Posted on May 22, 2021
How Weight Lifting Helped One Writer Work Through Her PTSD
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When personal trainer and former competitive weight lifter Laura Khoudari experienced a traumatic incident that left her with PTSD, her response was to get back to the gym and train as hard as possible. She was participating in three sports, sometimes going to two training sessions per day.
"When I was living with trauma, I was using [training] as a coping skill but in a non-healthy way. I was training all the time like I was preparing for battle because I wanted to be invincible against an invisible threat," Khoudari recalls
From the outside, it seemed like Khoudari was just crushing it, but she was actually having a pretty normal post-traumatic stress disorder response: hyper arousal of the body and brain. "I wasn't resting. It was a compulsion," she says. Her body finally caught up with her. She severely injured her back overtraining and couldn't go near a barbell for months.
Finally, desperate to heal her mind and body, Khoudari started her own research into how trauma impacts the body and how strength training could be a healing practice for people who've experienced trauma. The result is her forthcoming book, a memoir combined with practical guidance, Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time.
"When I was living with trauma, I was using [training] as a coping skill but in a non-healthy way. I was training all the time like I was preparing for battle because I wanted to be invincible against an invisible threat," Khoudari recalls
From the outside, it seemed like Khoudari was just crushing it, but she was actually having a pretty normal post-traumatic stress disorder response: hyper arousal of the body and brain. "I wasn't resting. It was a compulsion," she says. Her body finally caught up with her. She severely injured her back overtraining and couldn't go near a barbell for months.
Finally, desperate to heal her mind and body, Khoudari started her own research into how trauma impacts the body and how strength training could be a healing practice for people who've experienced trauma. The result is her forthcoming book, a memoir combined with practical guidance, Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time.
How Weight Lifting Helped One Writer Work Through Her PTSD
Posted from npr.org
PTSD
Weightlifting
Reading
Writing
Posted 3 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel "When I was living with trauma, I was using [training] as a coping skill but in a non-healthy way. I was training all the time like I was preparing for battle because I wanted to be invincible against an invisible threat," Khoudari recalls".
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel True Chip... "Khoudari's theory is that this embodied approach to weight lifting can help those living with PTSD cultivate a sense of safety in their own bodies. Strength training can also provide certain direct physical benefits: building muscle is associated with better sleep, for instance, and insomnia is a common trauma symptom, Khoudari notes.:
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