Unfortunately, many of us don’t grow up in a nurturing environment.  But as Bruce Lipton says in his book,  “...when the environment was less than optimal, the cells faltered.  When I adjusted the environment, these ‘sick’ cells revitalized.”  As adults we can change the signals to optimize the environment for growth.  Environment and behavior CAN change your life!
When I began my healing journey years ago, I asked myself:  How can I create an environment to allow my cells to be vital and healthy?
In my own personal quest, I have directed my focus on creating an optimal environment for my wellbeing through wellness practices, alignment principles and healing my childhood wounds.  Consistent practice of relaxation techniques, postural alignment, and observation of my movement habits laid the foundation for me to be more efficient in the use of my body, and in that, I was able to come out of 10 years of chronic low back and sacroiliac pain.  Now that I have been out of pain, I continue to nurture my health and healing on a daily basis.
Here are some suggestions to optimize your environment for wellbeing:

• Stand more and sit less
• Get good sleep
• Hydrate/water: At least half of your body weight in ounces
• Notice your habits: change those that aren't serving you and continue the habits that enhance
• Hug/touch
• Limit alcohol, caffeine and processed foods
• Meditate
• Walk/Move/Exercise
• Laugh/sing
• Receive body work: massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, physical therapy 
• Engage in therapies: EMDR,  SE, RET, Feldenkrais

References: 
1. Lipton, B (2005). The Biology of Belief. Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books.
2.  ​Powledge, T. (2011) Behavioral Epigenetics: How Nurture Shapes Nature BioScience 61: 588-592.

"Prenatal and perinatal psychology is the interdisciplinary study of the earliest periods in human development, including conception, time in the womb, experiences during and after birth, and experiences with caregivers and the family system through the first year following birth.  Theory and research in multiple disciplines, including embryology, morphogenesis, bioengineering, evolutionary biology, psychophysiology, behavioral perinatology, neurobiology  affective neuroscience, attachment, and traumatology, provide the foundation for the exploration of how experiences during this critical developmental period impact an individual. Knowledge from these fields illuminates the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional impacts of our earliest experiences and how they form enduring response patterns that shape our development, behavior and health over the life span" (1).
The Reader's Digest version of this definition:  Our health throughout our lifespan is shaped in the womb and within the first few years.  Our nervous system, our beliefs & behaviors are primed and imprinted by our environment: our birth mother and our primary caregivers.

• Bonding/Attachment.  The bond between parent/caregiver and child has been studied since the 1950-60's.  John Bowlby studied the impact of the caregiver's behavior on human development. Bowlby's research supported the importance of consistent, loving, sensitive responsiveness of the primary caregiver to develop a secure bond or attachment that will form the foundation for how the child will relate to others in all relationships throughout its lifetime. In this blog post on understanding the nervous system, I share a video demonstration of one of Bowlby's renown experiments: "The Still Face Experiment." 
• Epigenetics.  The work of Bruce Lipton, PhD really brought forward the research to confirm that its not just the DNA in the genes that create the human, the environment has great influence HOW genes express.  The environment that affects the developing fetus includes thoughts, feelings and stresses of the mother, as well as chemicals/toxins in the environment from nutrition and pollution.  The take home message here, is that, how parents and caregivers interact with the baby before conception, and in the womb, can influence development of babe, and even future generations.  Supporting families in the first few years of baby's life is vital for lifelong health.
• ACES study. The Adverse Childhood Experience Study demonstrates the impact between unresolved early trauma and the onset of adult chronic illness, both mental and physical.  The ACE study measured impacts of 10 types of traumas: racism, bullying, watching a sibling being abused, losing a caregiver (grandmother, mother, grandfather, etc.), homelessness, surviving and recovering from a severe accident, witnessing a father being abused by a mother, witnessing a grandmother abusing a father, involvement with the foster care system, involvement with the juvenile justice system, etc.  "Adults need to understand their history and acknowledge how it affects them in the present. Early difficulty does not need to be re-experienced to be healed. However, the person who has such a history needs to make sense of what happened and feel settled around it. Dysfunctional compensation patterns are part of the survival pattern for adults who had to respond in these ways when the early trauma was occurring. These compensation patterns, which have outlived their usefulness for the most part, are brought to light without shame and then transformed with compassion and the presence of an attuned therapist trained in early trauma resolution" (2).
• Economics.  In the United States we are seeing an "alarming rise in prematurity, low-birth weights, surgical births, autism, ADHD, childhood aggression and depression, asthma, overweight and obese children, attachment disorders, learning disabilities, and the use of psychiatric drugs to manage children's conditions, as well as a rise in the number of children in foster care, adolescent homicide, child abuse and teen pregnancy" (3).  The research supports that investing in human potential from zero to 3 years of age can build and nurture  families, communities and the future of our economic stability (3).

Potential parent/s can prime the environment for baby's success:

• conscious/loving conception
  
• communicate and connect with babe in the womb: talk, sing or play music.  Let babe know that if having an intense emotion such as anger, fear or stress, that it is not about them, it is about the incident that has occurred  
• understand or tune into their own emotions/traumas/stress that may impact their wellbeing and nervous system (baby is regulating off of your nervous system) 
• seek good prenatal care and choose minimal intervention during birth, skin to skin contact, breastfeed

References:
1.  Ann Diamond Weinstein, Prenatal Development and Parents' Lived Experiences  (W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), p 5.
2. Kate White, MA, LMT, & Myrna Martin, MN, RCC, RCST,  "Pre and Perinatal Experiences For Health & Healing," Pathways to Family Wellness Issue 36.
3. Wendy Anne McCarty, PhD, RN, DCEP &  Marti Glenn, PhD, "Investing in Human Potential From the Beginning of Life: Key to Maximizing Human Capital," Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health 23 (2), Winter 2008.

 

Susan McLaughlin is a physical therapist who specializes in the management of pelvic floor and orthopedic dysfunctions. She is the owner of ALIGN integration|movement in Salt Lake City, UT.  Helpful tips and other self care strategies can be found at www.alignforhealth.com.

Healing the nervous system is a process.  We have many layers to support and unfold.  These five tools above can get you started.  I look forward to support you on your healing journey.

One of the first tools I go over with clients is to reeducate proper breathing mechanics.  Most of the clients that I work with have pain or are wanting assistance to heal from leaking urine, prolapse or abdominal wall separation.  Getting movement in the core system and regulating the nervous system are top priority for healing, therefore, breathing is the bridge between the range of motion of the core team AND the ANS.  For most of us, breathing is unconscious, and we have developed strategies to just get by, such as shallow breathing, open mouth breathing, shoulder and neck breathing, etc.  In order to heal, we need to get out of a habitual pattern, change the loads, get better oxygen and carbon dioxide balance in order for the blood to deliver the oxygen molecule to the tissues.

Polyvagal analogy of the traffic light:

• Green is the safety zone: our social engagement system.  our heart rate slows, digestion activates, facial muscles are responsive,  eyes are soft and able to make contact, hearing is turned on.
• Yellow is the danger zone:  our heart rate increases, pain increases, muscles are mobilized for movement, flat facial affect, the middle ear is turned off in order to hear lower threat tones.
• Red is the life threat zone: our system goes into freeze/immobilization.  This zone leads to metabolic shut down.

A healthy autonomic nervous system is fluid, bouncing between the green and yellow zone.  

As humans we are wired to connect.  We need to have connection and safety to build a healthy nervous system. If you watched Seth's video above, you now have a deeper understanding of this.  Because the nervous system is so subtle, and because many of us have had "bad stuff/trauma" happen to us, (we can be stuck in a freeze state or amped up into hyperarousal, or stuck in both states) we don't always "get" this understanding of how important it is to heal at a nervous system level.  The still face experiment exemplifies what happens to the nervous system and subsequent behavior when connection and safety is withheld.  

The above video can be hard to watch.  In just 3 minutes of non responsiveness from the mother, the child turns her head and body away; she withdraws with a hopeless expression on her face.  To use the traffic light example, in the beginning we see activation of the green light, then mom becomes non responsive, the child escalates to the yellow light and when mom continues not to respond, the child collapses into the red light.  Fortunately, this was an experiment, and mom comes back to engage and repair to green light.

Our nervous system impacts our entire well being: emotionally, relationally, mentally and physically.  Common signs of dysregulation: depression, anxiety, numbed out, brain fog/can't concentrate, procrastination/resistance, chronic pain, gut issues, headaches, severe PMS, autoimmune disorders, hormone issues, pain, etc.  You may also find yourself continually getting injured or wanting to take your exercise to the next level and you end up hurting your back (knee, shoulder, foot, etc), or you keep going to the chiropractor and they tell you that you aren't holding your adjustments or you look in the mirror and notice that your body rests in rotation (one shoulder is higher or your head slightly tilts, etc).   We all have layers and layers of "stuff" that has happened to us over the years, some more than others.  By acknowledging that this "stuff" is held in our nervous system (and thus, our organs and connective tissues) we can start to become more vital by reconnecting & regulating our nervous system.  As Seth mentions in the video above, breath is key to mediating the autonomic nervous system.  In my next blog I will explore some breathing options to facilitate a relaxation response. 
If you are interested in learning how to be more ALIVE in your body, there are some great books and online programs available to get started:

• Somatopia: this program is super affordable. It is a good place to start if you are completely new to the mind- body connection.  It goes over some of the foundational concepts and beginning techniques.
• 21 Day Nervous System Tune Up: this is a more thorough self study program that offers a great Facebook support group.  It has explanations of the neuroscience and plenty of neurosensory exercises to keep you busy.
• Crappy Childhood Fairy: to be honest, I haven't taken this course, but I am impressed by what I see on her videos.  She is not a therapist, or a health care provider, she is someone who had a "crappy childhood" and spent years in therapy.  It wasn't until she started working with the nervous system dysregulation that she started to heal.  Her program is based on the tools that she used to heal.
• "The Body Keeps the Score", Bessel Van Der Kolk
• "Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom in Your Body", Peter Levine

Many of the clients who walk into my office with hip, back or pelvic pain share some common features:

• Inability to isolate pelvic motion and/or rigid spinal motion
• Limited hip mobility in all ranges, especially hip flexion, adduction (moving toward midline) and internal rotation
• Hypertonic spinal muscles (increased mass and tone in the lower thoracic or lumbar area).  

2.  Get the hips moving.  Explore hip flexion and extension in quadruped (hands and knees or forearms and knees).  Make sure that the spine is neutral (refer to the spine pic above for a visual of our spinal curves) so you can make sure to get into the hips.  If the lumbar spine moves into flexion as you rock back, this means that you are not accessing the tissues of the hip joint.  

Breathing brings vital movement to the core: expansion/compression of the ribcage, diaphragm, abdominals and pelvic floor. How do you breathe?  Where do you breathe?  Can you feel your ribs expand on inhale and compress on exhale?  Does your pelvic floor lengthen on inhale and shorten on exhale?  Does your back move with your breath?  For most people, the answer is "I don't know."  I really like to have my clients load the body in different positions in order to explore variations of breathing which can help them connect to their core. 
In the breathing circuit video posted below,  I go through 3 positions plus a typical "core stabilization" exercise: 

• crocodile pose: on inhale, once the abdomen hits the floor (which is right away) take your breath into your back body.
• child's pose: same as above
• sitting: place hands on the side of the ribcage to feel the expansion/compression on inhale and exhale
• bird-dog exercise:  typically when this exercise is taught, people are cued to draw in abs before lifting the arms and legs.  In this drill we want to maintain steady breathing with no holding of the core.  Be mindful as you lift your leg off of the floor.  Do not over extend the hip, as this will compress the spine.

​Susan McLaughlin is a physical therapist who specializes in the management of pelvic floor and orthopedic dysfunctions. She is the owner of ALIGN integration|movement in Salt Lake City, UT.  Helpful tips and other self care strategies can be found at www.alignforhealth.com.

In both of these moves below, you should be able to maintain your breathing pattern as you move the legs without any tensing of the neck & back muscles or gripping at the ribcage.