Our solider is suffering from PTSD, Nightmares with PTSD, and often needs PTSD Treatment. The American Solider is a proud member of our society, with so much to offer us all, and when our amazing solider comes back home, and tries to recover from the wounds of war, finding rest can be difficult. Your new life back home as a civilian is going to be different for you as a returning soldier, but it does not mean there are not good resources for you as a returning solider back from Iraq or Afghanistan.
Nightmares and PTSD Treatment
American Solider PTSD Treatment Starts with Your Doctor
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD often results from a series of stress related events or one violent event in a person’s life. Victims of rape, robbery, muggings or even civilians in times of civil disorder or war often experience post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD treatment involves talk therapy, a combination of nutrition review, job assistance, medical and pharmaceutical assistance. The symptoms involve lack of concentration, inability to remain restful, and loss of sleep. The constant stress levels of sufferers of PTSD are increased cancer risks, heart disease, and brain and memory risk factors.
Stress is a built in survival instinct in all mammals, and exists from our early evolutionary days, as a primitive hunter and gather society. When something was after you, it usually meant life or death, and your adrenal gland will emit hormones to help you run faster, react better, in effect to survive. The problem is, memories associated with such stressful events, are often stored, in the brain, near and in connection with the adrenal gland. This direct link, to stressful memories, keeps a direct switch to your hormones, and keeps stress a constant whenever that hormone is emitted.
This is a simplistic description of the stress that we all feel and react to each day, but new stress is often paired with existing stress memories. The memories of the past, are often related to new experiences in your brain, and this pairing can keep that moment (when you fought an enemy solider, when a mortar blew up near your squadron, when you dodged a sniper, when you out ran a gunfight) right with you as you prepare for the next job interview. The stress of the past moment, can be instantly, and very powerfully paired to your civilian challenges of family life, work, and adapting back into a less regimented life.
The new treatment for PTSD is a simple solution, to allow you to rest, and let your new memories not be paired with the older stress filled emotional stress memories. PTSD treatment often involves a series of doctor visits, and continual exercise. The best natural cleanser of emotion in the brain is exercise, and the next, is relaxing and refreshing sleep. Experiencing nightmares is often a inhibitor of relaxing sleep cycles, and finding a good treatment to improve on these sleep cycles has been found. The drug that is found to be effective, is prazosin. This drug works to inhibit the connection of your adrenal gland to your new memories, and assist you to not find your old memories as a danger or stress point as well. The combination of this drug, with another drug, propranolol, works with talk therapy, to suppress the stress triggers of your adrenal gland, by blocking the direct connection of the stress hormones that the adrenal gland, and others produce. The hot emotions you felt at the time of the mortar attack, with the drugs, good rest, and talk therapy, will reduce these memories to a moment in time, not a new emotional stress feeling, each time you remember them.
Why Nightmares Are Important to Reduce with PTSD Treatment
As discussed previously, we are best in our emotional state with good sleep patterns, and exercise. When we exercise, our brains recharge. The hormones in our brain reset themselves, and we can handle stress more effectively. Every centenarian has a simple but effective exercise habit, as this is not just for your heart and other muscles, but for your brain as well. The other important habit is having a good sleep cycle each night.
When you experience constant nightmares, and wake in a panic with the memories of the stress of the past battle, you are in effect there at the battle again. The exact same hormones that were created by your adrenal gland in your brain, are now recreated to replicate the moment of your past. Even new nightmares, can draw on the past stress, and links are created. The danger here is that new experiences can all be traced back, in your brain, to the one stressful event, and the sooner you are able to stop this spider web of traceability back to your stress event, the better you will be able to deal with that drive to work each day.
Rest is important for your brain, and without the 15 minutes of REM sleep you need each night, and the quiet of your 8 hours of sleep, you cannot find relief from your PTSD symptoms. PTSD Treatment is complicated, but the two direct connections, of past stress events, and new events, needs to be stopped with medicine, talk therapy and medical attention.
PTSD Treatment is Best with Help From Your Doctor
There is no magic bullet on PTSD Treatment, but you can find relief with good exercise. The simple step of exercise each day, will be a great step for you. As well, limit your sugar and starch intake, and eat nutritious and healthy food. Your heart will thank you for this. Keep your general outlook on life positive, with good friends, family and positive people all around you. You are the master of your domain, with help with positive effects from healthy living.
Adopt a good plan with your VA and your doctor. Please be sure to find your PTSD treatment with guidance with your doctor, as only you and your doctor can ensure that any medicine or medicine plan is right for you.
You are the bravest and most amazing piece to our freedom, you are a soldier. The very fact that you are reading this now, means you are looking out for news and information to ensure your road to recovery exists. If you are lost in the civilian world, do not feel like you have been lost to yourself as well. The path back to life outside of the military is a very difficult one, and it will require more bravery than you ever thought would be necessary.
