The brain, stress, and self-comforting

Stress is the disruption of homeostasis – our internal state of being. Stress (stress hormones more specifically) isn’t always bad, we need stress to fire us up and provide the energy for daily activities such as getting out of bed in the morning, to perform in a job interview, even for activities such as exercising or learning. When stress tips over however, and the balance is lost, it can have a very negative effect on us.

It can be useful for people dealing with chronic stress to think about, and understand our body’s relationship with stress in order to use our body as a quick root in to stabilising ourselves again. What we might think of as our ‘self-soothing’ ability.

Using the body

We often find that we can’t think, rationalise or intellectualise ourselves out of a feeling or a mood. In thinking about anxiety and mood, we are quick to try and use on the brain – our thinking, post rationalising, intellectualising part of the brain more specifically – the prefrontal cortex. But this doesn’t always help. Using the body is often a quick ‘hack’ into how we are feeling. Although deceptively simple, learning how to use the body can have a impact on our feelings.

The mind and body are totally connected through the brain stem and nervous system. Our cognitive thinking process is actually slower than the responses our body has automatically, immediately and autonomously: our heart rate, blood pressure, arousal levels, digestion etc. These unconscious bodily processes have a very real affect on how we feel, and as result the story we then assign to these sensations (after they have occurred) in order to give them a meaning (post rationalising). In other words, we can be slow to understand what is happening in the body. For example, we have a reaction, then to try and understand it, our brain may assign a story or a meaning to it. Just think of a time you were at work, maybe feeling hungry or a bit cold, and got overly irritated by a colleague or overreacted to an email. The body can hijack us. But we can hijack it back.

Body talk

The brain stem controls the flow of messages between the brain and the rest of the body. It controls basic body functions such as breathing, swallowing, heart rate, blood pressure, consciousness, and whether you are awake or feeling tired.

Our sympathetic nervous system gets us going, increasing our arousal levels, keeping us awake and feeling energised. Our parasympathetic nervous system does the opposite – helping us switch off, wind down, relax. We need both systems to work together in harmony as an imbalance can throw us off kilter.

Finding ways to calm your nervous system then hacks your stress responses, allowing you to become far more resilient with stress handling.

Feeling good naturally

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) self-soothing techniques can be used to help better manage our physiological responses, our bodies, and so in turn, our feelings.  They deliberately avoid any thinking or cognitive focus on worries, anxieties, or feelings. Instead, the focus is on using the body (which responds more quickly than the thinking, intellectualising part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex) to bring about calm using the parasympathetic nervous system.

A central part of this is learning how to develop and strengthen the skill of self-soothing. Self-soothing is about comforting and nurturing yourself to help you feel calmer and better able to tolerate a stressful situation or problem, using your five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste and touch).

This is important, because the release of oxytocin (a feel good hormone) can be triggered by very basic sensory stimulation, such as touch, stroking, warm temperature, food, etc. Using these bodily reactions then can help with everyday wellbeing and our ability to handle stress.

Self-soothing strategies are very basic, simple techniques which help you to cope with overwhelming negative situations and emotions. These basic techniques require practice and repetition, but if you are consistent, you will see your relationship to the negative emotions and feelings change.