Why Your Brain and Body are Designed to Rest and Relax

Image by Aleksandar Cvetanovic

What are you doing, right now? Well, before you started reading this – what were you doing a few minutes ago? I’m guessing you were rushing around, either physically or mentally. And I’m confident about that guess because we’re all so damn busy these days, aren’t we? This is partly down to the advances in technology that enable me to write this on my computer, then send it whizzing around the world to all of you – which is wonderful – but also mean we are available, 24/7, for calls, texts, WhatsApp messages, Zoom calls, emails and countless other forms of digital communication. Those of us living in industrialised countries are never really off, in our 21st-century, high-tech world.

This can become especially tricky for us when we are stressed and overloaded at work. Something I notice a lot with my clients is that when they get stressed, they stop taking breaks, work harder and longer hours, staying chained to their desks – and some kind of screen – for longer and longer each day.

In some ways, I totally get it – if you feel stressed and like your to-do list is a mile long, you go into overdrive, pushing yourself harder and harder to get all those items on your to-do list, done. But I also have to speak to these clients about the ways in which 24/7 working is not only bad for your health, it’s bad for your performance and productivity as well.

Stone-age brains in a high-tech world

To understand why, we need to think about evolution, which works in a slow, steady, incremental way. So many parts of your brain are really old, in evolutionary terms. The whole ‘subcortical’ layer of your brain is millions of years old (not your actual brain, obviously, but those parts haven’t changed much in all that time). And these older brain regions were developed for stone-age life – hunting mammoths and gathering roots, nuts and berries.

And in our pre-industrial, hunter-gatherer lives, we were either very much on (hunting, fighting, climbing tall trees for honey) or off (lazing around after a large mammoth burger, playing, dancing, sleeping). If you want to know what off looks like, check out that photo – unlike modern humans, cats have no problem switching off!

So your brain, nervous system, body, hormonal system, organs – all are adapted for these intense bursts of activity, followed by lots of rest. And what do most of us do, today? Sit hunched over a screen, with stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol coursing through our bloodstream, very much on in terms of stress and focus, but immobile/off physically. So a weird sort of grey area for your brain, which finds it all very sub-optimal and confusing.

This is why longer and longer hours don’t really work, for work, because your brain needs periods of downtime to process all the information you are cramming into it, sort data into different forms of memory storage (boring – delete; important but not crucial – file in long-term storage; absolutely vital – save in short-term memory for easy access and retrieval). The more hours you do, the poorer become your memory, concentration, cognitive function, creativity, collaboration, decision-making and a whole host of other skills and abilities most of us need to perform and produce at work.

Helping your body relax

I often write in these posts about the importance of exercise for your physical and mental health. I am evangelical about moving your body, because it was designed to move, which is why it feels so good. But it’s also vital to get enough rest, downtime and relaxation. If you’re a high-stress, high-octane, highly-caffeinated sort of person, you may not find that easy.

If so, as well as the higher-intensity exercise, try yoga, tai chi, meditation, gentle swimming, walking, gardening – slower, more meditative forms of movement. Getting enough good-quality sleep is, of course, crucial, so the experts recommend creating an eight-hour ‘sleep window’, in which you are in bed, ready to sleep (following all the usual sleep-hygiene advice about no electronic devices in the bedroom, keeping that room cool and dark, and so on) for eight hours a night. You may get eight hours, you may not, but you are creating the optimal conditions for that to happen.

You may also find my Body Scan Meditation helpful – this is designed to help you completely relax, either to wind down from a stressful day or drift off to sleep. Just click the button below to listen on Insight Timer.

I very much hope that helps – sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

What is the Fight-Flight-Freeze Response?

Image by Scott Carroll

Although many of us are now city-dwellers, living technologically advanced lives, for the vast majority of our time on Earth we did not live this way. For millions of years, humans lived as hunter-gatherers in small tribal groups. These people lived in villages surrounded by barriers to keep all of the hungry animals and enemy tribes out. Being human was a highly dangerous existence, which is one reason our ancestors didn’t live that long.

Those that did survive had extremely sensitive threat systems in their brains, which were constantly scanning for danger – hungry lions, venomous snakes or club-wielding enemies. And when the amygdala, the part of the brain that scans for threat, detected something worrying, it triggered the fight-flight-freeze response, our three main options for survival when we are under threat.

Now although you may be reading this on your smartphone or laptop, and presumably (hopefully!) you are not surrounded by hungry wild animals, your brain hasn’t changed a great deal since your ancestors lived on the savannah. And that threat system hasn’t changed at all – in fact, your threat system is the same as that of the cute deer in the photo, cats, wolves, lizards, even dinosaurs, because it works so well that evolution didn’t need to change it.

When your brain says fight

If you experienced trauma as a child, or had a single traumatic incident as an adult, unfortunately the threat system in your brain will be highly oversensitive and your amygdala will be on red alert, over-reacting to even minor stressors. This is one reason that trauma survivors are often hypervigilant, reacting to fairly neutral or benign situations as if their life is in danger. That’s because it feels as if your life is in danger, so you go into emergency-action mode to survive.

If your threat system decides a fight response is the best way to survive that threat, it gives you a big jolt of anger to warn you that something is wrong and it’s time to act. At the same time, your breathing changes to take in more oxygen and your heart speeds up to pump oxygenated blood to your major muscles. That, plus the adrenaline and cortisol in your bloodstream, gives you strength and energy to fight (or flee, which involves a similar mobilisation in your body). You fight off the hungry wolf or enemy tribesman, the threat passes and you calm down.

…Or flee

Unfortunately, if you are a trauma survivor, one of the common consequences is that your sympathetic nervous system (the ‘go’ system that helps us be energised or active) stays jammed on. So even when the threat has passed, you still feel agitated and unsafe. If you feel anxious and like you want to run, escape or avoid the stressful situation, your flight response has been triggered.

This happens when your threat system decides that running is a better option than fighting, so you get a big jolt of anxiety, roughly the same mobilising process in your body as with a fight response, and you run. This is why avoidance is inextricably linked with anxiety, because avoiding the party, meeting, first date, etc is a form of running away from it.

…Or freeze

If your brain decides that you can’t fight or run from the threat, especially if you feel trapped or helpless, it activates the freeze response. Imagine you are a small child, with an angry, shouty parent – you can’t fight them, because you’re too small. And you can’t run, because there’s nowhere to go. So you freeze, which might feel like being stuck or paralysed, your mind going blank, or feeling spacey, numb or empty inside.

This is a common reaction when people are in a single-incident trauma like a mugging, car crash or industrial accident. We can get so overwhelmed that we freeze, even though we know we should fight the mugger or run out of the factory. It’s a horrible feeling – and a common factor in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), because people beat themselves up about not taking action, which interrupts the normal post-traumatic healing process.

I will write in more detail about each of these responses, how they link to trauma, and what we can do to help ourselves overcome them, in future posts. But for now, I hope that gives you some understanding of what’s happening in your brain, body and nervous system when you respond in one of these three ways. As I always tell my clients, knowledge is power – it’s the first step in understanding and healing from your trauma.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Try These Simple, Powerful Relaxation Techniques

Image by Hannah Oliver

When you are stressed or anxious, it's often hard to relax. So you will probably have a great deal of tension in your muscles – this is one reason for the muscular aches and pains, headaches, stiff neck, tight chest and back pain people suffering from stress or anxiety often experience. Learning to relax is a vital step on your route back to health and happiness. It's also an excellent way to combat insomnia.

Before I explain the techniques, a couple of general points. First, like any new skill, you may find these techniques take practice to master. It's like learning a musical instrument: you wouldn't expect to sit at a piano and play a complex classical piece on your first day.

Your stress or anxiety may have been building over months or even years, so it will take time both to learn these techniques and gradually reduce your levels of tension.

Second, the more you try these techniques when you are not stressed, anxious or upset, the more skilled you will become and so can use them even when you feel overwhelmed (I find that many clients stop using self-help techniques when they are having a rough time – which is, of course, when they need them the most).

And then the key is to use them every day. Like other cognitive therapy techniques, these are lifelong skills, available to you whenever your symptoms return.

Soothing-rhythm breathing

This simple breathing exercise (which is one of the key techniques in compassion-focused therapy) is an effective way to reduce stress or anxiety and increase feelings of calm, peacefulness and safeness. When you become anxious, your respiration becomes fast and shallow 'chest breathing'.

This can cause hyperventilation, as you inhale too much oxygen and become dizzy and light-headed. Instead, you need to breathe slowly and deeply, which turns off your ‘stress response’ and switches on your ‘relaxation response’.

Please note – these are only guidelines, not a set of rules. The most important thing is that you find a style and rhythm of breathing that feels calming and soothing to you. So vary the length of breaths, whether you breathe your nose or mouth, and so on, to find the approach that works best for you.

1. Find somewhere private and quiet, then sit comfortably and close your eyes. Switch off your phone so you won't be disturbed. Take a deep breath through your nose to a slow count of four. It can be helpful to count each number in your mind as you breathe, so thinking One, two, three, four on each breath.

2. Exhale through your nose to a slow count of four.

3. Continue to breathe slowly, deeply and evenly, in and out through your nose. If you are breathing deeply, you should naturally feel your abdomen rising on the in-breath and falling on the out-breath – don’t force this or worry if your abdomen isn’t moving. Breathing slowly and deeply is the most important thing.

4. Repeat this cycle for at least a minute.

5. Once you feel comfortable with this exercise, try increasing the time to five minutes or more. The key here is to breathe slowly and deeply – this has the physiological effect of slowing your heart rate and sending messages to the brain that everything's fine, you can relax.

Progressive muscular relaxation (PMR)

It's important to breathe slowly and regularly while doing this exercise. Tense your muscles, without straining, and concentrate on the sensation of tension. Hold for about five seconds, then let go of the tension for 10-15 seconds. Tune into the sensation of how your muscles feel when you relax them.

1. Feet. Pull your toes back and tense the muscles in your feet. Relax and repeat.

2. Legs. Straighten your legs and point your toes upward. Relax, let your legs go limp and repeat.

3. Abdomen. Tense your stomach muscles by pulling them up and in. Relax and repeat.

4. Back. Arch your back. Relax and repeat.

5. Shoulders & neck. Shrug your shoulders, bringing them up and in towards your chest and pressing your head back. Relax and repeat.

6. Arms & hands. Stretch out your arms and hands. Relax, let your arms hang limp and repeat.

7. Face. Tense your forehead and jaw, lower your eyebrows. Relax and repeat.

8. Whole body. Finally, tense your entire body: feet, legs, abdomen, back, shoulders and neck, arms and face. Hold the tension for a few seconds, relax and repeat.

If you still feel tense at the end of the routine, go through it again. If only certain body parts still feel tense, repeat the exercise in those areas. When you have finished and feel relaxed, stay where you are for a few moments, then stand up slowly and stretch gently.

Warm wishes,

Dan