I grew up with that phrase. It felt like good advice back then, so I followed it. I kept going, perhaps not always calmly.
But it is not the advice I would give to anyone today. Nor is it what Mia, my daughter, and I did as she recovered from Chronic Fatigue and POTS.
Mia was stuck in the red zone (dorsal – shutdown and immobilised), and I was mostly in amber (sympathetic, fight and flight). We both needed to find a greater sense of safety, hope, and possibility. We needed to change the safety-danger equation to see and take in more glimmers to offset the triggers.
Whatever state we are in, we broadcast that to the world around us – we communicate nervous system to nervous system. I wanted to be able to send cues of safety to Mia’s nervous system and so now we were on the same journey together.
What did we do?
As I mentioned last time the first step is awareness – being aware of your own body. Your breathing, where you are feeling tension, your posture, any emotions, your mood – just noticing. Pausing and taking a minute for yourself can be powerful on its own.
The second step is connection – connecting with your body, your surroundings and with other people.
As the vagus nerve is 80% sensory fibres, the quickest way to help ourselves is to use our body to regulate our nervous system. We won’t think our way to calm.
The best thing we can all do is to play with different suggestions and create a toolbox that works for us – it’s not what works for someone else, it’s what works for you.
International athletes use a combination of techniques all the time. One international rugby player stamps his foot, looks down the field, taking in the periphery and then naturally he breathes out. Another tennis player will look to her coach, smile and know she is not alone. Resilience comes from regulation.
Connecting to your body
- Breathing: Simply a longer exhale will physiologically connect to the heart and slow it down and a longer inhale will speed up the heart and allow you to become active.
- Humming: This brings breath and the humming vibrations will calm the vagus nerve.
- Movement: Sympathetic energy will want faster movement like a run, punching a pillow or shaking, but if you are feeling immobilised, something gentle like swaying from side to side or a slow walk is the place to start.
- In a private space you might allow your body to express a movement that wouldn’t be socially acceptable or safe to do, for example, a punching movement, swinging your arms wide and taking up space in the world, gathering the words that hurt you in your hands and throwing them away, or raising your hands to say stop, no more. This can feel very freeing. Scream if you want to.
Connecting to your surroundings
- Five senses: Use them to take in your surroundings. What can you hear, see, touch, smell or taste that brings a sense of comfort? If your immediate environment doesn’t offer much, imagine something – a bird singing, the sun on the tree, the smell of rain, the taste of a crisp apple, a soft blanket.
- Music: Humans have always used music to match or lift our moods. What are you drawn to listening to and why? Do you always need a fast beat for energy? What happens when you listen to calmer music? Are you uncomfortable, anxious or relaxed?
Connecting to others
We are biologically wired to want to belong. We yearn to be included in a group. For many of us this has become hard, especially in the last few years when we were told it was not safe and we were prevented from socialising.
We can find a friendly face in many places – a café, supermarket, when we are out for a walk – even if we live alone. Face-to-face connection is best but online or a phone call is helpful too. Start slowly and start first was my trick. Go to the supermarket and smile first at the checkout assistant – send your signal of welcome and see what happens. Exchanging friendly hellos with a stranger on my morning walk can improve my mood for hours.
One thing that is important to mention is that our physiology can be changed by being stuck in a more disconnected or mobilised state, and then it becomes harder to be with others.
An example of this is the small stapedius muscle in the inner ear. When we have become hypervigilant, we are on high alert for low or high frequency sounds which are signals of danger to our nervous system. In that situation, it is not as easy to hear the middle frequencies of a human voice.
Think of someone who doesn’t like busy social settings and can’t hear you well in those environments. Their nervous system doesn’t feel safe in these places so they will tend to avoid them or go home early.
The Safe and Sound protocol is a programme of specially modulated music that trains this stapedius to become more flexible, allowing us to hear and take in the middle-frequency sounds of safety around us. The programme was developed by Dr Stephen Porges and as a certified practitioner I now offer it to all my clients – it is practical and it works.
Alison Ward is a Martha Beck Master coach specialising in nervous system regulation. She collaborates with Functional Medicine specialist Dr. Rav James to help individuals understand and recover from anxiety, stress, chronic fatigue and related health challenges. Alison works online from her home in Cape Town. To learn more, visit www.alisonwardcoaching.com or email her at alisonward1@mac.com.
