• Overactive "fight or flight" response - When the body mistakenly interprets stimuli as a danger and activates its self-protective response, it creates symptoms. As a result of the frequent activation of the fight or flight response, the "warning" alarm becomes reset at a higher level over time.
• Stress Overload/Lifestyle Factors - Some examples are intense or prolonged stress, lack of sleep, overwork, poor diet, poor breathing patterns, grief or trauma.
• Childhood Environment - Growing up in a family where others are fearful or anxious can "teach" a child to view the world as a scary place and learn to expect the worst. Likewise, growing up in an environment that negates feelings, contains violence, or does not teach healthy coping strategies can set the stage for anxiety.
• Thought Patterns - Negative, unrealistic, or self-defeating thought patterns promote obsessive thinking, what-if thinking, racing thoughts, and other anxious thoughts about the trauma.
• Genetic Factors - Anxiety disorders tend to run in families. There is debate as to how much of this predisposition is learned from our childhood environment and how much is genetic.
• Unresolved Emotions Regarding the Trauma - It is natural and healthy to feel anger, grief, and other emotions are a trauma. When these normal emotions are not expressed or resolved in a healthy way, they can perpetuate PTSD.

Some common symptoms are:

• easily startled
• ordinary events remind you of the traumatic event
• feeling physically and/or emotionally numb
• flashbacks of the traumatic event or re-living the traumatic event in your mind
• lose interest in activities you enjoy
• nightmares about the traumatic event
• difficulty sleeping
• feeling detached from yourself or feelings of unreality
• difficulty being affectionate
• irritability
• feeling strong emotions, such as rage or violent tendencies

In addition to these symptoms, people with PTSD can also experience panic attacks or other anxiety symptoms when faced with a situation, person, or thing that reminds him or her of the traumatic event.

Effective treatment options help people experiencing PTSD resolve their grief and anger over the trauma, as well as address the physical symptoms, anxious thought patterns, and avoidance behaviours that perpetuate the disorder.

Medication can be a helpful short-term tool in reducing the physical symptoms of PTSD for some people. It can help reduce physical symptoms and get the body on a more even keel, particularly at the beginning of your recovery when symptoms are so debilitating that it is difficult to function.

However, medication is not a cure-all or a lasting solution. It does not address several root causes of PTSD, such as unresolved emotions about the trauma, anxious thought patterns, and avoidance behaviours. Medications are often used in combination with other treatment options, such as cognitive-behavioural therapy, which teaches you skills to reduce PTSD on your own.

Behavioural therapy helps you to unlearn self-defeating patterns and habits in your day to day actions. It teaches you new, healthy skills and ways of reacting to situations that trigger memories of the traumatic experience, such as progressive muscle relaxation techniques, gradual exposure to the anxiety trigger, changing breathing patterns, positive and negative reinforcement, and learning empowering ways of relating to others.

Cognitive therapy assumes that by changing self-defeating thought patterns and transforming them into more successful belief systems you can improve your mental and emotional health. Cognitive therapy teaches you to change emotions and behaviour by changing our self-defeating thoughts about the trauma, such as all or nothing beliefs, negative assumptions, labelling, and so on.

A combination of cognitive and behavioural therapies stimulates areas of growth that are difficult to achieve using one or the other by itself.