Day 255 of 365 - Soothing Emotional Aspects of Illness
I've been listening to interviews about fatigue related illness. Although it can be discouraging, I've become quite aware in the last year or so of the potential negative health impact of getting inadequate sleep and of generally having lower than normal energy as a result. For people who are also aware of an infectious or other physical cause of their condition, for which fatigue is only one manifestation, it could be even more worrisome. I don't intend to keep dwelling on the negative prospects of aging and illness, but sometimes we can learn a lot from doing so.
When we are feeling physically unwell, we can be resistant to looking at emotional causal factors to our condition, because our symptoms are physical. But, as was mentioned in the last post, people with chronic symptoms spend a lot of time in the sympathetic nervous system response of fight or flight. For healing, we need to spend more time in the parasympathetic response of rest, digest and heal. Emotional toxicity is a big contributor to the dominant sympathetic response.
What we might not be aware of is, that we could be doing everything right physically to improve our condition, but if we don't address underlying emotions, our hormones, immune system and all other systems will not function optimally for healing. It's important to step back and look at our emotional coping. Lots of times, when we have ongoing fatigue or other symptoms, we may feel guilty about not being able to perform as we used to. The distress we feel about that, or our tendency to push ourselves too hard to meet expectations can actually make things worse.
Our body is designed to bounce back from the short term day to day stresses that come and go. But, chronic emotional intensity is another matter. We can become desensitized to it, because it is always there, but it still has an underlying physical impact.
Thus, it is helpful to consider some questions, either on your own or with the help of a therapist. Are you living in alignment with your values? Do you have a sense of purpose in your life? Are you isolated, or do you have supportive people around you? Do you feel your life has a purpose? Can you think of emotional stressors in your life, either past or present? These all have a cumulative effect.
Because those emotional stresses affect our nervous system and our physiological healing capacity, anything we can do to shift our nervous system response into the more helpful parasympathetic healing mode is helpful. One technique that you can administer to yourself for this purpose is called Havening. (It is pronounced like haven, from the phrase safe haven.)
Havening means 'to put into a safe place'. It is a method designed to signal the limbic system of the brain to release the hold of of negative effects from the psyche and the body. Havening involves simple touch of the hands, upper arms and face. By stimulating skin receptors, we change brain wave activity to a soothing delta wave. It can be self-administered or by a practitioner.
The technique is simple and familiar. It's probably an evolutionary comforting action. The three areas of tactile contact are: gently stroking the face, gently stroking from the top of the shoulders down to the elbows and layered, sweeping stroking of the hands. There is no specific sequence. You can mix them however you want. Choose just one area of emotional stress at a time and practice the Havening technique on it. Do the stroking as you say affirmations or comforting words to yourself. It's very soothing after a very short time.
I love when I learn about simple techniques like this which can have a positive effect on my well-being. It's great to learn about root causes of our symptoms, but it's even better to learn actions we can easily take on a daily basis to feel better, as well as to improve our long term healing potential. Don't knock it just because it sounds too simple to be true. Try it yourself and see how it feels! There is a website called havening.org if you want to look into it more.
When we are feeling physically unwell, we can be resistant to looking at emotional causal factors to our condition, because our symptoms are physical. But, as was mentioned in the last post, people with chronic symptoms spend a lot of time in the sympathetic nervous system response of fight or flight. For healing, we need to spend more time in the parasympathetic response of rest, digest and heal. Emotional toxicity is a big contributor to the dominant sympathetic response.
What we might not be aware of is, that we could be doing everything right physically to improve our condition, but if we don't address underlying emotions, our hormones, immune system and all other systems will not function optimally for healing. It's important to step back and look at our emotional coping. Lots of times, when we have ongoing fatigue or other symptoms, we may feel guilty about not being able to perform as we used to. The distress we feel about that, or our tendency to push ourselves too hard to meet expectations can actually make things worse.
Our body is designed to bounce back from the short term day to day stresses that come and go. But, chronic emotional intensity is another matter. We can become desensitized to it, because it is always there, but it still has an underlying physical impact.
Thus, it is helpful to consider some questions, either on your own or with the help of a therapist. Are you living in alignment with your values? Do you have a sense of purpose in your life? Are you isolated, or do you have supportive people around you? Do you feel your life has a purpose? Can you think of emotional stressors in your life, either past or present? These all have a cumulative effect.
Because those emotional stresses affect our nervous system and our physiological healing capacity, anything we can do to shift our nervous system response into the more helpful parasympathetic healing mode is helpful. One technique that you can administer to yourself for this purpose is called Havening. (It is pronounced like haven, from the phrase safe haven.)
Havening means 'to put into a safe place'. It is a method designed to signal the limbic system of the brain to release the hold of of negative effects from the psyche and the body. Havening involves simple touch of the hands, upper arms and face. By stimulating skin receptors, we change brain wave activity to a soothing delta wave. It can be self-administered or by a practitioner.
The technique is simple and familiar. It's probably an evolutionary comforting action. The three areas of tactile contact are: gently stroking the face, gently stroking from the top of the shoulders down to the elbows and layered, sweeping stroking of the hands. There is no specific sequence. You can mix them however you want. Choose just one area of emotional stress at a time and practice the Havening technique on it. Do the stroking as you say affirmations or comforting words to yourself. It's very soothing after a very short time.
I love when I learn about simple techniques like this which can have a positive effect on my well-being. It's great to learn about root causes of our symptoms, but it's even better to learn actions we can easily take on a daily basis to feel better, as well as to improve our long term healing potential. Don't knock it just because it sounds too simple to be true. Try it yourself and see how it feels! There is a website called havening.org if you want to look into it more.
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