Why Bodyfulness Matters to the Mind

A Child’s Worry

It felt like there have been two hearts in my body: one heart in my chest and also the other in my throat. We were on our way home from a store off the main highway. From the back of my family's truck, my mind what food was in it again – ruminating over a scene from Growing Pains. Carol Seaver was jumping in her own room and unexpectedly went through the floor.

What was meant to be comical seemed to affix to negligence my five-year-old brain that fed on fear.  Would the house be just like that whenever we've got home? I did not understand my feeling but there I was, experiencing it, nonetheless. There was no reason behind worrying about something similar to this, nobody was exercising anywhere unsafe and absolutely nothing traumatic had occurred, and Carol lost her grounding within the convenience of her home, I too lost my grounding in the convenience of my mind.

As far back as I can remember, I've been a constant worrywart. Ruminating to me might be viewed as the same to absently picking at a scab. Though I've not been on medication to be this worrywart, I've discovered that at certain times I'm able to control my perspective with the aid of my arms, legs, belly, and lungs.

Connecting to the Inner Child

What took me over 20 years to learn is that the body strengthens the mind when breathing through ways that many of us are unacquainted with. After i awoke my dormant desire for belly dancing, my dancing carried me right into a yoga studio where I learned breath exercises that reached not only the area of mindfulness but also bodyfulness.

Have you heard about Bodyfulness? Somatic psychologist Christine Caldwell coined this term intending to check-in and think about our senses, bodily systems, and movement. We 'experience' your body beyond just being aware.

For instance, the cardiovascular system can be one easy place to begin having fun with bodyfulness because we are able to see how our breathing is or where we might be holding our breath. According to Dr. Richard Brown and Patricia Gerbarg, breath practices help us to regulate stress response systems.

What this means is, we can be resilient with stressors. Maybe you have noticed that babies are more adaptable to changes around them than adults are? It is because their central nervous system is more flexible. So, they do not wear themselves by helping cover their stress once we adults habitually do.

Being aware of this small gem of data leads us right into the following gem that's behind every breath: checking along with our nervous system through heartbeat variability (HRV), something you want to rise in order to bring flexibility to the cardiovascular system and stress -response system (just like babies).  Sometimes we have to slow our heart-rate along with other times, like when you exercise, we need to increase it. Checking along with our interoceptors (inner sensations) links to our emotional intelligence and knowing what we're feeling and just how likely we're to make good decisions.

To go through the body is to operate to really make it stronger and bring change, which, helps make the mind stronger. Being aware of bodyfulness and engaging with it for mental health is kind of like taking your everyday dose of vitamins. Build healthy systems for unpredictable times of stress.

An Adult’s Stress

While in my 300-hr yoga teacher training I explored several breathing exercises through conscious movement that unbeknownst in my experience, would become tools to dig all things in bouts of depression and grief less than a year later. As Caldwell says, emotion and breath coregulate one another. I realized that sporadic irregular inhales mirrored my grief. The next exercises reminded me to allow my body system help:

Marching:

Marching in place for 30 seconds connects us with some principles of Caldwell's bodyfulness: oscillation, balance, and disciplined movement. Oscillation goes backwards and forwards with movement so that they can find stability.

Pursed Lip Breathing:

This exercise rebalances the oxygen and co2 levels within the body/mind. Caldwell emphasizes that people must keep a balance between both of these gases, otherwise, it might result in health problems. While sitting, we'd inhale for three seconds with the nose and exhale through the mouth for six seconds. The exhalation is two times as long because the inhalation.

Here is how we are able to take in our atmosphere and the body right now. In bodyfulness, a maintained balance between the external and internal environment is essential. When we favor one sort of sense over others, like the external environment where we're hypervigilant, it can lead to mental instability.

Double Breath: (“tense with will, relax and feel” scan): This is where we inhale with the nose quick then longer, tense the body, then exhale out through the mouth quick then longer.

Working with breathwork through bodyfulness simply offers a new perspective. Which perspective motivated me to move from my “growing pains” of illogical worries and grief and right into a host to healthy rhythm that communicates to the nervous system that i am okay within the moments I select to operate in. I'm grounded by being my own vehicle.

And just focus and shoot.