The world, especially now, is a chaotic place- so much to handle , so much to deal with on a daily basis and so much we can’t control. We run from place to place, work to home , appointment to wedding, funeral to dentist, doctor to gym – trying to keep up with all of our obligations without falling apart. Sometimes when I see a little toddler in a store collapsing onto the floor awash in a sea of tears, I think, ” I totally get ya little tyke, thanks for expressing what I am feeling right now.” Adults don’t have the luxury of that sort of immersion in expression. We can’t let our emotions overrun us, we barely have time take note of them when we are pushing through our busy lives “getting things done” . In these situations our sympathetic nervous systems are in charge, this is the fight or flight part. The sympathetic nervous system(SNS) is what protects us when we are threatened physically like if we were to see a tiger in the wild or in a more urban modern day scenario – traffic, deadlines, ect . Stress too incites the SNS to action, and when this state prolonged it can cause other health problems like , migraines, hypertension, muscle tension, heart attacks and general aches and pains.
To combat an overactive sympathetic nervous system we need to find a way boost the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) . This part of our system you may know as “rest and restore”. The PSNS is an essential part of the healing and the well being of our bodies and our minds. Actually the body is designed to spend most of its time in the PSNS. Do you think that happens for the majority of the population? If your answer is no, you are right.
Once the PSNS is in gear, we are able to let go of the places we hold on to pain, stress and tension and we can heal naturally. Our body is built for this. We hold all the seeds for healing within us all the time, we just have to have the supports in place to do so.
There are many ways to activate the PSNS – meditation, being with animals or children, spending time in nature, and massage, but often we don’t give ourselves time to do these things.
I mentioned I was going to explain how Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST) fits into all of this. It is very hard for many of us to be quiet and stop our mind, even in the aforementioned situations. Or minds keep on ticking away, we are eternally distracted. A friend of mine once told me after a session, ” I suck at meditation, but I love Craniosacral”.
Meditation and BCST do some of the same things but with BCST , the practitioner is holding space for you and assisting your body in the process of achieving a meditative state. Once you find that state with the practitioner, it is easier to find on your own.
There are several reasons why BCST helps in activating your PSNS. First of all, our skin is directly connected to our nervous system (in the early development of the embryo both skin and nervous system evolved from the ectoderm). The practitioner will slow his or her tempo to a near meditative state and then make contact with the skin. With this simple connection of skin to skin, practitioner and client sync up like the pendulums of so many clocks through a process called entrainment. This simple action alone can stimulate the PSNS. Combined with this the practitioner will use a very light touch and by stay in the same location for long periods of time. This sends the message “there is no rush, you have all the time in the world.”
In this very relaxed state our bodies are able to let go of the stress that holds our pain in place and enhance our bodies healing resources.
There is a wonderful article in the blog Biodynamic Thought by Samantha Lotti that describes beautifully how our bodies deal with pain in further detail .
Here is another good article I found on the Parasympathetic Nervous System and healing.
Activate the Parasympathetic Nervous System to Improve Recovery
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