Social distancing IS our best chance at making a positive impact on the current national and world health crisis. 

However, it also dampens the potential for two of the most critical aspects of maintaining our mental, emotional, and physical health by limiting movement and social engagement. 

The good news: 

We are extremely well-placed in time to keep both of these aspects alive and well in our daily lives…and more than that, we are being called to, forced to change our priorities to exactly these things. 

Now more than ever we must move and we must rely on each other. 

We CAN do both!

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Focusing on What CAN be Done, Instead of What Can’t

Movement is life. From a physiological, neurological, and emotional perspective, very literally movement creates the embodied liveliness of our very selves. 

We must NOT stop moving. 

And we don’t have to.

We can still go outside. We still have living rooms, bedroom floors to roll around on, dance parties to be had with our kids in the kitchen, balls to toss around, dogs and cats to play with and snuggle, spines to move, breaths and walks to take (I prefer mine with a friend in my ear and a whiskey in my hand.)

Movement, WITH people, is even more powerful.

But how, right now, do we do that…safely? 

And why is it an imperative that we do?

Socially engaging, with people who make a positive impact on us, fosters infinite benefit to the health of our nervous systems, minds, bodies, and spirits. 

Add movement to social engagement and we have one of the most critical short- and long-term strategies to create health in our inner and outer environments.

When outside options are shrinking we can still expand to meet the world; we can still choose to foster and exercise our internal options. To do so we have to nurture our nervous systems and our creative minds; expand not only our bodies, but our thinking, use all of our resources.

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The Power of Remote Social Engagement 

Last Thursday morning, I lost my wits for a moment. 

I’ve been on eight planes in the last five weeks. It’s my big teaching season and I move around the country a lot from January to May, so naturally I was feeling uncertain about my level of exposure. Having a 72-year-old dad living with me only added worry.

As I sat working from home later in the morning I entered into a text exchange with one of my teachers whom I love and trust and with whom, through many years of rich exchange, have established deeply positive co-regulation; a level of reciprocity that my nervous system feels and responds to.

When we concluded our texting, I noticed how grounded, centered, and calm I felt.

Co-regulation through remote social engagement. It REALLY, REALLY WORKS.

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Why It’s True + Why We Care…

Via our vagus nerve we physiologically change each other. When we engage with another person we are co-regulating; we’re adapting and changing as we read body language, facial expressions, and respond to tone of voice and eye movement. This is unconscious. 

With established healthy emotional co-regulation our nervous systems become more able to self-regulate. 

According to Polyvagal Theory creator, Stephen Porges, “co-regulation MUST precede self-regulation.”

When we self-regulate we become better equipped to adapt to a variety of situations. We are able to stay in an accessible nervous system state in which we can respond wisely and thoughtfully instead of reactively, without diminishing costs on our systems, which includes mental/emotional cost.

Self-regulation is key to responsiveness — thoughtful and calm attending to challenge and stress. 

All of this leads to less stress and less stress equals a healthier IMMUNE SYSTEM. 

There is so much we can do right now to improve how we behave, how we respond to the biggest challenge of NOT KNOWING, and it is NOT about THINKING our way through it. 

In a recent talk I attended with Porges he said that our mistake is addressing behaviour BEFORE the nervous system. Our nervous system’s have to be prepared and able to take on changes in behaviour which are not simply our action and our words. Behaviours ARE emotional. They are rooted in an emotional history. They’re charged (think positive or negative charge like in a battery) and when we enact them they elicit not only the associated charge inside our bodies, but they very literally physiologically change the person or people we’re interacting with. 

Porges went on to say “Change the nervous system state from vulnerable to one that is accessible and behaviour changes.” This is a more lasting way of changing and supporting lasting behaviour change.

A vulnerable nervous system, to use Porges’ language, is one of defensiveness, I.E. sympathetic, high risk, in danger, experiencing life threat, REACTIVE. An accessible nervous system is non-defensive, parasympathetic, able to socially engage, RESPONSIVE.

When we’re in a defensive nervous system state — perceiving risk — our bodies start to automatically respond by releasing adrenaline, cortisol, norepinephrine. With the release of these hormones our range of mental and emotional responses becomes more and more narrow, not simply by choosing different behaviours but by our body literally limiting our possible responses as it prepares for fight, flight, or freeze.

The heartening and downright uplifting news is that through movement and specific strategies of awareness and breath we can improve the health of our musculoskeletal systems, our connective tissue system, our NERVOUS SYSTEM, and our IMMUNE SYSTEM, and our behaviour WILL also change. 

This takes constant care, day-in and day-out. In our modern life attending specifically to shifting behaviour through our bodies is an imperative. In times like these it’s our social responsibility. 

I don’t usually take such a prosthelytizing approach to sharing information, but I don’t think there’s anymore room for passive suggestions. 

I know this works. I know it feels damn good. I know it’s 100% accessible in your living room, in your car, in your backyard, in your neighborhood, anywhere, anytime, any age, any anything. 

Grab ahold of ALL that you can do to make a positive impact on your cells, your gut, your heart, your mind and watch how your love, kindness, patience, friendliness, calm, cool, thoughtful responsiveness and your HEALTH grows and expands. 

Let’s make THIS the thing that’s contagious. 

This is our work. 

This is WHY we’re teachers…and even if you are a teacher by profession or vocation, you are a teacher. You’re a human and humans are instinctively teachers.

Go there now.

I think you’ll find this conversation inspiring and uplifting. Let’s keep the dialogue going.