Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a complex and difficult disorder to live with. It affects every facet of life, negatively affecting one’s physical health and mental wellness.
As you may imagine, PTSD makes it quite difficult for someone to take care of themself or achieve their health goals. Those with PTSD are constantly anxious and fearful, which negatively affects their health or sabotages their attempts to try new activities that would be good for them.
If you believe that you have PTSD and struggle to achieve your health goals, read on to learn about the connection between PTSD and your health.
What is PTSD?
PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after experiencing or witnessing traumatic events. These events can be as big as combat or a terrible accident or can occur in smaller events over time, such as the case with bullying.
Sometimes there is no single event or specific factor that contributes to PTSD. Those who live with chronic PTSD or complex PTSD (CPTSD) often lived through difficult childhoods or other periods of life. These periods may have contained a multitude of traumatic factors such as abuse, food insecurity, and poverty. The constant bombardment of stress hormones changes the brain, rewiring it to remain anxious and fearful well after the traumatic episodes have ended.
Life becomes challenging for those living with PTSD, as they may encounter many circumstances throughout their day that reminds them of their trauma. This can make it exceedingly difficult to try new things or develop healthy habits. In fact, research shows that poor health and various physical health problems are linked to PTSD.
The next section will discuss some of those issues, specifically those that may pertain to your health and beauty goals. If you want to learn more about how PTSD affects other facets of life, head on over to BetterHelp for more information.
How PTSD Sabotages Your Health Goals
Many people every year set out to improve their health and appearance. Though these goals can be difficult to achieve even in good circumstances, people with PTSD are at a disadvantage. Read on to learn more about how living with PTSD can sabotage your efforts to take care of your skin and maintain a healthy weight.
Skincare
It is common knowledge that anxiety, stress, and similar conditions can negatively affect your skin. Specifically, most people are aware that these issues can cause your skin to break out. Well, unfortunately, it looks like PTSD can as well. PTSD puts the body under constant stress, meaning that acne breakouts are all too common.
Additionally, research indicates that neurological rosacea may be linked to PTSD. Though little is known about this connection, researchers believe it is due to the nervous system not functioning properly.
The skin may also be dehydrated due to the fact that the body draws water away from the skin during an emergency. Someone living with PTSD is in constant fight or flight mode, which means the body feels like it is in a perpetual emergency.
Furthermore, PTSD can contribute to increases in histamine, making the skin itchy, red, irritated, and bumpy.
To make things worse, people who live with anxiety disorders like PTSD often have an anxious habit of picking at their skin, which only increases inflammation and scarring. This not only worsens the condition but makes it more noticeable.
With all these conditions connected to PTSD, you can imagine why it is so difficult to keep the skin clear and healthy while living with this condition.
Weight Management
Maintaining a healthy weight is far more difficult with a mental illness, especially PTSD. The consistent flood of stress hormones affects insulin production and blood sugar levels, leading to increased appetite and a craving for sweets and carbs. Obeying this craving can lead to overeating and obesity and may be an added obstacle to enjoying healthy foods.
Those living with PTSD may also struggle to exercise frequently. Depending on the cause of PTSD, many environmental factors can trigger their trauma. Everything from moving their body a certain way or listening to loud music blasting at the gym could trigger a PTSD episode. Those who have many triggers may opt to stay at home, where they can have more control over their environment.
Confidence/Motivation
Taking care of your health requires a bit of confidence and self-love. You need to love yourself to see that you deserve to be happy and healthy. And you need some confidence to know that you can achieve your goals.
However, those living with PTSD also struggle with depression and low self-worth. The resulting negative thoughts and self-talk make it challenging to strive for any goals, let alone health goals.
So even though someone with PTSD may realize they need to take care of themselves, it will be far more difficult for them to have the confidence and motivation needed to succeed.
Final Thoughts
PTSD is a complicated disorder that affects all facets of life. It is incredibly difficult to treat because the treatment involves revisiting the trauma. Discussing your PTSD with a therapist or other medical professional is the best way to cope and treat the condition. You may also want to talk to a medical professional if you need some help achieving your health goals.
Though PTSD is often complex and treatment can be difficult, the work put in will be well worth the effort as success will help you achieve the health and well-being you deserve.
Marie Miguel has been a writing and research expert for nearly a decade, covering a variety of health- related topics. Currently, she is contributing to the expansion and growth of a free online mental health resource with BetterHelp.com. With an interest and dedication to addressing stigmas associated with mental health, she continues to specifically target subjects related to anxiety and depression.
