When we run, dance, hug or laugh we send a very simple and clear message through our whole system: not only am I safe in this moment, I am thriving. The system rewards us by increasing our capacity to engage, share, learn and love.
We can learn to send the same messages through the system in any moment via our breath.
It can be helpful to know that your reactions, behaviour, emotional responses and thought patterns in any moment will likely occur much faster than you can control with any positive thinking or snazzy distraction technique. Its really helpful to have strategies available, but the truth is, your experience is determined much less via conscious choice and much more by your early experience and the way your nervous system learned to respond to the world.
We rely on our senses to pick up on cues of danger or safety in our environment. Much of this happens out of our conscious awareness. A smell, even if it’s fleeting or faint, can quickly whip us far away from the present moment into a thousand different places, stories created from memories of long ago. Sometimes these places are kind, familiar, warm and safe. Sometimes less so.
The main interest of your autonomic nervous system (ANS) is your safety.
If you are ever anxious, frightened, sad, unsettled, overwhelmed or angry, but logically can’t make sense why, you might feel frustrated or betrayed by your body and mind… like they’re conspiring against you to make life hard.
In Polyvagal Theory, the “vagal brake” is the slowing down of a threat response by using cues of safety to hold us when we might otherwise slip into fight, flight or shut down.
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).
Although it might not feel like it, that urgent physical alarm you feel at times of stress is your bodies attempt to keep you safe. It wants to protect you because its reptilian logic determines that you need to be prepared to fight or run.
Mind and body are in constant conversation with each other via the central nervous system – a huge collection of nerves in the brain and spinal cord.
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