Ep. 210 This Is What Science Says Really Happens To Your Brain When You're Triggered By Stress & Anxiety In Midlife

Have you ever wondered why you suddenly feel triggered by something small?
You’re not broken—your brain is simply reacting faster than your awareness can catch up.
In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. What’s really happening in your brain and body when you’re triggered.
2. The science behind why a small moment in the present can activate big feelings from the past.
3. Three ways to recognize when stress and anxiety have hijacked your calm—and how to start restoring self-trust.

 Take 11 minutes to understand what’s happening beneath your reactions—and begin to reclaim calm and clarity. You’re worth it.

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About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.

Transcript

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:00

In this episode, you'll discover what's really happening inside your brain and body. When something triggers you.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:07

Welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, the podcast where you and I tackle stress and anxiety in midlife so you can stop feeling like crap, feel more present at home, and thrive at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 50,000 hours of therapy sessions and 32 years of teaching practical science-backed mental wellness.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:31

Welcome to the podcast. Have you ever been triggered? You're going along calmly and whammo. Your body lights up. Suddenly you react in a way that feels confusing out of alignment with your values or doesn't keep you safe. If you're like most people, you hate being triggered, you just wish the world around you would behave. So your inside world didn't feel so outta control. Pissed or scared. But here's the truth. No matter how hard you try, you can't get people to behave in ways that keep you from being triggered. The good news with a little understanding science and Inner work, you can learn to manage any trigger. Life brings your way. I kid you not triggers. While incredibly uncomfortable are your body's way of doing two things, keeping you safe. By signaling threat in inviting you to do some Inner work that can heal old pain. Once you learn to recognize and process your triggers, you'll be amazed at how much your sense of self-trust and agency grow. There probably is no other skill that helps you develop healthy relationships like learning to recognize and move through your triggers. In this episode, you'll discover what a trigger really is and why your body reacts so fast. The science why it feels real in the present, but is actually connected to the past. And three signs you're being triggered and the common responses that make sense biologically, but can quietly erode your self trusts and relationships. Let's begin with the definition of a trigger. Triggers are deeply uncomfortable, but they're your body's way of protecting you. Yep. You might not think it, but it is the truth. They signal potential danger and they invite exploration. Often leading to more self-awareness and healing, a trigger is any internal or external cue that reminds your nervous system of a past threat. The reminder doesn't have to be conscious. Your body reacts first. Your mind catches up later. Think of it as your alarm system. Misfiring. The body senses something familiar, a tone of voice, a smell, a facial expression, even silence, and instantly moves into protection mode. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. A client once told me he was triggered when his spouse rushing out the door, said, God, this house is a mess. I can never find anything. My client has a DHD and grew up with constant criticism. In that instant, his body froze. His mind raced and he picked up a glass and without even thinking, threw it against the wall. While he said F you, he went to work tense, defensive, and full of regret. That's what being triggered looks like. Your body isn't wrong. It's doing exactly what it's designed to do, but because triggers come from stored emotional memory, they often appear much larger than the actual moment, what does that mean? It means that the moment is distorted. We all get triggered. Teachers, parents, therapists, CEOs, triggers don't mean you're broken. They mean you're human. Your nervous system just hasn't gotten the memo that it's safe yet. If the moment is full of distortion, then why do triggers feel so real When a trigger hits your amygdala, the brain's alarm center fires in milliseconds, flooding you with adrenaline and cortisol, all this happens so fast that your prefrontal cortex, the rational thinking part of your brain hasn't even logged on yet. Your body feels the alarm as if it's happening right now. Even when the real danger is long gone. That's why something small, a look, a tone, criticism or being ignored can feel huge. The past pain has been reactivated in the present and together. Whammo. Years ago, one of my children who had a learning difference was melting down at the kitchen table while her dad was trying to help her with homework. I was making soup and suddenly wanted to crawl out of my skin. I had to suppress the urge to yell or walk out of the room. Later I remembered one of my favorite clinical sayings. What's hysterical? Often historical through reflection, I realized watching her struggle connected me to my own frustration as a child with a speech impediment That's The confusing part of triggers your nervous system is shouting, protect. Protect while your logical brain insists. This isn't that big of a deal. That internal tug of war creates anxiety, shame, self-doubt, and can really be harmful to relationships. Take a second. Just notice what you're feeling as I talk about triggers. Pause for a breath, let your feet press gently into the floor and just process your reaction to all this information. If you're feeling a little bit triggered, remind yourself you're safe. Right now you're listening to a podcast, Triggers are part of being human, but I want you to be able to recognize them so then you can learn to manage them so you don't have regrets and you don't lose trust in yourself. So here are three signs. Sign number one, your body and mind. Jump into one of the four protective patterns. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. For most people, this happens before they even notice once that response is activated, your prefrontal cortex goes offline. You can't think straight, and you are vulnerable to acting more like a child than an adult. Ouch. I know that hurts, but somebody had to say it because one of the most difficult parts of when your triggered is you're not usually acting out of your adult self. You're Acting out of patterns that were established in your childhood, that were adaptive and worked well then, but no longer sign. Number two, you lose access to calm reasoning. Why, as I mentioned before, you're flooded with lots of emotion and your prefrontal cortex isn't online, so it's easy to have brain fog to feel defensive or detached. You may even feel like you've left your body a type of dissociation. And sign number three. Your reaction feels bigger than this situation. Your emotional volume or perhaps your behavior doesn't match what's happening. That's a clue. A painful memory network has been activated. My client's outburst was a seen reaction. My skin crawling moment was an unseen reaction. Both didn't fit the situation and both can damage trust in relationships and in yourself. Most of us have a favorite pattern. Some argue, some would draw, some numb out. Some people please. Each one of these made perfect sense. When you were younger it kept you safe, but left unexamined. Those same strategies can quietly harm adult relationships and chip away at self-trust. When you understand this. Compassion replaces criticism. Reflection replaces avoidance. Taming, replaces blaming. You can move from asking what's wrong with me, or why are they doing this? And start asking what happened to me and why is my body still protecting me this way? And remember, there's usually some truth in what's triggering you, but it's the intensity of your reaction, the way the old pain inflames the new moment that makes it hard to see what's really happening. When you understand that blend, you can separate what belongs to the past from what actually is unfolding right now. So your Inner Challenge for this week is to notice what happens when you feel triggered. Ask yourself, do I see this as someone else's fault or as my own failure? What if instead, I saw it as information, my mind and body inviting me to do deeper Inner work. Even though being triggered is uncomfortable, it can be a gateway to deeper connection with yourself, with others. Most importantly, the truth. What hurt you in the past, often reappears in the present. You can't always heal old relationships, but you can build healthier ones. Now, relationships that comfort, connect and repair. Understanding this helps you move from, I need the world to stop triggering me to when I'm triggered, I can do my Inner work when the intensity of being triggered shows up, try saying quietly. This is a memory, not my marching orders, because when you're triggered, your body is sending you an old set of instructions, survival strategies that once kept you safe. Now you get to decide what happens next. That awareness is where real calm and connection begins. Not from controlling the world, but from understanding yourself. In this episode, you learn that a trigger is your nervous system's way of remembering danger. You discovered the science, how the amidala fires before logic can engage, and how that makes the past feel alive in the present. And you recognize three common signs and responses that while protective can quietly block trust and connection, understanding this isn't about blame, it's about awareness. So you can choose differently. On Thursday, we'll build on this idea and explore how to manage triggers in real time. Moving from seeing them as threats and inconveniences to recognizing them as genuine opportunities for growth and calm just in time for the holidays. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Thursday with more creating midlife calm