In humans this looks like laughing or physically shaking or crying, and then we return to feeling safe and back to rest and digest. We start with a resting state, go onto alert, then FFF, then afterwards we shake it off. This cycle is the essence of emotion processing in our body. He returns to a calm state of hunting and eating. After shaking for a while, the bear walks off with no residual effects from the experience. This is his body’s natural response to burn off the excess adrenaline that surged through his body when he was trapped. The bear has experienced a traumatic event, but after the researchers leave he begins to shake violently. This is stressful, and the bear is helpless to stop the researchers who examine it, tag it, etc. So this Polar Bear was peacefully doing his thing when suddenly a group of researchers chased him with a helicopter and shot him with a tranquilizer dart. He uses this example of a polar bear to demonstrate our nervous system’s cycle: Peter Levine, the creator of Somatic Experiencing Therapy, explains this process so well. Our nervous system is designed to go through a natural cycle of rest–alert–FFF–shake-it-off–return-to-safety–rest-and-digest. A healthy nervous system tends to spend more time in the calm state. It can go through cycles of activation, such as waking up, performing a task, getting motivated, and dealing with problems, and it can switch to relaxation - taking a break, sleeping, rejuvenating, refreshing. The part of our nervous system that we use the most becomes the strongest.Ī healthy nervous system alternates between the two states easily. These two states are kind of like muscles. It’s important to be able to respond to threats, but it’s also important to rest and heal. Your immune system gets back to work, and your sense of peace and safety are restored.īoth of these responses are helpful. This state is also known as rest and digest or feed and breed. The parasympathetic response slows your heart rate, lowers your blood pressure, turns back on digestion, loosens your muscles, and softens your eyes. It slows things down and helps the nervous system and physiology return to a calm state. I remember this by thinking “para” as in parachute. This is called the parasympathetic response. Your nervous system also has a response to calm down. This is what leads to the physiological changes in the body with the fight/flight/freeze response. Quick review: when we feel unsafe, our nervous system has a way to get activated in order to respond to threats. There are two automatic responses in your nervous system: a natural alerting response and a natural calming response. But your beautiful, brilliant brain isn’t just going to leave you hanging. This is an automatic reaction in the nervous system in response to threats or the need to perform. In the last section we learned about the FFF response. In this section, you’re going to learn about the two states of your nervous system, how emotions can get stuck in the body or the nervous system, and how to train your nervous system to be calmer so you can process through emotions, feel happier, and make better choices. But when you calm your nervous system, you can then calm your thinking as well. For many people, you can’t just think your way out of emotions. The older, more instinctual part of your brain actually has superiority over your cortex, and modern research into trauma and anxiety work is showing that your nervous system really runs the show. However, there’s something deeper than thoughts. And honestly, this is true: when you change how you think, you can change how you feel. Gordon, M.Dįor a very long time, the field of psychology was dominated by psychologists who insisted that the way to change how you feel is to change how you think. “ Everything that happens to us emotionally or psychologically happens to our bodies as well.
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