Our autonomic nervous system – the part of the nervous system which operates silently, almost completely underneath conscious awareness – connects the brain with all our essential organs. In very simple terms, its understood to have two modes/ branches – sympathetic and parasympathetic. They’re both essential and ideally we move freely and easily as required from one to the other.
Category: Mind body connection Page 2 of 3
If you haven’t been taught, or you’ve spent a long time disconnected, how would you know what “being in your body” actually means? What does it look like?
These ideas can be a bit abstract and mystical.
Here are 5 simple steps which might allow you to gently and gradually notice and inhabit your physical body.
Your brain, the body budget keeper, keeps careful watch of vital resources: oxygen, water, salt, glucose, and other ingredients that keep you alive and well.
If we view the physical manifestations of stress, fear and anxiety with an evolutionary lens (i.e that our nervous systems are preparing us to fight or flee in response to a perceived threat) then naturally the clever human system has an effective process of discharging these physiological changes (using up stress hormones etc). The whole point of the threat state is the system preparing you to fight for your rights or run for your life) so the body anticipates movement.
My favorite definition of Embodiment comes from Hillary McBride, in The Wisdom of your Body, who describes it as:
the experience of being a body in a social context
Dr Hillary McBride
There is lots of information and discussion out there about mindfulness and the impact that learning to be more present and in the moment, has on our health.
In psychology, and particularly attachment theory, the concept of “good enough” refers to a parent who best serves their developing child by being “enough” rather than perfect. I love this. While a child needs an attentive and loving parent, they also benefit from seeing the reality of life, the struggles, emotions and challenges in manageable amounts.
There are many pathways via which emotional experience can impact our physical health but experts in this area separate the physical impacts of stress (when it’s prolonged or chronic) from the (less understood) impacts of trauma (especially on the developing) system.
Intuition and evidence tell us that our physical and mental health is influenced by a complex interaction between genes, germs, injury, aging and EXPERIENCE but do we fully understand and accept the links between emotions and biology?