Maxine to add / edit intro…
Welcome to Nervous System Notes; Norwich Yoga Festival Part Three.
Following on from last weeks email, here is Part Three of what I shared at my talk:
‘What I Wish Everyone Knew about their Nervous System’
First a little recap of where we left off in Part Two:
You can think of your Nervous System as having three steps:
Inputs - Interpretations - Outputs
If an input is interpreted as not safe = survival pattern output.
If an input is interpreted as safe = more ease, connection, ability to deal with stress, more capacity for living and importantly more capacity to make change & create your dream life!
Nervous System data comes from:
Interoception - your inner world.
Exteroception - your outer world.
Proprioception - your body's relationship to gravity and space.
The better quality all the above inputs are, the more nervous system capacity you'll build, which overtime, changes your nervous system outputs.This is a huge topic and I can only cover a small part of it in an email, but this is a great starting point for understanding nervous system inputs!
Interoception. Interpreting your inner world, your inner sensations - this data gets interpreted into either I'm safe or I'm not safe.
If your interoceptive capacity is low you might not notice you are feeling hungry until you are starving! You might not notice you need to have a wee until you are bursting! You might not notice feelings of annoyance or disappointment until they become rage! You might not notice subtle signals of anything until they are too loud to ignore. In this case the data is not being interpreted accurately because it cannot be sensed until it becomes loud.
If your interoceptive capacity is high, every sensation might be so loud that everything feels like a threat. If we treat every sensation as a problem to fix, something to worry about, then clearly these sensations will be interpreted as a threat and the output will be 24/7 survival state. This is very common for women. We're told constantly what's wrong with our body's and how we can fix it. In addition, because of our physiology, women generally have a higher Interoceptive awareness anyway, especially in certain phases of our cycle. This can very easily lead to us pathologising every sensation into a problem to fix (a threat).
We want to understand and be connected to our inner experience so we feel the subtle sensations before they become loud and we want to be curious about sensations and not pathologise our experience of feeling something in our body. We can do this by learning the language of our nervous system, because not every sensation is a problem to fix.
Exteroception. Interpreting your outer world via your sensory self. Nervous system work is reclaiming your sensuality. Experiencing life through your senses, versus living only in the stories your mind creates. It is impossible to overstate how important sensory data is to your nervous system.
Your nervous system gathers data from what you can see, hear, smell, taste, touch - it'll interpret this data to decide, am I safe, am I unsafe.
Sensory input is so important for your brain and nervous system safety.
Try looking around slowly, allowing the input to be accurate (rather than quickly looking and not really seeing accurately what's there), looking slowly allows your brain to interpret more accurately what you are seeing (rather than your brain having to predict because it does not have the full information). Remember the better quality the nervous system input, the more accurate the interpretation is and therefore the output is improved.
Next time you go for a walk, really look, listen, smell, touch, taste (I mean be discerning what you taste though right!) - this sensory input is so vital for signalling safety to your nervous system.
Proprioception. Where your body is in relationship to gravity and space. You can improve the quality of this data input with intentional embodied movement. Not just on autopilot circling your wrists, but slowly with intention circling your wrists so you can sense each part of the movement - this is so good for your brain! When we're moving fast, rushing around, it takes a lot of energy for our brain to constantly figure out where our body is in space to decide if we're safe. That discombobulating feeling when you get off a roller coaster is your brain working hard to figure out which way is up!
Moving your body (in whatever movement is your favourite) gives your brain data. As with all these different ways your nervous system collects data, the better quality the input, the more you are able to change old outputs. Personally, I practice Yoga, I walk and I train at the gym - the more present I am with all these movement practices, the happier my brain is.
I'll explain next week why changing the quality of inputs is so vital for all systems of your body. Why signalling safety to your nervous system matters so very much, and this goes way beyond what we've already discussed.
Maxine to add ending and sign off
