Resources & Links

Trauma, PTSD and EMDR

• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Van Der Kolk MD)
• Getting Past your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help techniques from EMDR Therapy (Shapiro)
• EMDR: The Breakthrough Therapy for Overcoming Anxiety, Stress and Trauma (Shapiro & Forrest)
• Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (Seigel)
• Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga: Reclaiming your Body (Emerson & Hopper)
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Brown)
• Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Changes the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Brown)
• Clinically Researched Guided Meditation for PTSD
• EMDR International Association
• The Trail Guide a Web-Mag on Healing from Trauma
• Trauma Information Pages
• The Power of Vulnerability: TED Talk Video by Brene Brown

Mindfulness and Meditation

• Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness (Treleaven)
• Full Catastrophe Living: using the Wisdom of your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (Kabat-Zinn)
• Headspace APP
• Headspace YouTube Channel
• HeartMath Institute
• Calm APP

Anxiety

• The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques (Wehrenberg)
• The Worry Trick: How Your Brain Tricks You into Expecting the Worst and What You Can Do About It (Carbonell)
• Guided meditations to relieve stress

Breathing

When applying breathing techniques, we consciously control our inhalations and exhalations using different breathing patterns. Mindful breathing helps us connect to the present moment, move toward a relaxation response, and send a message to the brain that everything is OK. Examples of breathing techniques include: Square Breathing (helpful during panic attacks), the 4-7-8 Breath, and Coherent Breathing.

When mindful breathing practices are incorporated in our day-to-day life, we learn to stay in a relaxed response state, we become less reactive, and, over time, our brain's perception of stress changes.

We can use breathing APPS such as Calm App Breathing, the Heartmath APP, or Breathe APP to practice and learn new, more effective ways of breathing. The TED talk a Breathing, Mindfulness, Heart Rate Variability clearly explains how the breath and mindful breathing practices are important to our physical and mental well-being.