The trauma benefits of trembling

Shiver in your ice bath, sometimes.

Summary

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) results from a combination of stress & helplessness — e.g., immobilization while under assault.

• According to Dr. Peter Levine, trembling (shuddering, shivering, shaking) can be associated with protection and recovery from PTSD — as if the rapid movement of the body resets the overactive sympathetic nervous system.

• The mechanisms by which cold exposure activates shivering and non-shivering thermogenesis also act through the sympathetic nervous system.

• Suppressing your shiver reflex in the ice bath may increase heart rate variability (HRV) and improve psychological resilience. Nonetheless, there may be times when encouraging your shiver response will provide some relief.

The historical origins of PTSD

George Carlin (God rest his soul) used to do a stand-up bit about the history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

There's a condition in combat... it's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stretched to its absolute maximum.

It's either snapped, or it's about to snap. In the first World War, that condition was called 'shell shock.'

- comedian George Carlin (1937-2008).

Carlin points out that the same symptoms that once were called “shell shock”were renamed “battle fatigue” in WWII, which later became “operational exhaustion” in the Korean War — presumably to distance society from the severity of the condition.

While Carlin has a point, he’s overlooked the fact that many of the soldiers who exhibited symtoms of shell shock did not experience concussions or brain trauma from explosions. Nor did they inhale the toxic fumes of mustard gas.

Even earlier accounts of “war neurosis” described some soldiers who “collapsed into protracted stupor after shells brushed past them, although they emerged physically unscathed” (Crocq 2000). Such cases reinforced the belief that PTSD was the result of a conditioned fear response to stress, rather than physiological damage.

When the term “post-traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD) was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-lll) in 1980, psychologists recognized that PTSD doesn't just happen to soldiers. It can happen to anyone who experiences an extreme, unresolved stress event.

The question is, "How?"