Calming Down: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Release

I may have told some of you about my son, whom we adopted when he was two weeks old, and his heightened state of alertness.  Peter Levine calls this a “global high activated state,” where one’s sympathetic nervous system (the part responsible for “fight or flight”) is cranked up and/or frozen from a traumatic situation.  This can happen from car accidents, emotional abuse, and even neo-natal or uterine stressors. 


A highly activated sympathetic nervous system (which can also mean an under-functioning parasympathetic nervous system) can affect your digestion and other organs, your ability to process certain foods (which can look like an allergy), as well as alter your ability to emotionally relate to others.

At a recent playgroup, I was finally able to see this clearly in my son from a third person perspective (as opposed to a parental viewpoint).  My son perked up his ears as each new child entered the playroom.  His sympathetic nervous system became more activated from this attention (flooding his system with more and new stress hormones, specifically cortisol).  Through simple body awareness movements--that allowed him to feel his body instead of the outside world--I witnessed his parasympathetic nervous system start to dampen down his sympathetic response (the way it’s supposed to work), and he was able to play for the whole hour and a half without the use of headphones, and without him acting out.


As a parent this brought me to tears, realizing that I can teach my son how to deal with the cards he was given from conception through birth, and even help him overcome his global high activated state.  As a practitioner, it gave me new insights into trauma, pain resolution, and Rolfing^®.

Here are some interesting research articles about trauma, new understanding of what causes pain, and how research is starting to understand how brains work: 

·        http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120606164936.htm -- children experience more intense and lasting stress, and studies show that children score lower on tests for spatial working memory, and have trouble navigating tests for short term memory.  This can be, in part due to how stress affects the gray and white matter in the brain.  But it's not irreversible!  

·         http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/body-keeps-score-as-traumatic-events-show-affects-years-later/story-e6frfku9-1226340691109 --one of the tricky things about trauma is how one’s nervous system tends to layer one episode on top of a completely unrelated other one. This can make the unraveling, re-integrating, and healing work take some time.

·        http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/music-its-in-your-head-changing-your-brain.html 

      

      ·        http://www.bettermovement.org/2012/when-pain-doesnt-hurt/ 

·        http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2012/06/body-sensitive-people-are-tuned-into.html -- folks who are more sensitive to their bodies, are attuned to subtle changes and feelings in their heart and stomach.

In my ever-evolving understanding of  Rolfing^®, through continuing education classes, new pain science and neuroscience research and other trade articles, I believe “structural integration” cannot be accomplished without taking the nervous system into account.  In other words, in addition to manipulating fascia around your muscles, nerves, organs, bones (the structural part of our work), I must also pay as close (if not closer) attention to:

·        how you perceive the ground below you, and the sky or horizon above you,

·        what primary reflexes may be stuck in an earlier phase of development which could affect your perceptions, coordination, and/or structure.   As the following article illustrates so clearly:  each neuron is like a player in a band.  it's the summation of all the neurons that allow for a cascade of fluid and accurate motion that we call movement.  (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/06/the-neural-rhythms-that-move-your-body/258094/),

·        where trauma (through your nervous system) may be stuck in your body affecting all the above. 

I think real healing happens when all of these categories (structure, perception, coordination, and trauma resolution) are re-integrated into your system.  And is why deep pressure work--on one’s psoas for instance--can sometimes be detrimental when one’s nervous system is not ready or is too activated (especially when there are alternative techniques to the same result).  Most times trauma and the related structural, coordinative, and perceptual categories can be re-integrated within a series of sessions. 

Sometimes, like in the case of my son, this can end up being a lifelong process to be able to maintain his center and his poise relative to other people he has met or will meet throughout his life.