Tremors for Trauma
Recently while spending a little time relaxing and catching up on the social media posts of friends, I stumbled across the link to a twitter thread that claimed playing Tetris after a traumatic event (like a car accident) could significantly cut down on the likelihood of that person experiencing PTSD. The final statement of the post read, “Put Tetris on your phone and the phone of somebody you love today. It’s literally a trauma first aid kit.”
Huh. Tetris for trauma.
I was intrigued. That would be amazing if it was true! Alas, knowing the internet for what it really is (the perfect place to circulate new ideas without concrete data or false information), I decided to dig deeper. One of my sisters is a licensed therapist, and it turns out that there isn’t solid research on whether or not playing Tetris has a direct effect on the rates of PTSD. The original post, written and shared by TV writer, Jelena Woehr, references a 2015 study called “Computer Game Play Reduces Intrusive Memories of Experimental Trauma via Reconsolidation-Update Mechanisms.”
Sounds legit right?
Here’s the problem. The study didn’t actually include people who experienced trauma. It simulated trauma with 52 healthy college students by having them watch a 12-minute film and then tested them on their memory of the film with and without having played Tetris. She references another study, this one from 2017, that links Tetris to reduced intrusive memories after a car crash by 62%. The problem here is that the reduced-memories effect only seemed to last a month and every other aspect of trauma wasn’t affected at all. Things like avoidance, depression, anxiety, hyperarousal, and post-traumatic distress were exactly the same in the group who played Tetris and the group who didn’t (Simons, 2021).
So there’s the bad news. The good news is that there IS something we can do immediately following a traumatic experience that is proven to prevent that trauma from getting stuck in our bodies and it’s shockingly simple: we can let ourselves shake.
Tremors, it turns out, are the body’s way of releasing the fight/flight/freeze response that happens whenever we find ourselves in a traumatic situation. My sister, the therapist, says that some psychologists are currently studying wild animals and have observed that they shake after frightening or near death experiences. As a result, they have none of the lingering issues we humans tend to that are diagnosable as PTSD. When we fight our body’s natural method of protecting itself or stifle shaking because we’re worried about how we’ll look, we’re hurting ourselves and contributing to lasting problems (Shaw, 2019). Instead, we should all take a page from Taylor Swift (or my dog Scout who trembles like crazy every single time I give her a bath) and shake it off!
References:
Simons, P. (2021). “Tetris for trauma” viral Twitter thread: A master class in misleading psych research. Mad in America. Retrieved from https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/10/tetris-trauma-viral-twitter-thread-master-class-misleading-psych-research/.
Shaw, B. (2019). When trauma gets stuck in the body. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-the-body/201910/when-trauma-gets-stuck-in-the-body.
Challenges/Points:
Playing Tetris after a traumatic event has not been proven to prevent PTSD.
What does biologically prevent PTSD is allowing your body to release the stress by shaking and trembling.
If you feel yourself beginning to shake, try to take a deep breath and follow your body’s lead.
Questions:
Had you heard about playing Tetris for trauma before reading this article?
Have you ever stopped your body from fully responding to something traumatic?
Is PTSD something you deal with currently or do you know someone who does?
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