By Nicole Gregory, contributing writer
Cal State Fullerton’s public health lecturer Mark Dust was 29 when he deployed to Iraq in 2005 and spent his 30th birthday in a guard tower at Abu Ghraib prison. During his service in Iraq, he was nearly killed by a roadside bomb, engaged in deadly combat and multiple times came upon the aftermath of a suicide bombing. But he did not realize after he had returned to the U.S. that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Eventually, he recognized the symptoms and started on a journey to study ways to manage and prevent the damaging effects of chronic and traumatic stress. His research on building physiological resilience was recently presented in the professional journal Frontiers in Psychology.
Post-traumatic stress disorder can develop when a person witnesses or experiences a traumatic event that is shocking or life-threatening, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website. Symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, headaches, irritability, and being highly vigilant can begin months or years after the event.
“I knew I had a short temper, and I would have intrusive thoughts,” said Dust, describing his return to the U.S. “And I noticed that I was always just tense around all the crowds.”
Even going to Disneyland with his kids was difficult. He felt threatened all the time. The sight of a pile of trash on the side of the road while driving once triggered sudden, acute fear.
While working toward a master’s degree in business administration, Dust signed up for a course called Executive Mind that taught him mindfulness meditation, hoping it would calm his nervous system so that he would make good decisions.
“I started noticing that I wasn’t being as reactive as I was before,” he said. He also realized that in certain situations his body would tingle as if he were being threatened, even when his mind knew that he was completely safe — and here the beginnings of his research inquiries took hold.
After he completed his MBA, he began working toward his doctorate at the School of Community and Global Health at Claremont Graduate University. He earned his degree in health promotion sciences with a concentration in neurocognitive sciences.
“I had to know, is it possible for us to exercise our nervous system to try to prevent PTSD from happening after a traumatic event?” Dust said.
He recalled that when he’d attended a support group at the Veterans Administration, he became agitated hearing the stories from the veterans sharing traumatic experiences. Just as he’d been fearful in crowds, his body reacted to the stories as if they were happening in the present. Could calming thoughts prevent a stress reaction?
“If the brain doesn’t know the difference between you telling a story and it actually happening, then why can’t we use that for positive?” he said.
The pilot study Dust conducted looked at people who practiced either a visualization technique or a breathing technique to see if they could build resilience against stress. The visualization group’s results trended in a positive direction and could hold promise as a viable way to build resilience, Dust said.
“The visualization exercise uses the power of the brain not knowing the difference between hearing someone else’s story and flipping it on its head for good,” he said. “Instead of generating a fight-or-flight response from the thoughts, we generate a rest-and-relaxation response by telling ourselves a positive story that gives us a sense of comfort, safety or joy and elicits a rest-and-digest physiological response — the antithesis of fight or flight. I think this has a greater potential for building physiological resilience than a breathing exercise.”
Dust teaches stress management and feels that by sharing his personal story he may help someone to effectively treat their stress without turning to drugs or alcohol.
“Our physiology can drive our thoughts,” he said. “For example, if we start taking short rapid breaths, that increases our heart rate, and an increased heart rate can trigger an adrenaline release, which can make us more alert and introduce thought patterns to scan the environment for threats. Part of building resilience could be a less active physiological response that would reduce the fight-or-flight drive and, in turn, keep our thoughts from going into survival mode.”
Dust is in a unique position to help others who may suffer from PTSD. “I feel like I need to be one of those figures that people can look to and say, ‘Well, if he can do it, I can do it.’ It can be painful, but I think more good comes out of me sharing my story than if I were to keep it under lock and key and not let other people know that what you’re experiencing, I’ve experienced as well, or something similar, and you’re not alone.”
