Did you know that caregivers fatigue, also known as compassion fatigue, is actually a form of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?

Many of us are not aware of this.

Both caregivers fatigue and PTSD are anxiety disorders. And while some of us are able to lower anxiety levels by increasing our awareness of how our thinking influences our nervous system, an anxiety disorder often requires additional support to overcome.

One group which has been particularly hard hit by caregivers fatigue is our first responders.

According to Psychology Today, a peer review journal, many first responders develop this form of PTSD, with tragic results. This trend has been linked to an increase in suicides.

It is vitally important that we raise awareness around the challenges of those who give care to other people, in particular those who have survived traumatic events themselves. These individuals are subject to the same symptoms and possibly detrimental outcomes as the people they care for.

Unfortunately, most treatment plans for PTSD involve medications and/or therapy in order to help people cope. Given the rising suicide rate, this approach has not proven to be effective.

Why is this?

Learning to cope attempts to reduce the stress from the past traumas, and lessen the effect it has on an individual today. Interventions and treatments based on coping mechanisms do not resolve the PTSD, nor do they mitigate the damage caused by the PTSD.

The symptoms of PTSD are caused by the nervous system’s reaction to the trauma and the “safeguards” the nervous system creates in order to “protect” us from the traumas. These safeguards implant the memory of the traumas in our survival neural pathway links in order to help us be vigilant for a reoccurrence of the trauma. Unfortunately, this causes hypervigilance to any stimulus which might relate to the trauma, or a precursor, or anything related to the trauma. This hypervigilance often interferes with normal daily function. In effect, this is why many suicides are related to inability to manage PTSD.

A Better Way to Treat PTSD

The most effective way to treat PTSD is to mitigate or reduce the nervous system’s memory and reaction to the trauma. Different therapy programs, such as exposure therapy, aim to do just this. Exposure therapy has had limited success, but when successful, it is often highly successful because it can help desensitize the nervous system from the trauma and its triggers.

Through the Pathwaves NeuroEmpowerment™ program, we use advanced neurofeedback to influence the nervous system, and recondition your responses in order to address deeply rooted issues, such as PTSD. We help those who suffer from PTSD understand where their anxiety is originating from, why it is affecting them today, and how it is impacting them.

Our protocol works to solve both the psychological and biological side of the equation by using our unique methodology to desensitize the nervous system from the conditioned reactivity to the triggers of the PTSD. This approach is far more effective than medicating or simply learning how to cope.

If you’d like to learn how you can accelerate change through our methodology, we are here to help. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation today and begin your journey away from just surviving, and into thriving.