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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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Waking the Tiger summary
Peter A. Levine
Ann Frederick
Healing Trauma
14 mins
Brief summary
Waking the Tiger by Peter A. Levine with Ann Frederick is a profound exploration of trauma and the body's innate ability to heal. It offers valuable insights and practical exercises for overcoming the lasting effects of trauma and restoring well-being.
Table of Contents
Waking the Tiger
Summary of 3 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 3
Stress, animals, and the body
An abusive childhood, a violent assault, a car accident – trauma can arise from many different sources. But despite this, it leaves similar scars – scars that can be debilitating, even when they’re invisible.
Trauma causes a range of physical, emotional, and psychological symptoms. These can include anxiety, depression, and flashbacks. They can also extend to many other kinds of symptoms, like sleeping problems, chronic pain, dissociation or “spaciness,” and somatic illness – meaning an illness that specifically affects the body physically, rather than the mind.
Although it’s easy to feel isolated if you’ve experienced trauma, you’re far from alone. Nearly everyone encounters it, in some form, throughout life. But what exactly is trauma? And why does it leave such a lasting impact on our lives?
A fascinating clue can be found in the biology and behavior of wild animals. Wild animals face constant threats and dangers – from predation, injury, the elements, and starvation, among other things. And yet, curiously, wild animals rarely suffer from trauma, as humans do.
Why is that? How do wild animals manage to survive – and even thrive – in the face of extreme adversity, while we humans struggle so much, and for so long, in the aftermath of traumatic events? What can we learn from them?
To answer these questions, we need to understand how animals – human and non-human animals alike – respond to danger.
When we face a challenge or threat, the stress response is our body’s natural way of preparing us for action. The stress response involves a series of physiological changes: our heart beats faster, our breathing accelerates, our muscles tense, and we become hyper-alert to our surroundings. These changes help us mobilize our body’s resources and energy to deal with a threat. As we’ll see, this build up of energy can be implicated in trauma.
We often hear about the fight or flight response. Faced with a terrifying threat, animals can either fight back aggressively or run away as fast as they can. However, sometimes we face a situation that is too overwhelming, or hopeless, for us to fight or flee. In this case, we experience what’s called the freeze response. When neither fight or flight will ensure survival, we will simply become immobile. This immobility response involves a dramatic drop in our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, and muscle tone.
It may seem counterintuitive, but freezing is a smart, albeit last-ditch, part of an animal’s overall survival strategy. An impala playing dead, for instance, might convince a cheetah to stop its attack, buying precious time to escape.
Freeze also helps us cope with extreme stress by shutting down parts of our awareness. In a freeze state we may feel numb, detached, or faint. This is the body’s way of protecting us from suffering, by dissociating us from our bodies and from an awful situation that we cannot escape.
But there’s a drawback here. As we explored, the stress response involves a huge build up of energy. Either fighting back or running away allows us to discharge this excess energy, so we can return to a normal state of calmness afterwards. But – on its own – the freeze response doesn’t. So what do animals do, after they freeze?
Let’s say, for instance, a polar bear is shot with a tranquilizer dart after a stressful chase. As it wakes from anesthesia, it will go through an extended period of shaking and trembling, before returning to normal. This is typical. Animals instinctively discharge the compressed energy mobilized during a threat, through shaking, trembling, sweating, and other physiological responses. Thus animals return their bodies to equilibrium, balance, and calm – preventing traumatic symptoms from developing.
Unfortunately when humans freeze, we often fail to complete this cycle of stress response. Our faculties of higher cognition, helpful as they are, can distract us from being aware of the bodily sensations associated with this built-up energy. Our social conditioning, too, often leads us to control our behavior, trying to stoically “hold ourselves together” – instead of letting the energy stored in our body run its course and release itself.
As a consequence, we store this unreleased energy in our nervous system and body tissues. This creates a state of unresolved stress that can affect us for years or even decades.
This “stuck” energy – what we call trauma – affects our nervous system and brain in profound ways. It can hold us in a state of either hyperarousal or hypoarousal. Hyperarousal is when we are constantly on edge, anxious, restless, irritable, or angry. Hypoarousal is when we are chronically depressed, lethargic, or numb. Both states are unhealthy and prevent us from living fully and authentically.
Trauma also affects our brain structure and function, impairing parts of the brain that are responsible for memory, emotion regulation, executive function, and social cognition. It creates neural pathways that reinforce fear, helplessness, and avoidance, while impairing our ability to integrate different aspects of our experience, such as thoughts, feelings, images, and actions.
A further effect of trauma is that of dissociation: a split between body and mind. The state of dissociation connected with freeze – one designed to protect us from overwhelming feelings – may become chronic. When this happens, we lose touch with our bodily sensations, feelings, and intuition – our “felt sense” of being ourselves in the world. Tragically, this partially robs us of our sense of meaning and purpose in life.
So how, then, do we heal ourselves? How do we come back into our bodies, release this stuck energy, and return to balance and vibrancy?
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What is Waking the Tiger about?
Waking the Tiger (1997) offers an enlightening perspective on trauma by exploring the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms. Using this knowledge, it then provides a pathway to healing through exercises that focus on bodily sensations.
Waking the Tiger Review
Waking the Tiger (1997) by Peter A. Levine with Ann Frederick is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding and healing trauma. Here's why this book stands out:
- It offers a new perspective on trauma by exploring the physiological and psychological effects of traumatic experiences, providing a holistic approach to healing.
- Grounded in science, the book combines research findings with real-life stories, creating an informative and accessible narrative that helps readers grasp the complexities of trauma.
- With its compassionate approach and practical exercises, the book empowers individuals to reconnect with their bodies and regain control over their lives, offering a clear path towards healing and transformation.
Who should read Waking the Tiger?
- Trauma survivors looking to understand and heal their symptoms
- Readers fascinated by animal behavior and human nature
- Anyone drawn to explore how awareness, instinct, and resilience can transform suffering
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Waking the Tiger FAQs
What is the main message of Waking the Tiger?
The main message of Waking the Tiger is that trauma lives in the body, and by accessing and releasing it, we can heal and restore our vitality.
How long does it take to read Waking the Tiger?
The reading time for Waking the Tiger varies depending on the reader's speed, but it typically takes several hours. However, the Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.
Is Waking the Tiger a good book? Is it worth reading?
Waking the Tiger is a valuable read for those interested in understanding and overcoming trauma. It provides practical insights and techniques for healing.
Who is the author of Waking the Tiger?
The author of Waking the Tiger is Peter A. Levine with Ann Frederick.
What to read after Waking the Tiger?
If you're wondering what to read next after Waking the Tiger, here are some recommendations we suggest:
- Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
- In an Unspoken Voice by Peter A. Levine
- Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Stephanie M. Kriesberg
- You Can Thrive After Narcissistic Abuse by Melanie Tonia Evans
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
- The Porn Trap by Wendy Maltz & Larry Maltz
- The Highly Sensitive Person's Guide to Dealing with Toxic People by Shahida Arabi
- It's Not You by Ramani Durvasula
- The Polyvagal Theory by Stephen W. Porges
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman