the whole thing with you at the same time at the end, but I don't think we will. But it's going to tell you exactly when to breathe in, when to hold your breath and when to release your breath. In slow deep breaths. Help activate our parent synthetic nervous system. Help us plum our body during that flight reaction. Another one is movement. So, I, you may have done this before for yourself, for somebody else, but sometimes we'll. Send the kid to run an because taking that walk, getting up and stretching. Even just tapping your feet on the ground can help release excess energy and reduce the urge to flee. Okay. And the 3rd one. It's wrong. It's I sent you all the wrong one. It's supposed to say grounding techniques. Not mindful observation, so we're gonna come back to mindful observation in a minute, but luckily. I will slide on. So, grounding techniques is our 3rd one related to flight. So what it is. Is a technique to return you to the present and reducing site. So it refocuses the mind. They're giving kind of simple thoughts and tasks. I guess you added that past. In future and just kind of route you in the present. So some examples that you can do. Are. Counting so by 4 3 2 1 right funny backwards color finding. So I have students who all say find red. But it's also still that we practice way before we get into the So they know I'm gonna say to find a certain color. That grounds us, that gets us into the present moment and out of that. That's like. You have, you know, a young one at home. It's a strategy that can work outside of. And trauma, I can work for anxiety as well. So color finding a good word. Trying to say the output backwards. That will put you in the present. You will have to think really, really, really hard. Starting to do that at this exact moment and realizing you can't take the alphabet backwards. And then another one for maybe older kids is, pairing city and states. So things like that that are tasks that you can tell them to do that are related to the kid that bring them back to the present. That's our founding technique. Another won't reflect. And also work for others, but just categorizing. Our next one is fight. So we all have stress balls. In our classrooms and fidgets, right? Here's the thing and I go back to this every time. We have to teach first.st So if we give a 6 year old a basket of sensory items and when they seem like they're in fight mode, we're like go to the pool like combing area and Okay, and we've never taught how to use them. A 6 year old is gonna throw a ball, right? Balls are made to be thrown. So if I don't teach you a different thing to do with that ball, the ball is going to get through. So we wanna make sure we teach it, but squeezing that ball is gonna help release tension. And a non harmful way. Drawing and writing one, we can express a motion. It's gonna take that fight, if you've ever been angry. And instead of like going and doing it, maybe go fit with somebody, right? But you can have our kids start writing about things like that and kind of take that and those intense emotions and putting them in a safe place. That's sometimes we write an email, an anonymous email to nobody. So that we are doing that in a safe place. That's kind of one of those like, okay, they're going to pick in a fight with a colleague or. Where I loved what I'm gonna just write this down real quick instead of firing off an email. And then counting and reciting a mantra and or reciting mantra. So this helps redirect focus. And gives a sense of control. So gives us something to do with those big overwhelming fillings. And I'm sure again, has to be decided ahead of time. Some people say, I'm okay, I'm safe. I'm here with the so-and-so. Whatever the case may be. It's just picking that mantra. The kid a lot of times would say like what helps us remember what we're safe. Like And here, school. Save and they're gonna take care. We were cited. And that's an easy one to practice as well. Freeze. Some things that you may have access to are awaited laptop, can kind of, oh, ease that sense. You It uses into a sense of safety. In calmness, we have progressive muscle relaxation. There are some, you can type that in and 8 videos will pop up. Easily on progressive muscle relaxation. It's that tensing and then releasing of muscle groups. To really alleviate that physical tension. Been signal to the body that it's safe. To unfreeze. So that's a great one to use. And then mindful observation that we can say it. Is really guiding attention to specific sensory experiences. So focusing on the sound of brat. Voting on focusing on touch. And could help break that free response. If you think about those little lights, That's like I'm telling you and some of you are probably like smelling them internally right now because they have that really specific powerful smell. I'm getting a kind of met and saying like, okay, we're gonna hold it, feel it. We're gonna smell it. I can caging those experiences, a pepper, whatever it may be. Is going to kind of break that freeze response and helps us really focus. Fine, so observation. Adults, you can say it to yourself or you can put it in chat. But what do we notice about the file? Sample of mindful observation. No, it's colorful. We have sock colors. Or peaceful. Okay. I look at it and I can almost feel just by looking a little ripped. Petals that a daisy has and you can see the little ripped lines in it. How like the rest of the rest of the flowers gonna blur away. That mindful observation and that intentionality of just focusing on that. So even a picture is something that we, as adults can do that. You're putting that in the chat. Wrap up with talking about self care. Because we know that you can't. But on your mask, right, the airline pilot say. With or you can't come with kids mouse and they'll put it in your mouse first.st I like to say it backwards. Is there good? So here's a quick menu that you can reference later, things you can do for self-care in one minutes, 5 min, 1030, an hour, right? So you can come back and reference this later. I'm not gonna dive into it. Too terribly much. But so many times we call self care. Hmm. Watching TV. Or you need to talk, I mean, maybe I'm the one saying that those are some care. But then it goes so much deeper than that, right? We have our self care for like finances. Spiritually. Socially, emotionally. Ourself care has so many categories. But really thinking about what are we doing for our body? Are we listening to our bodies and what we need? And so people are saying, I don't know what you mean by that, but. You know, when our stomach hurts because we're not eating good foods, like what is our body telling us? When we're so tired because we stayed up too late. And we kind of get up to early. Everybody's telling us like, go take, take 10, like go on your lunch break and take a 10 min nap in your car, right? We'll have some of these videos. All of that. The site I told you about do some box briefing. La laughing is such great self care. By any things to laugh at. Hmm. These are some other resources you can use. There's our oxygen mask that we need to put on. There's some lifestyle behavior assessments in there, an emergency self care worksheet. So if you're listening and you're thinking like, oh man. That list right here. Seems really overwhelming to me. And thinking about doing those things. Was a blocked. And not again, we're all individualized. So this is for you. So that you all might look at making a meal and think, That sounds like the worst thing I've ever done. I hate that so much. I love cooking like that self care for me. Gardening, going outside, being in the nature and sunshine and walking in the grass with my shoes off. Those are things I enjoy, but that's not self-care for everybody. So being super aware that some of these might not meet your needs. I like that you like the laughing one. It is so important for me in my life. So definitely just looking at these resources that you can utilize. Self freight yourself if you want to dive a little bit deeper and challenge yourself. You can go to that website on region 10 and just click through and look for some of those things that. These little worksheets and assessments might just help. Kind of get you started if you feel like that's something you need because supporting someone who's experienced trauma. Can be really hard. I can be hard on us and. As adult sometimes we think I got this I don't I don't for me. I'm just here for them and we say that all the time and we try to relieve each other or help each other out. We're like, I'm fine, I'm fine. We're, we live in a society of, So stop and listen to your body just like we stop and listen. And say like where is this behavior coming from like what do I need? And. Dive into a little bit of what's 1 thing on that menu you might commit to doing for yourself today. Cause it doesn't have to be an hour. You don't have a lot of time. Start with a minute. Start with 3 min. But really focusing on that for yourself. So we'll wrap up. With the top 5 trauma truths. Trauma is real. Because some people Like, oh no, that's not really a thing. Right, we just talked about how it's a thing. So trauma is real. It is prevalent and it's more common that we really want to admit. And that's a hard one because even just, you know, what those of us who are here, many of us have already experienced traumas in our lives when we were younger, Remember that trauma is toxic to our brain. Can affect development of our kids. But that we can learn a lot of ways to help them grow out of that. We have those resiliency and protective. So we need to be prepared to support our kids. Who have experienced that trauma so that we can be that consistent relationship. And help build that resiliency. And those protective factors for our kids. And then lastly, our kids are resilient. We see it all the time and we just think, man, those are some resilient kids. That's because they have great protective factors in their lives. So we want to continue those positive environments so that they can grow learn and succeed. And be aware of all of those things. I feel like that wasn't quick. Information dump about trauma. I will take a minute to read the Q&A and try to type some answers. But I know I'm gonna turn it back over to Donna here and let her share out some things that she wanted to share as well.

>>Donna: Alright, thank you so much Rebecca for joining us on P time and talking to us about trauma. Such an important topic. I did share in the chat if some folks are looking for some studies. In stress and toxic stress with our population and specifically cortisol. That there are a lot more studies nowadays. Then. Have been around so they're increasing.