The Importance of Working With Your Body to Find Calm and Recovery States

You’ve likely had the experience of trying to calm yourself down by changing your thoughts, only to find that no matter what you tell yourself, you still feel angry, upset, frustrated, afraid, etc. You might even say, “Intellectually, I know that it’s not a big deal, but I still feel really upset.” Or “I know on a cognitive level that I have good things to say, but I still feel nervous to speak up.” Or even something like, “I know in my mind that I matter, but I just feel so unlovable.”

It’s not to say that changing our thoughts isn’t a helpful and worthwhile exercise – it absolutely is. We need to be able to influence the kinds of thoughts we have if we are going to have any chance at improving our life experience. We want to be able to contemplate the truthfulness of the beliefs we are telling ourselves and be willing to make new statements and imagine positive possibilities. However, changing our thoughts is not always sufficient by itself to change our feeling state. Especially when our emotional state is strong or habitual, changing how we feel by thought alone can seem impossible.

One way to explore why this might be is to look at the research on how our body sends signals to the brain and vice versa. It might seem logical to assume that there are pathways in our nervous system that send signals from our brain to our body, but did you know that there are also pathways that send signals from our body to our brain? This means that our body can have a “sense” of something and then send chemical signals to our brain about whether or not we should feel safe – and this all happens outside of what we know as “thinking” with our rational mind.

You may have heard about the Polyvagal Theory which focuses on the role of our vagus nerve, the largest and most complex cranial nerve, in regulating our nervous system. This nerve travels from the brain to the gut, innervating other organ systems, too. The role of the vagus nerve is to promote a state of calm and regeneration when activated. And something very important about the vagus nerve is that the signals sent along the pathways are bidirectional, and in fact, there are more pathways sending signals from the body, primarily the heart and cardiovascular system, to the brain than the other way around.

When we look at our brain and body knowing that there are bidirectional signals being communicated at all times, it makes perfect sense why wrangling our emotions to a new feeling state can feel so impossible with using just our thoughts. If our body is strongly sensing, “I am in danger,” there’s no amount of “thinking” our way out of it. Further, if our body is sensing something very negative very strongly, the signals sent to our brain end up impacting the type of cognition that we have. It becomes a feedback loop, where our triggered thoughts generate more of the triggered feeling, but it’s important to note that the cycle often starts in the body, not the brain.

You might be wondering, how does our body “sense” things outside of us to then send signals to the brain? The way that our body “senses” our environment is via implicit signals that are being picked up on outside of our conscious awareness, a process Stephen Porges coined as “neuroception.” It’s almost like there’s a part of us constantly scanning the environment for relevant information and then reacting to that information. Where we feel those reactions is in our body, sending those signals to the brain.

The problem happens when our automatic body “sensors” are out of balance. Often this occurs because of some sort of traumatic experience in our past. For example, if I grew up in a household where I couldn’t express myself without being rejected, judged or criticized, my “sensor” might be keen on picking up any minor fluctuation in mood or facial expression of any person around me to prepare for a judgment or criticism. While this may have helped me know what to expect in my household growing up, in my present-day, it would likely lead to me being unnecessarily hypervigilant in social settings, making me nervous, fearful or defensive. Further, if I developed this reaction as a child, when I am arguably much more helpless and defenseless than I am today as an adult, the feeling in my body is even more off balance, because it would also likely contain a feeling of “I can’t handle whatever this is.”

But what this ultimately means, is that it would really benefit us to learn to change the way our body feels, specifically our heart, to be more effective at improving our mood and cognition. And I want to acknowledge that this is easier said than done. It’s a simple directive, but not easy. But it’s a skill that we can develop, and like all skills, it’s something that we can feel more confident and capable of when we practice over time.

Slowing down our thoughts, practicing doing body scans, consciously pacing our breathing, grounding practices and meditations aimed at bodily relaxation (for example, Yoga Nidra practices), are all good ways to support our nervous system. I like to say that we are working with ourselves “from the neck down.”

And it’s important that you know that when you do things like this, it’s actually having a huge impact. Even if it feels uncomfortable, know that you are supporting your nervous system reset its baseline. Especially if you find yourself on edge more often than not, you likely are picking up on “cues” unconsciously at all times that you are not in a safe environment. Ideally, we exist in a state where our nervous system is calm yet flexible. Ideally, we feel safe enough to engage creatively and connect with others. Ideally, when we do go through a stressful moment or situation, we return to our baseline of calm and recovery afterwards.

Promoting a more restorative state for our nervous system won’t solve all your life problems, but it will certainly support a more balanced mind and approach to overcoming them.