March Newsletter
HOW MINDFUL MOVEMENT CAN BE USED AS A TOOL FOR NERVOUS SYSTEM SUPPORT & HOW MINDFULNESS BASED INTERVENTIONS CAN HELP TO INCREASE OUR RESILIENCE TO STRESS
SOMETHING TO PONDER
We can start to repair the impact of chronic stress and trauma through mindful movement, while also building physical resilience.
Physical resilience can allow us to feel safe and therefore more equipped to protect ourselves in the world.
MOVEMENT AS A TOOL FOR NERVOUS SYSTEM SUPPORT
Mindfulness tools can be integral to improving interoception (awareness of our internal state) and our ability to choose what to focus on. These tools range from simple and easy-to-do, developmental movements to complex mobility tasks as a way to wake up the brain without stress or injury. Over time, these systemised movements can help improve our own nervous system support and provide us with greater levels of resilience.
Mindfulness activities are not necessarily immediately soothing and regulating. Instead becoming more mindful (interoceptive) during movement can allow difficult emotions to surface. In this way, movement becomes a resource for expanding our ability to stay with and not run away from difficult emotions.
Mindfulness can help us to reconnect with how we are feeling in the “here and now” through a safer sensory experience. We can use sensory-based interventions to create pockets of safety that can be returned to if overwhelmed by the information gathered when going inside. For those needing more resourcing for self soothing, we would focus on creating sensations of pleasure and comfort first, and then transition to interventions that might have a more neutral interoceptive/exteroceptive impact.
Any type of movement that helps someone to be more present in the body can help return them to their window of capacity. It is worth noting though, that for trauma survivors, being in the body may be upsetting or even uncomfortable at times. Diving into somatic sensations can feel like going back in time - the traumatic stress can feel like its still happening, even if the threat has long passed. Therefore, dropping right into body awareness and breath awareness can be an overwhelming experience. Instead focusing on feeling the body during movements can help shift people's brains out of the past or future and into the present moment. The more people can learn to be in the present moment, the less reactive brain function becomes.
Movement is an essential tool for learning to recognise our habitual responses and an ideal mechanism for rewiring our neural pathways and structures, this is described by Dr Rick Hanson as positive neuroplasticity (do listen to his TED talk here).
Movement can tap into the body's innate ability to influence our minds. Complex movements can reconnect the left and right side of the brain. Learning to focus on our sensory experiences can help us connect to our bodies, and improve our ability to stay in our bodies instead of checking out and disconnecting.
Based on what you have just read, would it suit you to explore mindful movement before a seated meditation practice?
And if so, what could that look like?
EXAMPLES OF MOVEMENT INTERVENTIONS
Balance
Contralateral Movements (opposite arm & leg)
Combining gross and fine motor skills
Activities that cross the mid-line (centre of the body)
Strength & mobility training - targeting back, bum and core
Primal movement patterns performed with interoception
Squatting - goddess pose
Lunging - high lunge, Warrior I
Pushing - push ups, chaturanga
Pulling - pull ups, pull downs
Twisting - revolved side angle pose/triangle/lunge
Hip hinge - bending, deadlifts
Gait patterning - walking, jogging, jumping
MEASURE YOUR HEARTBEAT
Before doing any of the above mindfulness interventions, take a measure of your breaths per minute.
Sit quietly for a moment and set a timer for 1 minute
Breathe normally and count how many breaths you take per minute
Repeat this after the mindfulness intervention and see if the number has changed.
