Beat PTSD Symptoms Naturally – Holistic Guide
I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was 27 after 7 years of being extremely sick. Since I knew nothing about treating PTSD, I just went on with my holistic treatment protocol for my autoimmune disease. What I eventually realized was, as my autoimmune symptoms were improving, so were my PTSD symptoms. This led me to research the connection between the immune system and PTSD. What I found stunned me. Once again, mast cells were the cause of PTSD symptoms. By sending out inflammatory molecules, they inflame the brain, which makes the person more sensitive youto PTSD triggers.
In this article, I will cover my experiences with PTSD, and what I did to overcome it. Also, I will list various tips that you can use to help you beat these symptoms for good. Remember, you aren’t trying to get rid of “PTSD”; you are trying to eliminate inflammation, the cause of the PTSD symptoms. Don’t get lost in the diagnosis, your symptoms are caused by neurological inflammation. If you overcome that, your PTSD symptoms will follow suit.
My Experiences with PTSD
I struggled with PTSD for several years because of everything I went through during my illness. To find relief, I tried nearly everything you could think of. Though some things produced relief, nothing lasted. The reason was, I didn’t understand the most important part: the immune system.
Once I started to look for all the things in my diet, environment, and lifestyle that were triggering me, I realized there were plenty. Also, I noticed that when I was triggered, I would be more prone to respond negatively to stress. In addition, if I became triggered enough by these things, I would see my PTSD symptoms intensify. This realization led me to do everything possible to calm the immune system down.
Over a couple of years, I realized that my PTSD episodes were reducing significantly. This was clearly due to the reduction in triggering events. By combining this strategy with limbic system retraining, I eventually was able to overcome PTSD. Take a look below at some of the things I learned. Hopefully, these tips will help you gain control of your PTSD symptoms once and for all.
Tips for Beating PTSD Naturally
Identify/Eliminate Food Sensitivities
You must be willing to watch your eating patterns when you become stressed. Typically, the foods that we gravitate to during these stressful times are the ones that are triggering us. To learn which foods agree with us and which ones do not, we must implement an elimination diet. This process takes a few weeks to work, but it’s priceless. You may think something like nuts is healthy, but it could be setting you off. Little did I know, it was for me. The truth is, you never know until you try the elimination diet.
After eliminating the dietary triggers, you should see some progress over the first few weeks. Stay with it though, because it could take months to really recondition your immune system. If you are wise, the diet will be just one of the changes you make. After all, the more committed you are to your recovery, the better your chances.
Change the Story Surrounding Traumatic Event
You have to make the decision that you will not be a victim of this traumatic experience. I don’t care what happened to you, this is NEVER a winning attitude. In addition, you must accept the possibility that something great can come out of this trauma. Lastly, it would be best to realize that YOU are the only person still causing the suffering. If you can adjust your perspective about the event, the clouds will clear. The sooner you accept what has happened and work with it, the quicker you can find the strength to overcome it emotionally.
In my experience, this can be the most challenging thing you ever do, but it can also be the most rewarding and fulfilling. In addition, overcoming your primary trauma will give you the strength to beat anything in the future. Let this trauma act like it is a superpower of yours. If you really believe that there was a reason for the traumatic event, then the negative emotion surrounding it disappears. This is the approach I took with my chronic illness, which made a huge difference.
Avoid Anything Synthetic
This can be cologne, cleaning chemicals, laundry detergent, self-care products, and more. Anything that is made out of synthetic chemicals is not good to have around if you have PTSD. The reason is, the ingredients in these products are likely to trigger neurological inflammation. Keep in mind, anything you can smell is being immediately absorbed through the nose, which will signal the immune system in the brain. If it’s not a natural chemical, it will irritate a vulnerable immune system.
In addition, any vitamin/supplement/medication that does not show it was derived from a plant is, in fact, synthetic. Your body may respond well to this initially, but over time, it realizes this isn’t the real thing. The worst thing you can do is take several vitamins/supplements that do not affect neurological inflammation. Eventually, it is likely your immune system can develop a sensitivity to these things, which will increase your vulnerability to PTSD episodes.
Eat Less Animal Products
Eating too many animal products can cause your body to become acidic. This makes the immune system more reactive and aggressive. In addition, eating animal products daily can lead to the overgrowth of bacteria in your gut that cause inflammation. Both of these things increase the likelihood of PTSD episodes.
In contrast, you should be eating a diet that is alkaline and high in plant fiber. This provides fuel for the good bacteria to ferment, so they can create those precious anti-inflammatory by-products. Do you think that cutting out meat isn’t worth it? I thought the same thing for 36 years, until I tried the elimination diet. From there, the results were undeniable.
Reduce Use of Devices/Computers
Studies have shown that using cell phones and other devices can trigger neurological inflammation in as little as 50 minutes. In addition, EMF frequencies/radiation aggravate the neurological system. I know our world demands us to be available, but it’s important to do your best to minimize the use of these devices. In addition, it’s very important to remain present and not constantly be distracted by your device.
Instead of adding more screen time to your day, close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Think of something enjoyable, or better yet, don’t think at all. To recover, you must take every opportunity you can to slow down the moment. This is how you can remain in control of your thoughts so you can beat PTSD.
Take the Less is Better Approach
Whether it’s fewer ingredients in your meal or fewer supplements, the goal is to reduce everything. This makes it much easier to identify potential triggers. If we are taking ten different supplements and eating meals with 20 ingredients, it’s pretty hard to identify what’s causing the problem.
To get an idea of how to structure your meals, you can look at the breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes for the hypoallergenic diet. Though they may not seem as exciting as what you’re used to, if your goal is to overcome your PTSD, these are the foods that suit you best.
Avoid Too Much Physical Stress
Though small amounts of exercise and stress are good for the body, you must be extra careful when you have PTSD. The reason is that your level of tolerance to stress is much lower than that of the typical individual. For this reason, you must be conscious of your heart rate and level of exertion. Do not exceed 130 beats per minute, and NEVER exercise to the point where you feel drained from the workout. Though it seems like you are doing good, it is quite an inflammatory event to rip down muscle tissue.
Please note, as we said prior, you do NOT want to have your heart rate elevated for extended periods of time. Both of these things increase histamine and trigger inflammatory molecules to be released in the body. If you feel you must, just make sure to gradually increase everything over time and take PLENTY of rest in between. Even though you may feel good in the moment, if you overdo it, you could be puttIng your recovery at risk. I have seen this happen with myself, and plenty of clients.
Optimize Air Quality in Home
If you have been diagnosed with PTSD, a mental health condition, or a learning disability, there could be something in the air that is aggravating you. I failed to acknowledge this concept and tried literally everything else with only partial success. During that time, I never had any idea that what I was inhaling was affecting how I was feeling. For this reason, I suffered for years, so I tried to find whatever coping mechanisms I could. As you can imagine, most of them were unhealthy and provided immediate gratification.
To determine if your environment is safe, you should perform a home mold test. The cheapest version of this test is the Petri dish test, and the gold standard is the ERMI test. You can choose which best suits you based on your level of concern. Though newer places can have issues, you are most at risk in older buildings. Keep in mind though, your response to mold toxins depends upon your level of sensitivity, not just the amount of it present. Just because your test says mold levels are low doesn’t mean you aren’t being triggered.
Start Slow Deep Breathing Technique
This slow deep breathing technique was absolutely life-changing for me. Before utilizing it daily, I was still a victim of my visual cues. In my case, my PTSD was being triggered by watching my daughter suffer for years with her illness, and not knowing what to do. In the end, I was able to figure out that mold toxins were causing the majority of her issues. During the toughest times, I could not have made it through without this breathing technique.
The breathing technique is effective because it’s simple. By taking a slow deep breath, you are telling your brain that everything is OK. If you do this daily for 30-60 minutes, your body will eventually be reconditioned. Over time, your stress response will become better and better. In addition, if you ever become stressed during your day, you can start taking slow deep breaths right there. It doesn’t matter if you are at work, in a car, watching TV or anywhere else. Learn more about how this breathing technique can improve PTSD symptoms via the link. In all honesty, I consider this more important than anything else on this list.
Be Careful with Stimulating Activities
Anything stimulating can become an escape for people with PTSD. The reason is, it can distract them from their traumatic thoughts. The problem with this is, often, people with PTSD will overdo these things, leading them into a place where they crash and things get worse. This was my story for years on end. I avoided my trauma by staying busy, and then overdid these things, which stressed my body out and caused me to have PTSD flares.
To be able to rectify this issue, you must identify your limits and stick with them. If you can handle stimulating activities to a certain point, then you can carefully keep them involved. If you find yourself overdoing these things, it is best to replace them with something that relaxes you. For example, rather than lifting weights, you would perform a deep breathing session. Keep in mind, your goal is to recondition your body to expect relaxation. You can not do that from maxing out at the gym. In contrast, you can do that by centering with a deep breathing session.
Enhance Circulation in Home
I mentioned the importance of testing for mold, but overall air quality is critical. If you have plenty of cross-ventilation, then you should be OK. If your windows are closed all the time, and you are cooking, cleaning, and forgetting about ventilation, then gradually, your air quality becomes worse. Little do you know it, this sets off the immune system in the brain, which increases your risk for PTSD symptoms.
High-powered HEPA air purifiers are a good option, but they are NOT the solution. The key to having excellent air quality is utilizing box fans in your window to suck out the air from within your place. Think of it as an overhead fan in your bathroom. You can even have one fan blowing air in and another sucking it out the window. This creates a jetstream to move stale air out the window. It may sound crazy, but this was a strategy I used to heal my daughter from environmental illness. Trust me, do NOT discount the significance of clean air.
Avoid Norepinephrine Boosters
Anything that increases norepinephrine can make PTSD episodes more likely to occur. Examples of this are coffee, tea, energy drinks, ADHD medication, or anything that provides a stimulatory effect. Though the person may feel good at the moment, once the neurotransmitters crash, they become susceptible to inflammation. This then makes them more vulnerable to triggers in their environment.
When healing from PTSD, you must remember that anything that stimulates you is a risk. You must learn to seek relaxation instead of stimulation. Though stimulation can feel immediately gratifying and can take your mind off of traumatic thoughts, it leaves you vulnerable when its effects wear off. This is why seeking activities that promote balance and regeneration is so important. At first this may feel foreign, because I know it did for me. Remember, it’s rarely comfortable to change, but it’s often well worth it.
Use Journal to Document Symptoms
Creating a dietary/symptom journal can allow you to document when your PTSD symptoms are worse. If you don’t utilize a journal, you will remain the victim of your PTSD episodes. In contrast, if you are monitoring what is happening every day, you may be able to use these events for your benefit.
After viewing these episodes enough, you should be able to make correlations with what you were eating, what you were doing, or what you were thinking. The key is, you must keep everything (diet, supplements, lifestyle) very simple so that you can identify the causes. This will help you to make changes which will reduce the likelihood of PTSD episodes. Eventually, you will uncover all of your triggers, implement some stress reduction techniques, and beat your PTSD symptoms for good.
Supplements to Reduce Neuroinflammation
You can either target neurological inflammation directly, or indirectly via the gut. In my opinion, it’s best to start by improving the gut’s health. People with PTSD have reduced diversity in their gut, which sets them up for inflammation and symptoms. The best supplements for restoring the gut are raw colostrum, acacia, arabinogalactan, probiota bifido, bee propolis, and inulin. When combine with the right diet, these can completely restructure your gut.
If you want to target the brain directly, you can try different plant-based nutrients. Some phytonutrients that reduce neuroinflammation are apigenin, resveratrol, naringin, baicalin, luteolin, hesperidin, etc. To see which ones agree best, you must go through a trial and error process. Start with only one, and do NOT use these products every day. The idea is to create a rotation with a few of the products that work best for you. This will increase their effectiveness and reduce the possibility of developing any side effects.
FAQ- Healing from PTSD Naturally
What foods are most important to eliminate?
The worst foods are gluten, dairy, eggs, nuts, and meat. The problem is, it can often be far more complicated than that. Rather than think of which foods to eliminate, I would try the elimination diet. This is a process that starts off with plant-based foods, which are very low in reaction potential. You then continue with these foods for ten days minimum to cleanse out the residues of the foods you were reacting to.
After consuming these safe foods for a couple of weeks, you will notice significant relief from inflammation. At that point, you introduce foods that are slightly more risky in terms of immune reactivity. Once you add these foods back in, you monitor your symptoms, and if nothing happens, the food is safe. In contrast, if something gets worse, the food must be removed for an extended period of time. This is how you slowly build a diet that is immune-friendly, which can be critical to overcoming PTSD symptoms.
Can mold really be contributing to PTSD symptoms?
Absolutely! Mold is the number one environmental irritant that can cause neurological problems. When I was living in black mold, I wondered why my PTSD symptoms suddenly became much worse after years of being better. I had done everything right with my diet, reduced my stress, and followed all the rules. This left me perplexed until I finally realized there was mold in the house and left.
We then got to another place where there was no toxic mold, and my PTSD symptoms dramatically reduced. This was proof to me once again that the neurological inflammation was directly correlated with PTSD symptoms. If you have a history of PTSD, then all it takes is consuming foods that trigger you or living in a moldy environment, and your body becomes much more susceptible to PTSD symptoms. If you don’t identify these triggers, you will never understand your fluctuation in symptom severity.
Would a PTSD symptom log be helpful?
Yes, absolutely. Anytime you are trying to overcome something, you want to document it. If you clearly document what you are eating, where you are, and what stressors present themselves each day, you have great data to help you understand why your PTSD episode occurred.
Over time, you can examine your PTSD symptoms and determine what correlations exist. For example, you may have eaten unhealthy food, had some drinks at a party, and missed sleep, then felt more triggered the next few days. This was because your brain was more inflamed than usual. By seeing this on paper, you can understand your role in your symptoms. Eventually, you will make positive changes since you have a desire to change, and are forced to observe the repercussions of the wrong decisions.
What are the most common triggers of PTSD?
PTSD is thought to be caused by visual or auditory queues that remind someone of past experiences, sending them into trauma in their present moment. Though that is true, studies have shown that their susceptibility depends upon how inflamed their neurological system is at the time. This means, if you find a way to get the brain out of fight or fight, the audio/visual triggers will be less likely to initiate an episode.
To reduce the inflammation, you first identify the things you are doing which are already causing it. After you accomplish this, you focus on restoring the gut and immune system with plant-based supplements. It is important NOT to go to supplements first because you don’t want to mask the triggers in any way. If you do, then you may not understand them. In addition, the supplements may not work because you are being triggered by what you are eating, taking, inhaling, or thinking.
How long does it take to see progress with this strategy?
If you are following the elimination diet process, have ruled out mold, increased indoor air quality, limited stressful events, AND are performing the slow breathing technique daily, then your chances of success are great. You must approach this from all angles because to repair the brain, you must recondition the immune response. This is only possible by identifying the hidden triggers and making changes.
Is inflammation related to PTSD symptoms?
Yes, absolutely. Studies have shown that the more inflamed the brain is, the more likely someone is to have a PTSD episode. This is because the brain becomes more sensitive to stimuli and foreign substances. If you are trying to overcome PTSD symptoms, you must identify your visual and auditory triggers, as well as your dietary and environmental triggers. All of these things can increase the possibility of episodes.
If you are willing to examine your role in the symptoms with faith that you can overcome them, you WILL see the correlations. This will allow you to make the necessary changes, which will provide you with relief. If you choose to be a victim of this condition, then you will never fully gain control of it. Look at what you can do right now from the list I provided. Start there and focus ONLY on progress, not perfection.
Conclusion- PTSD Recovery is Possible
Audio and visual cues will always have the potential to trigger stress in people with PTSD. The point to remember is that your susceptibility to these cues depends upon how much inflammation is present. If you do the things mentioned in this article, you will get your inflammation under control. This will cause your PTSD symptoms to improve greatly. Despite this, you still need to work on some core beliefs relating to the event itself.
To overcome it, you must break down the traumatic event, and try to reframe your perspective about it. You can NOT be a victim of this situation. To win the battle in your head, you must figure out how this event is benefitting you. Once you do, then focus on this thing as the reason it all happened. Also, have faith that you haven’t seen the entire picture yet, and something bigger than you is at work. This will provide you comfort and protection when invasive thoughts threaten your peace.
If you are okay with yourself right now, you need to realize something. You could have only got to this point by going through what you went through. This means the trauma was necessary. If you can’t be okay with yourself, try to find a way to be grateful for the trauma. Something good had to come out of it. Do this, and you have won the battle with your trauma.
Winning the War Against PTSD
If you are willing to change your perspective about this event, you can change your response when something reminds you of it. Whenever you become triggered again by this thing, you just remind yourself of this newfound perspective, and eventually, the sting becomes less noticeable. This is something that takes practice, but with a little observation and reinforcement, it can really work!
By implementing all the things mentioned in this article, you can finally gain control of your PTSD symptoms. Do yourself a favor; don’t forget about the dietary changes and the slow deep breathing. Though they require change, trust me, both are critical to your success.
If you are struggling with PTSD symptoms and need some guidance, get in touch. I am willing to help and blessed to have the opportunity.
Happy healing everyone!
Matt Nedin
Certified Holistic Nutritionist
EndSickness, Founder
Phone: (734) 846-8619
WhatsApp: +17348468619
Email: endsickness@gmail.com
