Feeling rushed, frantic or overwhelmed has become a self-perpetuating habit for many of us. And because we tune in to each other’s states all the time without necessarily being aware of them, the habit is infectious. It drives us to need and do things we wouldn’t need or do if only we could access a calm, contented state This takes its toll on health, ours other people’s and even the planet’s. Happily, like all habits it can be repatterned, but this requires engagement and practice so it will happen only when we have decided that enough is enough.
Feelings are infectious even when we are not consciously aware of them
Can you feel what other people are feeling? It seems that our autonomic (unconscious) nervous systems are constantly tracking what others are feeling, scanning for a sense of safety or danger. Although sophisticated statistical studies have shown that one person’s emotional state affects that of others in their social network, most of us don’t consciously register what may be subtle changes in emotional state. So we are unable to make use of this information in the way our ancestors did, to help navigate the world in a healthy way.
These days, we no longer have to cope with sabre tooth tigers lurking in the undergrowth, but our bodies need to cope with signals of danger from other people, many of whom are living in a state of sympathetic nervous system arousal, in a rush (flight) or feeling irritated or aggressive (fight).
Stress may feel normal, but the body pays the price and eventually gets sick
We may be living most of the time in one of these states ourselves and decided that that is normal, so we don’t register that there might be a problem. The body, however, is paying the price, accumulating allostatic load (the cumulative wear and tear on the body due to repeated or prolonged stress). This increases the risk of physical and mental health problems (if you are interested there is more to read about allostatic load here.
When we tip over into overwhelm, burn out, brain fog or chronic fatigue the allostatic load gets even higher. Bodies are made to withstand stress from time to time and cope with it very well indeed. But when stress starts to be normal and there is little or no recovery time, problems set in and disease follows. Allostatic load is now recognised as the biological precursor for many chronic diseases.
This is not a problem you can think your way out of
What most of us do when we are stressed is try and think our way out of the problem, using our well developed and culturally revered cognitive intelligence based in the cranial brain to problem solve, a key skill of the left hemisphere.
Most of the autonomic nervous system is to be found in the body – enveloping the digestive track and the heart. These ‘belly brains’ and ‘heart brains’ connect to the cranial brain, but as the psychiatrist and researcher, Iain McGilchrist has shown in his recent book The Matter with Things, they connect primarily with the right hemisphere.
The right and left hemispheres offer complementary ways of engaging with the world. The left hemisphere excels at focused analysis and problem solving, while the right is more attuned to embodied experience, wholeness, context and relationships. Under stress we tend to become trapped in left hemisphere skills of analysis and problem-solving and lose access to right hemisphere skills of insight, creativity and emotional regulation.
We need to access the body’s intelligence
The embodied intelligence of the right hemisphere only comes back into play when we can slow down, calm down and remind our bodies that the world is pretty safe these days. In this state we have the opportunity to change the habit of feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
Like all underdeveloped skills embodiment takes practice
Bringing the belly and heart brains into consciousness so that we can consciously influence this habit requires a lot of practice for most of us 21st century Westerners. This is where embodiment practices come in, both the ancient ones like yoga and qi gong and the newer approaches like Embodied Presence.
Embodiment is easier to learn in in-person workshops
These are learnt best in ‘in-person’ workshops where the first and crucial step for the facilitator is to create a sense of safety. If s(he) is in an authentically calm, centred, grounded, attuned state and the meeting place is peaceful and safe, participants’ autonomic nervous systems will start to feel this even though they may not consciously register it. Then it is easier to tune in to the practices, and they start to make sense experientially.
Breath practices are one example. In an agitated, anxious state, focusing on the breath can create a sense of panic. In a relatively calm, safe state breathing practices feel soothing and enlivening, deepening the sense of peacefulness. Many people find it is necessary to practice embodiment for a while with a facilitator in a group, before they can get the practices to work on their own.
Its nobody’s fault: developmental origins
Humans are born early compared to other mammals and their nervous systems are far from fully formed. They have no choice but to experience others’ emotions.
In an ideal world babies are cared for by embodied parents whose autonomic nervous systems are in a state of safety most of the time. Babies then attune to this state and because the development of the nervous system is a use it or lose it affair they ‘wire’ in a calm, safe set point for themselves.
If parents’ autonomic nervous systems are not in a state of safety most of the time their babies ‘wire’ in a set point of stress or overwhelm, where they lose the capacity to consciously tune into others.
Collective trauma contributes
Two world wars devastated the autonomic nervous systems of most adults who lived through them and from that time on few babies have had all they needed to wire in a reliable, calm, safe set point. These babies grow up and become parents who then can’t do this for their children.
Collectively over time our autonomic nervous systems have moved towards a stressed set point and made the frantic pace of life we live in today feel right and normal; nobody’s fault, just something that has crept up on us.
Stress drives us to do things that are not helpful or necessary
When we are feeling agitated it is very difficult to sit still. It feels imperative to do something to sort the problem out, even when the problem is more imagined than real. When the problem can’t be sorted, we get angry and eventually overwhelmed, neither of which help the situation. What is needed is something that feels counterintuitive, to focus inwards and calm the nervous system down, just like an autonomically healthy parent would have done for her/his baby. Then neural pathways start to rewire and set point gradually change in a healthy direction.
Embodiment is a necessary skill
Turning the clock back requires becoming more embodied, so it is possible to register the state of our autonomic nervous systems at a subtler level and act sooner. There are many who are trying to do this today. Like all early adopters their work is harder than it will be for late adopters because, while the rest of the world remains frantic or overwhelmed, these early adopters have to reprogramme their own set points when others are pulling them out of this state with every contact. They often find respite in retreats or by living in communities that are bit separated from the rest of the world.
Embodiment enables us to choose what we attune to and potentiate positive states
Embodiment practitioners find that they are able stay sufficiently ‘grounded’ so that they are rarely pulled off centre by the state of others. With practice, grounding becomes an experience, a sense of being earthed, so that man-made or nature-made perturbations feel as though they can pass through the body without disturbance. At this point it becomes possible to respond rather than react, attuning to and potentiating positive states like joy, connection, aliveness, contentment, curiosity and diffusing negative states.
This way we learn to live in a way that enhances humankind and takes care of the precious planet that we live on. I would not say I have fully embodied yet, but I can attest to the fact that it is possible to change your set point and in doing so improve your mental and physical health even when you start the process late in life..
Learning to regulate the nervous system, however, happens gradually. Consistent practice helps many people move from chronic stress towards greater calm, resilience and connection. If you would like guided support in developing these skills, I would be delighted to welcome you to one of our workshops:
Join me and Candy March in Oxford on 1-2 August; 12-13 September; or 21-22 November 2026.
