Feeling it All Over: The Body’s Memos
“Gosh, I’m feeling a bit stressed out today!” … Have you ever felt like that? I’m sure that most of us have slipped into a hyperdrive of productivity, flitting from one task to another. There’s so much to get done, but where does my time go? Maybe the hustle and bustle catches up with us at the end of the day.
Our emotions are fed by what we are doing. That is, our emotions can follow our behaviour. Almost like our behaviour can hold up a sign saying, “Hey, anxiety feeling, over here!”. If I am a bit frowny and hunched over in my seat, chances are that these body positions are contributing to or revealing a tiredness or flat kind of feeling. I wonder what I might notice if I lift my shoulders slightly and relax my brow. I’ll just go ahead and try that….
For our faster-paced humans, do we see you moving from room to room like a busy bee? Or, are you opening Internet browser tabs like there’s no tomorrow? “Got to get stuff done!”, we might hear you say. I wonder what you might notice in your body if you pause what you’re doing for a just moment.
- Do you ever find that you haven’t taken a breath?
- Do you catch yourself sitting in the same position for a long period of time?
Before humans developed the thinking/analysing part of the brain, our emotional systems ran the show. I see a sabre-toothed tiger, I feel supercharged in my arms and legs (ready to flee), I get the heck out of there and find safety. Thank goodness we’ve had these swift reactions to keep us safe, right?
In modern times, there is (likely) no tiger. Our bodies are still here though, holding our sensations and movements. If our actions are replicating an old survival response (like busy-busy fleeing, hiding away, curling over to submit to a stronger opponent), then it’s possible that our emotions will follow.
What is soothing for you?
Having checked in with the memos our bodies provide us, it might lead us to think about feeding our emotion something different. Each of us may spontaneously gravitate to different ways of calming our bodies down. We can call these actions resources. Some examples might be:
- Fiddling with an object (e.g., a ring, pen, knitting, an earring)
- Being outside, such as gardening, walking
- Having a hot drink
- Listening to music
Sometimes we don’t have an awareness of what we do to keep our bodies regulated. If we start to notice (“Oh yeah, this small action is what I do!”), then we can draw on these things more often.
Breathing from the belly
Breathing is one of the simplest, most effective things that we can use. From a psychological point of view, we can use breathing to work on managing big feelings. For many of us, stress is often reflected in our breathing. Many of us breathe a lot. Puff puff, am I out of danger yet? Longer, deeper exhales, rather than shallow chest breathing, send a message to our brain that we are out of danger. Being able to draw on calming breaths while we’re laying down, sitting, standing, and walking, can be a resource for many of us. Even a small change to our breathing, such as counting to 4 on our out-breaths, might have an almost immediate soothing effect. I invite you to try and see what you notice…
Author
Clare Wilson
Psychologist – Q Psychology
