The Body Keeps The Score
The Neuroscience of Trauma: How Memories Are Stored in the Body
When we think of memories, we often picture them as scenes that play back in our minds, similar to a video. But in the case of traumatic memories, the brain encodes these experiences differently, often leaving lasting imprints on both the mind and body. This unique encoding has profound implications for how trauma survivors experience their emotions, perceive the world, and react to stimuli. Im going explore how trauma shapes memory storage in the body and brain, impacting emotional and sensory responses.
How Traumatic Memories Are Encoded
In a non-traumatic experience, memories are processed primarily in the hippocampus, a brain structure responsible for organising and storing information in a coherent narrative format. The prefrontal cortex then helps in contextualising these memories, which can be accessed, reviewed, and recalled with clarity. This process allows individuals to reflect on memories without necessarily reliving them.
However, traumatic memories are different. Under intense stress, the brain's "fight-or-flight" response becomes activated, flooding the body with stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. This shifts the focus from the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex to the amygdala, the brain's emotional and threat-processing center. When trauma occurs, the amygdala takes a lead role in encoding the experience, often bypassing the typical processing pathways. As a result, traumatic memories are often fragmented, stored as sensory impressions—sights, sounds, smells, or bodily sensations—rather than as cohesive narratives.
The Body’s Role in Storing Trauma
The impact of trauma doesn’t stop at the brain; the body also retains these experiences. Neurobiologist and trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk famously said, "The body keeps the score," highlighting how unprocessed trauma can manifest as physical sensations or tension. The nervous system, particularly the autonomic nervous system, is affected, creating lasting changes that influence how a person responds to stress.
Trauma is stored in the body as implicit memory. Unlike explicit memories that we can consciously recall, implicit memories operate outside of our awareness, showing up as physical reactions, muscle tension, or gut feelings. For example, a survivor of a car accident may feel a sudden spike of anxiety when hearing screeching tires, even if they are not consciously recalling the accident. The body, in this case, has stored the traumatic memory as a sensory response, triggering a fear response without conscious awareness.
How Trauma Affects Sensory Perception and Emotional Responses
Because traumatic memories are encoded in the amygdala and stored within the body as sensory cues, trauma survivors may experience hypervigilance, exaggerated startle responses, and heightened sensitivity to sensory input. Everyday stimuli, like loud noises, certain smells, or physical touch, can serve as triggers, activating the stored trauma and causing the individual to relive the event on a physical and emotional level.
This physical re-experiencing is often accompanied by strong emotional responses. Since the prefrontal cortex—the brain’s rational thinking and emotional regulation center—has limited involvement during trauma encoding, survivors often struggle to regulate emotions when a memory is triggered. This can result in flashbacks, intense anxiety, or dissociation, where they feel detached from reality or their own body. Such reactions can be overwhelming and interfere with daily life, making it difficult to distinguish between past threats and present safety.
Healing Trauma Through Mind-Body Approaches
Given the way trauma is stored in the body, healing often involves more than just talking about the trauma; it requires addressing the body’s responses. Techniques like EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) and trauma resolution approaches like Matrix Reimprinting work directly with the nervous system to release stored energy and process traumatic memories safely.
EFT Tapping combines gentle tapping on acupressure points with focused attention on the memory or emotion, helping to calm the body’s stress response and lower cortisol levels. This process reprograms the body’s reaction to trauma, allowing survivors to reframe emotional experiences and reduce physical symptoms tied to trauma.
Matrix Reimprinting, a specialised form of EFT, goes further by helping clients revisit and reframe traumatic memories within a supportive framework. In Matrix Reimprinting, clients connect with "echoes" of themselves at the time of the trauma, reprocessing the memory in a way that fosters safety and healing. This technique enables survivors to integrate their traumatic experiences without being overwhelmed, reducing the emotional charge of past memories and restoring a sense of calm.
By addressing trauma at both the emotional and physical levels, EFT and Matrix Reimprinting offer powerful tools to help reframe the relationship with past events, allowing you to process memories without reactivating distressing responses.
Conclusion
Trauma impacts more than just memory—it reshapes how survivors experience and interact with the world. Traumatic memories are stored as sensory impressions in both the brain and body, making them powerful and sometimes overwhelming. By understanding how trauma is encoded, we can better appreciate the role of mind-body therapies in healing and support trauma survivors in finding a path toward peace and integration.
References
Levine, P. A. (2015). In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. North Atlantic Books.
Ogden, P., & Fisher, J. (2015). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment. W. W. Norton & Company.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
