trauma – La Vie en Yoga

Our sense of safety and social connection are intrinsically interlinked, creating feedback loops that allow us to not only form healthier connections with others but to combat loneliness and be more gracefully alone.

Dr. Stephen Porges calls the ventral vagal complex the “social engagement system” and refers to Polyvagal Theory as “the science of feeling safe”. What is the link between social engagement and safety, you might well ask? The answer to this question offers insight into one of the most important features of our nervous system.

Remember, the primary job of our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is to keep us safe. Its our main protector; our personal bodyguard. It does this in several ways. We can think of these as different programs that our nervous system runs. These programs produce their own particular physiological responses in the body, with their own particular set of hormones and neurotransmitters.

In what I have termed the three GROUNDS OF BEING of our ANS, the Vagus Nerve informs the GROUND OF CONNECTION. The two main programs we generally hear about are the fight or flight (the GROUND OF defensive AROUSAL of the sympathetic system) and the rest and digest – perhaps better identified as the tend and befriend program which is run by the ventral vagal complex. Fight or flight is a state of defensive mobility in the face of a threat. Either we’re moving towards the source of the threat to tackle it head on, or we’re moving away from it, to escape it. There is a also state of defensive immobility (GROUND OF WITHDRAWAL) when the nervous system shuts the body down in response to an extreme threat from which there is no obvious means of escape.

The first two programs, the GROUND OF AROUSAL and the GROUND OF WITHDRAWAL are both foregrounded by our nervous system in response to danger. The third state, the GROUND OF CONNECTION of the parasympathetic, is non-defensive and is foregrounded when we feel safe. This is the domain of the Vagus nerve. And this is where the social connection comes in because humans are social animals. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans have engaged in non-defensive group and coupled activities when they feel safe. When the feedback loop that is always occurring in nervous system states is operating optimally, not only do we naturally engage in these other-connected activities from feelings of individual safety, engaging in them helps to make us feel safe.

When we feel safe and secure, in other words when we background our defensive systems, we can relax. It is in such a safe and secure state that we most easily engage in non-defensive behaviors, which is why this state is often referred to as the ‘rest and digest’ state. Relaxation states are certainly conducive to resting and digesting, but also involve many other behaviors such as nursing babies, cuddling, massaging, healing, etc. These are all non-defensive activities with little to no mobility. But the parasympathetic Vagus nerve complex is also very much involved in activities of non-defensive mobility.

Mobility is not always about defense. There are playful, creative and explorative forms of mobility that engage the Vagus nerve to run completely different physiological programs than the fear-based grounds of arousal and withdrawal. This includes all forms of play, exercise, sports, ritual, dance, playing music, creating art, and so on. Now these activities can be performed alone, of course, but there is a powerful feedback loop of safety and relaxation signaling that occurs when we do these things in groups or even with just one other person. Just like how puppies play in litters, we also play and perform other social activities in order to enhance our social intelligence.

So how does this work? Well, the feedback loop of the Vagus nerve allows us to interpret signals from others to determine whether they can be trusted or not. It also ensures that the signals we are sending to others are aligned properly with our intention. What signals are these? Primarily, they involve facial expressions, particularly the eyes and the area around the mouth. Smiling is how we signal to one another, “I’m not a threat, don’t worry.” Smiling does not just signal to the other person, it signals to one’s own nervous system, since the Vagus nerve innervates the face, especially the area around the mouth. So when we smile, even lifting the corners of our mouth slightly, we immediately feel a bit more positive. Now, of course, this isn’t always the case and people can smile deceptively, but we’ll deal with that in another session. There are other signals too such as the tone and rhythm of the voice called ‘vocal prosady’. Again, there is very good reason why we find ourselves making high range cooing sounds around babies. Those sounds are soothing to a baby’s nervous system. They signal the presence of loving humans.

Dr. Stephen Porges has developed a therapeutic tool that is being used effectively for children with trauma and behavioural issues, called the Safe & Sound protocol that uses specially produced musical tones based on the frequencies of the human voice that trains the middle ear muscles to better tune-in to cues of safety. This in turn stimulates the social engagement system of the Vagus nerve by repatterning the neural networks to improve regulation of the ANS.

When we misinterpret the signals that others are sending, or as is often the case, we send out signals that do not properly reflect our inner condition – all kinds of trouble can ensue. Of course, there are times when we need to hide our intentions for the safety of ourselves or others, but in general honesty is the best policy, especially in the context of small community groups where it’s difficult to stay anonymous. This stuff is programmed very deep. And these programs start running as soon as we’re born. Early exposure to signals of safety are crucial to healthy neural development. Myelin, for example, the fatty sheath around our nerves that helps to carry messages around the body, develops in babies as a direct response of the nervous system to safe-inducing signals from caregivers. A child who grows up with under-developed or damaged myelin can be prone to a whole range of medical conditions from slowed or blocked nerve impulses.

We have all had moments when we’ve got our wires crossed. We can misinterpret a neutral or sad face as being angry, especially if we’re in a bit of a sour mood. In an extreme situation, if we’re feeling really unsafe, we might even interpret someone’s gestures of kindness and compassion towards us as threatening. You might have experienced this second-hand if you’ve ever tried to help calm someone right after a traumatic event.

Humans are social animals and spending long periods of time alone and isolated is very bad for neural health with implications on both mental and physical health. Like an instrument that needs to be tuned to perform optimally, we need to engage with other beings for our nervous systems to perform optimally. When we spend too much time alone, our social engagement system gets rusty. Without the influence of ‘positive others’ for neural feedback, we have to find ways to self-calm and self-motivate. Even if we are moderately successful at this, we might find that our threshold for stress tolerance has narrowed and that we remain easily triggered into states of fight or flight. We can become unnecessarily defensive, perhaps even a bit paranoid, reflexively distrustful of the intentions of others. This is a very uncomfortable state to remain in for the long term. Someone in this condition will scan their environment for cues of safety, but since they are doing so in a highly stressed state, their powers to discern threat and safety are compromised. They may perceive ‘negative others’ as trustworthy, becoming submissive and gullible, especially towards authority figures, making them easy prey for people with malicious intent.

Such experiences can create negative feedback loops that make us want to withdraw even more from the world. We may become emotionally numb, detached from our own feelings because the social engagement system is no longer functioning properly. If this becomes a chronic condition, then there is a cascade effect where withdrawal and stress continue to feed back upon one another. It’s a tough one to resolve. There is no quick fix. It will take time and patience to learn how to regulate again.

So let’s keep our social engagement system intelligently engaged and make sure to get out once in a while. This is not about being a social butterfly. Actually, a high functioning social engagement system means that we can spend time alone and not feel lonely or bereft because we have this deep sense of connection. Seek out company where you feel safe, with one other person or a small group, and by safe I mean safe to be who you are. It doesn’t require a lot of conversation. In fact, I find it better to do a simple mutual activity like a board game or a walk where the conversation is focused on the activity itself. It doesn’t need to be often or for very long, but afterwards you will feel that was time well spent and when it comes to spending time alone you will feel more connected with your Self.

When we spend too much time on our own we can become a bit solipsistic, thinking that the world really is just about us and our ideas. We need other people for many reasons. Not just to bounce our thoughts off, or to hear another point of view, but to meet the challenge of engaging face to face with someone who thinks differently from us. That in itself is mind expanding. To allow oneself to be corrected if we’ve gone off on a wrong tangent; to discover unexpected areas of common ground; to agree to disagree; to ask whether someone is okay, and to be asked in return; to allow ourselves to be seen through another’s eyes; to engage others as morphing complex wholes and not just as a set of opinions, which is so often and exhaustingly the case in the online world that skews our interactions with people into boring and inaccurate boxes.

Now you might say, what about meditators who spend so much time alone? They seem fine. When we think about cultures that have solitary meditation traditions, we will find that those cultures have very strong family and community bonds. The meditators have received years of training and are usually operating within a close-knit spiritual community. Although they may spend long periods of time physically alone, they are very much part of a support network, under the guidance of a teacher or several teachers and are generally cared for by others in the spiritual community as they pursue their meditative practice. This is not at all the same thing as being thrown into a situation where we are forced to cut all ties with our fellow humans. There is a reason that social isolation is used as a punishment and is regarded as a form of torture. The long-term effects can be devastating.

Spending time with others is not a luxury. It’s something that we need on a very fundamental level. It doesn’t have to happen every day or to be for very long, but we do need a degree of social interaction. It is absolutely vital to our well being. When we understand this, our alone time and social time will modulate each another effortlessly. We will just naturally seek out company when we need to engage, and seek our own company when we need to disengage. Whether we are an extrovert or an introvert is only relevant to how we work the balance.

The science of the nervous system helps us to accept our essential humanity. We understand on a visceral level that connecting and engaging with others is not something that we can dismiss as an optional expendable treat; like a bar of chocolate in the weekly food budget. Social engagement is pivotal to who we are as human beings. Accepting this doesn’t make us weak. It makes us stronger than we could have imagined.

Psoas_Tenderpoint

One of my first introductions to the power of the mind-body connection was through a set of muscles called the ‘psoas’. These are the muscles that attach our lumbar spine to the legs. They’re often called the ‘fight or flight muscles’ since they are a first responder to conditions of threat, allowing us to high kick, bring our knee towards our stomach in defense–or run.

Several years ago, I was in a traumatic relationship with a man with all the traits of narcissistic personality disorder. Although the relationship only lasted a few months, the experience had left me terribly depressed and anxious and my self-confidence in tatters.

As I gradually gained the strength to end the relationship, something very strange happened to the tops of my inner thighs. They began to throb with a kind of pain I had never before experienced. I hadn’t done any demanding exercise to explain it, but it felt as if these muscles had been massively over-worked. It felt incredibly uncomfortable, like a cry for help that I didn’t understand. It was particularly concentrated in the dip below my hips, half a finger length towards the pubic bone, which later, when I became more familiar with anatomy, I learned was exactly where the psoas muscles connect with the tops of the thighs across the hips. No matter whether I was sitting, walking or lying down, this part of my body kept on screaming as if for attention. The feeling was like being trapped in burning building without begin able to find the EXIT. I listened to calming music on Youtube, tried to meditate (impossible!) and went for walks by the sea. Probably the latter helped more than anything else, but what I actually needed was not so much to calm down but to RELEASE the huge stores of built-up tension as I had continually ignored my body’s signals to remove myself from the abuse.

What I didn’t know then was that my psoas muscles had become trapped in a chronic sympathetic nervous system response. They were communicating something very important to me. GET AWAY. Had I known then what I know now, I would have been able to release this trauma response much more effectively and saved myself days of agony. (Literally running would also have helped but I’m a lousy runner and I generally end up injuring myself).

The psoas muscles are engaging when our legs quiver or shake during an episode that we experience as threatening. Those of us who have had to work to overcome a fear of public speaking know what it’s like to stand with fight or flight neurohormones flooding our system with a neuro-chemical scream of “run!! while we are forced through external pressures to continue to stand still. The audience members may not look like saber-toothed tigers, but this is how our nervous system is experiencing them. Our psoas muscles tense, sending neural signals to our brain to gear us up for a motivated response to a threat to our safety. Our brain responds by sending cortisol and adrenalin to help us to mobilize away from the threat (flight) or towards it (fight).

When we don’t move in response to the brain’s SOS signals our legs can begin to shake uncontrollably, because our bodies are trying to discharge excess energy that is not being discharged through mobility. Although this can feel embarrassing, it is actually our body’s way of protecting us. What happens this protection protocol fails i.e., when faced with a perceive threat we can’t expel this urge for motility, this energy becomes trapped as emotional tension. The psoas muscles are a prime target for this tension to reside since it is the psoas muscles that recruit the movement that signals to the nervous system that we are responding to the perceived threat. When the nervous system doesn’t receive this message, it continues to put out a cocktail of sympathetic system chemicals that keeps our body’s on high alert. This becomes quickly exhausting, physically and mentally, since we will certainly sense this tension psychologically as a dis-ease, a relentless and deeply embedded anxiety.

I wish I had known two things while lying in bed with my psoas muscle chain on red alert but without much of a clue how to calm myself. One is TRE or Trauma Release Exercises and the other is what Marlysa Sullivan, assistant professor at Maryland University of Integrative Health calls “constructive rest”. It’s a term first introduced by Mabel Todd in 1937 in her book, The Thinking Body. Sullivan describes constructive rest as ‘…a position of complete rest in which the spine is relieved of the weight of the arms and legs, and the major joints are free to release into gravity and fall into rest. The goal is to distribute the weight of the body so that no work is required in order to maintain equilibrium.’

If we feel tension in our psoas muscles, it’s logical to think that we need to stretch it more, but this isn’t necessarily helpful and can cause a counter-tension to occur. Sometimes we need to encourage the psoas to relax and release by creating an open resting space around it. Lying on the back with a folded blanket under the shoulders, legs elevated, perhaps up on a couch, a couple of bolsters or a deep-seated chair is one such position.

TRE followed by a position of constructive rest is a very effective way to relieve tension.

I like Charlie Maginness’ explanation but your can run a search and find a session that works for your temperament. Some people call it Tension Release Exercises because not everyone identifies with the word ‘trauma’. It looks far more dramatic than it feels. Most people find that TRE feels very natural and is not frightening at all. On the contrary, it feels oddly soothing. Having said that, it is of course possible that someone might experience anxiety with this practice, so take it slowly and stop and take breaks if you need to. Or if it seems like too much right now, simply put it aside for another time. I would recommend watching this video a couple of times before trying it yourself. One thing that Charlie Maginness leave out is the TRE ‘break’ which allows you to stop the tension release shaking by straightening your legs and pointing your toes. I will be doing my own video on this topic soon, but in the meantime if you’re feeling stable and curious I recommend you give it a go. Just be gentle with yourself and don’t overdo it.

You might find, like me, that you want to lie down for a while afterwards in bed or on a couch. When I’m going through a period of restless sleep, I find it helpful to do these exercises just before bedtime.

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Tag: trauma

What the body wants: the muscle of survival and why it deserves your attention