Transcript

Ani
Hi and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy podcast. We’re on episode 129. Good Morning.

Brian
Good morning, Brian.

Ani
How are you?

Brian
I’m doing great. I am so ramped up for today.

Ani
Jazzed up.

Brian
I’m ready.

Ani
What are we talking about?

Brian
Oh, God. This is. This topic. I wanted to just soapbox on this topic for so long. I can’t tell you how many times in classes we get to this topic and I just say I’m gonna have to talk about this at another time because I don’t have enough time right now to talk about it. So now we’re taking the time to talk about it. And so it’s. We’re gonna talk about the bodies. Outlawed wisdom, basically.

Ani
Cowboys.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
So here, talk about what cowboys do.

Brian
Well, you know, cowboys do this stuff.

Ani
Outlaws. I cannot wait to hear what this is about.

Brian
So here’s the deal. Here’s the deal. So the human body, actually all animals. All animals are designed to spontaneously regulate their nervous systems.

Ani
Oh, I like this topic too.

Brian
Okay, question is, will it be room enough for both of us here?

Ani
I know what we’re talking about. Oh, we’re on the same team, I think. Yeah.

Brian
Kind of thing. And so they’re designed, Every animal is designed to regulate. Regulate itself. Regulate their own nervous system specifically, so that traumatic levels of tension don’t accumulate in the nervous system. That’s like. That’s the design. All animals.

Ani
All.

Brian
I’ll say it again. Animals on the planet, including humans. Right. Are designed to do that. However, humans are also arguably the most traumatized and unhealthy species on the planet.

Ani
Yeah, I have.

Brian
I mean, can you.

Ani
Our big old brains, man. We’re just so smart.

Brian
Can you. Can you think of any other animal on the planet that is as traumatized, so self traumatized as the human? There might be other animals that are traumatized by humans, right?

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
But no other animal on the planet traumatizes itself or other animals as frequently or as intensively as humans. Do. Yep. I think you can say the same. Same thing for health. Humans are by far the unhealthiest human on the planet.

Ani
Now, animals.

Brian
Yeah, humans are unhealthy animal on the planet. Now, there might be other animals that are less healthy, but because of human interaction with them, not because if humans left them alone, animals would be able to figure it out. They. They’d be fine. They’d figure out how to regulate their nervous systems, vent trauma, and be pretty healthy. Right. But as humans, we tend to traumatize ourselves, traumatize the environment, traumatize other animals, and then bring unhealthy ness. That might not be a word to ourselves and to our environment and animals around us as well.

Ani
Preach.

Brian
Right. So just want to say, what is up with that?

Ani
Yeah, it’s our. It’s our stinking cor. Right?

Brian
We’re so smart.

Ani
Right?

Brian
We’re so smart as people. And like, this is what we’ve created for ourselves.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
You know, and so one of the reasons. And. And one of the. We talk a lot about beliefs on the podcast, right? We talk a lot about the power of belief. And a lot of people like to talk about the power of belief in terms of you can create anything that you believe in, like, have a belief and you can create. And that’s true. But I also want to just bring us back to the idea of how powerful limiting and conditioned beliefs are, because as humans, we have been taught to devalue, right, Devalue and even openly ridicule the exact mechanisms that our nervous system has been designed with to regulate itself, keep it healthy.

Ani
Mm. Yeah.

Brian
Right. I mean, so this is what we’re going to kind of talk about today. This is the body’s outlawed wisdom. The body has the wisdom to regulate itself, to keep you healthy, to actually even move you into a thriving state. And the reason that doesn’t happen isn’t because the body’s not capable of doing it.

Ani
It’s not the body.

Brian
It’s not the body. It’s the conditioned beliefs that we have had been perpetuated for generations, for thousands of years, that openly restrict, limit, ridicule, exile, punish, all those words. The exact things that would help us stay healthy, productive, and actually even keep our hearts open to one another. These things that are being ridiculed and marginalized are the exact mechanisms that would create a more compassionate world, that would actually have us care about each other more, actually feel when someone else is being harmed, so that we would feel that too, and we would then stop doing it. These mechanisms are these Beliefs cut off the mechanisms of natural feedback, of connectedness and collaboration and empowerment as mammals. It’s like, I, I don’t know how else to get more fired up about this topic. I mean, it’s just like a soapbox about this. It makes me really, I don’t really get, I wouldn’t say angry, but very enthusiastic, like really passionate, really passionate about this topic. You know, once you start understanding like what we’ve done to ourselves. But here’s the thing, we actually don’t need to even learn anything. Your body already knows how to do it.

Brian
You just have to, you just have to let your body regulate itself.

Ani
But also to your point, we have been conditioned because of, you know, different caregivers and people who’ve looked after us as children about what’s right and wrong in our societies, which has conditioned us to not not only not do these things, but not believe that our bodies is helpful. Right. And so we, we could sit around here and blame society and all the rule makers all day long, which, you know, might feel good to just let off some steam, but isn’t really going to do anything. But really what I think we’re talking about today is how you can reclaim and take back your power because you can do this stuff for yourself, you know, like you can do it especially once you’re grown up, once you’re not in school, to be perfectly honest, I think you have more, we have more of a choice around how we self regulate. When kids are in school, they do not have much of a choice around how to self regulate. To be perfectly honest, they do.

Brian
And as a parent, you know, you do have ways to empower your child to self regulate and help empower them and insulate them, let’s say, from the negative outcomes of doing self regulation things.

Ani
Absolutely. When I first had my kids, a person who I really admired in the holistic space said to me, when you decide if you’re going to send your kids to school, where you’re going to send them, just know that you’re going to have to. What’s the word? You’re going to have to do more stuff? Supplement.

Brian
Supplement.

Ani
You’re going to have to supplement whatever you choose. And I thought that was so cool because sometimes we can just again get in the habit of blaming the system and saying my kid’s stuck or there’s nothing we can do. But you’re gonna have to supplement no matter what you choose. So these are things that you can do to help your kid, even if they are in a regular school system. To be able to supplement and be able to regulate their nervous system. And we’re not just talking, talking about, you know, kids because what can happen actually as soon as we talk about kids, and it’s a soapbox of mine, Brian, is we think we need to tell all the kids about this. We need to teach all the kids about this. I’m pretty passionate about the fact that we actually have to teach the parents and the adults. We have to teach the grownups about this stuff. Because when the grownups are comfortable within themselves to do these things, then the kids are just going to naturally do them. So sure, teach kids tools in school, but also like teach the adults and adults, do your, do your due diligence.

Ani
Do your business. Be an outlaw.

Brian
Yeah, be an outlaw. I love it. Oh yeah, it’s amazing. So this conditioning, this limited conditioning starts, you know, at very, very young ages, like in or before preschool for, for most kids and these, that’s when these natural self regulation responses are deemed inappropriate or socially unacceptable. Think about things that are, when a child goes to preschool, like a teacher or another parent is saying your kid really shouldn’t do that, or we noticed your kid was doing this. And we talk about things like tantrums, like temper tantrums. Those are actually natural self regulating mechanisms.

Ani
What else are we going to talk about?

Brian
Well, we’re talking about, and just in general right now we’re talking about wiggling and moving, right? We’re talking about loud voices, we’re talking about these things that are deemed as inappropriate. Laughing, laughing. So we’ve got a list here. We’re going to kind of go through to China, just call out some of these self regulation things that get deemed inappropriate or socially acceptable. But just to pause here for a moment and say that is actually how they get wired in as deep condition patterns. Because remember that humans are mammals and because humans are mammals, we are social creatures and we are conditioned to thrive and be safe. Safe within a society, within, within a culture. And that being removed from the society, deemed dangerous and threatening to life. And so that’s just baked into our DNA as mammals. So the best way to get to conform behavior and build a limiting belief system is to threaten exile of a child from a group. And so that is not socially acceptable. And so you’re going to need to sit by yourself in the corner facing the corner or you’re gonna be ridiculed in front of everyone. So then everyone else is free now to ridicule you as well.

Brian
You’re gonna go to the corner of the Playground by yourself, no one’s going to play with you. Think about all those painful things that happen to children. But all of those things are intended to modify a child’s behavior to then behave in socially appropriate ways.

Ani
So they can conform.

Brian
So they can conform. But what if what they’re being asked to conform to are exactly the not doing the self realization, self regulation skills that actually keep them healthy and safe. And then we wonder why in kids there’s all kids with behavior challenges. Is it possible. I’m not an ADD ADHD expert, but my inclination is to say there’s something going on with the nervous system regulation. And is it possible that adults with ADHD perhaps didn’t have as much freedom or enough freedom to self regulate as children? And is it perhaps now, even when children are in school and deemed to be socially appropriate or behavioral problems, is they just need more opportunity to be able to self regulate and the opportunity within the structure of the learning environment isn’t there? I think there’s a whole bunch of contextual and structural things we could talk about which we don’t. Again, don’t want to get off topic with that with today, but I’m just, again, I get really passionate about this. I can see all the tethers kind to come together with not only chronic health challenges that we have in this country and adults in general, but also systemic challenges, behavioral issues, mental health challenges, a lot of it I see linked back to the limitations on our capacity for the bodies to just regulate themselves.

Ani
It’s a way that nobody has to say to a kid outright that we get to learn that the body is not. Is bad. The body is bad.

Brian
Right.

Ani
Nobody has to say it verbatim, but we just get the sense that my body is bad because I’m having this energy code through me or urges or whatever. And it’s so easy to translate my body is bad to I am bad. Mm, right.

Brian
Yep.

Ani
And then different people act on that kind of a perceptual lens in different ways. And some people clam up and try to be perfect, and some people have behavioral problems and it just lends itself to all kinds of stuff.

Brian
Yeah, yeah. So. So we have a list here. It’s not an exhaustive list. It’s not a complete list of all the ways that your nervous system regulate itself, but it’s just a sum of very simple examples that are easy to talk about in a podcast sort of thing. So one of the first ones is it’s gaining a lot of traction out there on social media, a lot of people are talking about it certainly in trauma sensitive and somatic spaces is the whole idea of shaking. So you know, people are doing shaking practices now. I saw a magazine and like Vogue or an article in Vogue magazine or something recently on shaking. I mean it’s showing, it’s showing up in like popular places now.

Ani
Somebody sent me an Elmo video of Elmo shaking recently. Even Elmo is doing it. Taylor Swift, shake it off.

Brian
Yeah. So it’s. So we’re seeing some traction. We go, oh my God. So this is, it’s coming to light. We’re in a revolution now of somatics. Bring it to the surface. And that’s why I’m really hopeful for some change in the upcoming, let’s be honest, decades, probably not year decades because that’s how slow things tend to change. But you never know. So when a person shakes, when a, when an animal shakes, you see bir doing this, right? Birds at the bird feeder will kind of shake. Mammals, your cats, your dogs, lizards and things like that don’t necessarily do this particular trauma response, but mammals do. I’ve never seen reptiles do this, but maybe they do shake. Yeah, I don’t pay enough attention to reptiles, but all mammals do this and birds do this as well. So this is basically a trauma response to move out of that dorsal vagal shutdown. Reptiles might do this because reptiles do have a dorsal vagal system.

Ani
Well, I’m going to look into that. Guarantee you will hear about this.

Brian
I’m going to look into that. Okay. But anyway, let’s just go to humans for a second. So humans shake, shake to move out of the freeze response. And this is something again that all animals do. And so you’ll see humans do this when they appear to have been through a traumatic experience. But it’s also a thing that now as adults you can do on a regular basis to help to regulate your nervous system. And it’s something that I believe we should allow children to do when they spontaneously need to do that, which leads to the next one, which is like wiggling, like just spontaneous movement, you know, like shaking. Shaking kind of has a really strong adaptive, kind of trauma centered kind of response. But wiggling is what happens before shaking.

Ani
Yeah, wheeling is a little different. I was just thinking about when I get a massage or acupuncture, sometimes I have spontaneous shaking. That happens. And if I’m with a new practitioner, I will say this. This happens with my body when I get body work. And I’m very okay with it because I’m aware that some People think that something’s wrong, or they’ll ask me, are you okay? Which is just a sign and symptom that we don’t. That we disallow the shaking stuff. Anyway.

Brian
Yeah, I was actually laughing. I was getting acupuncture yesterday and had needles, you know, all in me. I was like, going into this kind of deep place, and I get the same thing. Like a twitch. Yeah, I was twitching. I had needles in me. I’m like, oh, my God. Yeah, knock the needles out or something like that. I’m like, hey, you know, I don’t. I kind of twitched and sort of thing.

Ani
So the wiggles.

Brian
Yeah, so wiggles are. Or we can call them a spontaneous movement, too.

Ani
Wiggles have gotten some positive for press also over the years, specifically for preschoolers.

Brian
Yeah. Yeah. And I think. Yeah, so that’s great for preschools. I’d like to see it carried into. Get it all the way through high school sort of thing.

Ani
Could you imagine high schoolers wiggling?

Brian
Wiggling? Because wiggling, what it does, it vents off accumulated amounts of muscle tension. So during the day, especially if you think about people, kids sitting at desks, learning. And so when kids are kindergarten, like, there’s your desk, and get ready to sit in this desk for the next 50 years.

Ani
Right.

Brian
Because especially with the advent of technology and computers, more and more people are just sitting at desks, looking at screens and inhibiting their natural responses. I mean, how many clients do you have where we have to encourage them, get up and. During the day. Get up and wiggle your body during

Ani
the day to actually start asking people. Because it didn’t occur to me that nobody moves until finally, finally people started telling me, like, I never move. Like, I don’t move unless I go to the bathroom all day. And I’m like, oh, my God. Like, I don’t even. It doesn’t even occur to me that that’s happening.

Brian
Yeah. So it’s wild how that actually gets set up, because as a kid, like, they will spontaneously move and they have to be told repeatedly to stop wiggling. Yeah. Right. So when you’re. When you’re in kindergarten, first, second grade, kids have to be told repeatedly to stop wiggling because their natural spontaneous inclination is to wiggle. So think about this for a second. Over time, when they’re told again and again to stop wiggling, and they’re taught that wiggling is bad, wrong, socially inappropriate. And what happens then when they’re not wiggling anymore? At a certain point in time, they have to actually stop themselves from wiggling. Right. Because they feel like the wiggle coming on and they say, oh, I’m not supposed to wiggle. So now they have to use muscle tension to stop the wiggling. So they have to use a part of their body, they have to use their conscious muscles to stop their subconscious regulation, which takes energy. Which takes energy. But then over time, what happens is that happens long enough, pretty soon they don’t even have the, they don’t even have the initiative, not the initiative, the spontaneity to wiggle. The impulse, like the impulse is actually suppressed, repressed so deep into their system,

Ani
they don’t even think, they don’t even,

Brian
they don’t even feel like they need to wiggle anymore. And that, that suppression is also done with chronic muscle tension. So at first there’s a conscious amount of tension that needs to be applied to the subconscious wiggling and eventually there’s that conscious tension turns into subconscious tension which is, which is impeding even the sensation of wiggling.

Ani
And you think we’re just talking about wiggling, but this is how you learn to control yourself. And it’s like when you’re this young that all of those self controlling mechanisms are set up. It’s when you’re 2, 3, 4, 5, that when you’re 35, 45, 55, and you’re trying to live your life and you can’t figure out why, and we’re saying it’s because of chronic muscle tension, like this is why.

Brian
Yeah. And it shows up later as things that you aren’t even connected to. The wiggling, like chronic muscle tension is the underlying cause of just about all chronic disease. Because chronic muscle tension inhibits blood flow, creates inflammation, chronic pain, breathing issues, cardiovascular problems. That’s really the number one cause of heart disease is chronic muscle tension.

Ani
Making me just want a legal right now stuff.

Brian
But that stuff gets baked into Ani’s point very early on to a point where we’re an adult, we don’t even have an impulse to wiggle anymore because it’s buried so deep in the nervous system because of chronic muscle tension. And so we work with people who are standing computers saying, my back hurts, my neck hurts, my legs hurt because of the chronic muscle tension that’s been in place for so long, impeding the natural regulation mechanisms. And then when we give them a suggestion to the natural regulation mechanisms and they feel weird and strange, this isn’t right, it feels wrong to do it.

Ani
So I’ll literally give clients the homework of I want you to wiggle for two minutes every Day. And then months will go by and they can’t get themselves to do it. They forget about it. They feel weird about it. Like, all kinds of stuff. They procrastinate. Other stuff comes up that’s quote unquote, more important, you know, all this stuff. And when it really comes down to, like, the. The allowing themselves to do the wiggle, like, it can. Stuff can come up.

Brian
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Ani
Right.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
You start tapping into pressing all that stuff their whole life, you know, it’s like the biggest deal. They’ll be like, this doesn’t seem too important. I’m like, this is literally the most important thing you’re gonna do for two minutes every day.

Brian
Yeah. It’s so huge. So huge. Okay, so rocking. Rocking is another one. That’s a pretty clear one for again, when you see a child who has been upset and you’ll see them kind of go into a spontaneous rocking. Also for babies, Right. When a baby’s upset, we rock them.

Ani
Yeah. And to my point about telling people that when I. When I twitch or shake, that I’m okay. So if we were to do this, then we would be signaling to other people. I’m not okay. And then somebody might come up and say, are you okay? And then all the stuff that goes on with having to manage that, which usually involves having to manage their emotions, by the way, or how uncomfortable they are that you’re not okay.

Brian
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I. I noticed for myself, and I’ve noticed in other people too, during meditation practice, like when I meditate, when I get to a certain, like, sense of stillness, I. I know I’ve met that place. Because my body will actually naturally start rocking.

Ani
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian
It’ll just.

Ani
Absolutely.

Brian
And I can just watch it rock. It’s just doing it. It’s just doing its thing. And I’m meditating. My body’s just rocking. It’s really kind of cool. So rocking is a natural mechanism as well. Okay. Sighing, boy. Sighing is one of my favorite.

Ani
That’s another one.

Brian
Right?

Ani
Are you okay? What’s the matter?

Brian
Yeah. And so when we sigh, we sign naturally.

Ani
Like, how do you know how many times?

Brian
Every five minutes.

Ani
Every five minutes. Thank you.

Brian
I’d know about every five minutes. There’s actually a part of your brain, if you don’t. Dedicated to sighing. There’s actually a nerve cluster in your brain. I don’t remember the name of it, but it’s dedicated to sighing. And when they do experiments with rats. I’m sorry, Rats. When they lesion that part of the brain actually the rats die. It’s that important because they’re not sighing. So there’s all these physiological mechanisms around sign that we talk about in our somatic practice essentials program, our level one training. We go into kind of the depth around those kinds of things. But there’s really important physiological mechanisms for sighing around opening up the alveoli in the lungs. And it also induces a parasympathetic shift. And to Ani’s point, if you’ve been around somebody and they sigh, you can get really irritated with them.

Ani
Right.

Brian
Because we’ve been taught that we’re not supposed to make noises. Why are you making noises?

Ani
Making noise. Yeah. And then what’s wrong? And if you’re a caretaking human, you’re like, are you okay? And if you’re not, you’re just annoyed.

Brian
Yeah. So I remember it was a few years ago, we were in the kitchen and I was doing some sighing and, you know. And you’re like, what’s going on? And I’m like, nothing, nothing. I’m just. I’m just regulating. I’m just doing my thing. I’m just. I figure if you’re going to sigh every five minutes or so anyway, and that we sigh when we are creating a lot of tension in the system that needs to be vented off, why not just do it prophylactically?

Ani
Let’s do one right now. Yeah,

Brian
let’s do. I’ll do that with us here, listeners. Try it. Let’s see how you feel after. Big, deep breath in.

Ani
Oh, love a good side.

Brian
Have a good sigh.

Ani
Awesome. So good.

Brian
So that’s one right there. Oh, this is one of my favorites, too.

Ani
They’re all your favorites. Come on.

Brian
Ringing of the hands.

Ani
Oh, that’s like.

Brian
You ever notice when someone’s worried about something?

Ani
But you can do it. You can do it ahead of time.

Brian
What do they do? They wring their hands.

Ani
Oh, there’s so many acupuncture, puncture points, acupressure points. Right.

Brian
And things like psychology points.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
Well, there’s a key one right there in the web space of the thumb, you know, which gets a lot of action. Don’t press on if you’re pregnant unless you want to have a baby. Not like you want to get pregnant, but you actually want to go into labor, because that will do that. But that. That spot actually relieves worry and anxiety.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
In Chinese medicine. So I just. When I learned that, I was like, isn’t it interesting? Because you, you know, if you watch

Ani
somebody in there, kids don’t don’t fidget.

Brian
Yeah, don’t fit.

Ani
Don’t fidget.

Brian
But when people are worried about something, they, they naturally wring their hands together. And so that’s a natural mechanism that the body is trying to do to center itself. But we can say, don’t fidget, put your hands in your pockets, like stop bringing your hand sort of thing. And teachers can do that. And what then they’re doing is they’re taking away a child’s natural self regulation mechanisms. So I thought that’s a kind of,

Ani
by the way, shout out to all the teachers out there, because teachers, that’s like an awesome job. And their teachers are awesome.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
You know, right. And people are doing the best they possibly can at all times based on how they were taught and I mean, what they’re taught in school and what they were taught by their mentors and all of that stuff. Yeah, shout out to teachers.

Brian
Yeah. And actually I want to do a podcast in the future really quickly with two of our core centering students who are actually higher ed teachers working. They train teachers in an elementary school

Ani
level using this stuff.

Brian
Using this stuff. And they had a whole project doing those things. And when I heard about it, I was literally wanted to cry. It was like so, so cool. Wonderful.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
That. To know that this work is being brought into the schools for teachers and for teachers so teachers to use.

Ani
How frustrating is it to be a teacher?

Brian
So amazing. Okay, we got another one for you. Stomping your feet. You know, so when a, when a kid like just wants to like stomp their feet around and have like, you know, a tantrum time sort of thing. Yeah, well, it turns out that there are. There’s a primary acupuncture pressure point on the bottom of the foot called the kidney. One point. And it’s really good at grounding, grounding the energy in the body and also for calming down the heart, mind.

Ani
And what an amazing way to release energy out your feet, which is actually a super functional way to release energy because a lot of people, because they’re taught not to move, end up releasing energy out their mouth and saying stuff they don’t want to say or they get anxiety or headaches and stuff like that, or they, you know, somatized stuff. So releasing energy at the feet is so great. That’s another one where I will say to a client, you know, they’ll be talking about. Angry. They are about something. I’ll say, well, have you thrown a tantrum? And they’re like, what, what do you mean throw a table have you tried to throw a, throw a tantrum? They’re like, what are you talking about?

Brian
Yeah, yeah. When you throw a tantrum, it’s like you’re resourcing multiple things, right? You’re slamming your hands, you’re stomping your feet, you’re crying, you’re screaming, you’re shaking, you’re vibrating. Right. It’s a way. That really is a fantastic self regulation strategy. Yeah, really great self strategy. Okay, so another one is just, you know, placing your hands on your heart.

Ani
Love this one. I do this almost every single day for myself. And I’ll just do like a really gentle rub.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
It is one of my very favorite. I don’t even know what to call it. Self care strategies, manifestation strategies, being human strategy. Like I just love it so much.

Brian
And it’s. So when you, when you do that, how does it feel to do that?

Ani
Really comforting.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
So they’re centering comforting.

Brian
There’s a point right on the middle of the sternum called the Sea of tranquility point. And again, it’s a point that specifically helps to calm down heart, mind distress.

Ani
Right?

Brian
So that’s just the natural. So when people put their hand on their heart, they’re naturally doing some self regulation mechanisms by doing that. So that’s a cool one.

Ani
Crying. I love crying.

Brian
Oh, you want to talk, Talk about crying.

Ani
Crying’s the best. Are you kidding me? I read something I got, I don’t even remember at this point where, where I read it that said crying washes your DNA. And I loved that so much. But that’s another one where if you’re crying. First of all, ladies, if you’re listening to this, stop apologizing for crying. I mean, don’t let me tell you what to do. I’m telling you what to do. Stop apologizing. It’s a natural process, right? How many times have we had specifically ladies in class who are heart centered people who have feelings like normal human beings who have some tears come and they say, I’m sorry I’m crying. Apologize for being a human. Crying feels amazing to just wash things away. And I love to cry. When crying comes, I’ve come to really be friends with it and appreciate it. And I got to this place where I was really experiencing some deep grief in my life, maybe a little bit because of what was going on in my life. But I felt like I was washing like generations worth of grief out of my system. And I remember a day that my son came knocked on my door when I was crying, like wailing crying, Right.

Ani
And he said, mom, are you okay? And I was just like, so I was so good. And I said, I am so good. I am really enjoying crying. He’s like, do you need anything? I said, no, just like, let me cry. I was just so comfortable with myself. So I am a huge fan of crying.

Brian
Yeah. From a nervous system perspective, crying shifts the nervous system towards a parasympathetic nervous system state. So autonomic nervous system, right? We have sympathetic. Sympathetic nervous system, which is the fight or flight side. Parasympathetic nervous system, which is that rest and digest side. So when a nervous system builds up a lot of tension in it, it needs to find a way to release that tension, otherwise it could damage the organism. Right. Too much tension in the system will cut off blood flow, create all kinds of problems. And so the organism will kind of override at that point what someone wants to do. Like, someone might be like, I don’t want to cry. But if the nervous system is like, listen, we got to let go of this tension somehow, or we’re going to create a big problem that’s happening. So nervous system kind of takes over the nervous system and in order to regulate and preserve itself. And crying is one of the ways it does that. So it shifts into a parasympathetic nervous system state. It vents tension, it calms the system down. Oftentimes after you have a really good cry, you feel more, like, balanced, right?

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
Your nervous system feels more relaxed, you feel better, and that’s an instant. Now, the other cool thing that I had read too, is that the lacrimal glands, the tear glands, are innervated by the parasympathetic nervous system. So tears are basically directly linked to that parasympathetic nervous system response, which lets you know that, again, you’re releasing tension. You’re moving towards the healing kind of side of the nervous system to basically support what you’re talking about. In terms of tears and crying being very healing, your nervous system agrees with that based on what your nervous system is saying.

Ani
I would say my nervous system does agree with that. Here’s another thing about crying. You don’t have to make it mean anything because people want to know what’s the matter. You don’t have to have anything that’s the matter.

Brian
Just say my nervous system is regulating itself.

Ani
Yeah. You don’t have to explain it, because as soon as that’s the typical thing is someone’s crying and then we’re taught to say, what’s the matter? And then guess what we think we have to come up with a response which means that we’re making meaning off of something that’s perfectly normal. And then we start to attach stories to this perfectly normal thing that’s happening that may or may not be accurate. And then we’re further confirming past storied, conditioned belief about what that means.

Brian
Yeah. You know, I will. I will say really quickly too. My theory about heart disease being more prevalent in men than women is linked to this thing.

Ani
Because they cry less.

Brian
Yeah, because men are conditioned not to cry at all.

Ani
Right.

Brian
I mean, I know there’s a song big. You know, big girls don’t cry.

Ani
Well, big girls do cry, but big. But men don’t cry.

Brian
They’re taught not to cry. It’s like literally like, it is like life or death not acceptable to try.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
And so that can condition in the men, which means that we have one less spontaneous way to cry because it’s

Ani
been to regulate the nervous system.

Brian
Yeah, exactly. To regular nervous system. It’s been so deeply, again, repressed in the system. Going back to what we were talking about with wiggling is that for a lot of times, men don’t even feel the initiative to cry because it’s so buried deep down. And then so it’s held back. And that holding back continues to constrict the cardiovascular system in a way that creates more opportunity for heart disease to occur.

Ani
I’m with you on that.

Brian
So that’s my theory on that.

Ani
Really good hypothesis. Okay.

Brian
And then we have one more which you mentioned right. In the beginning was laughing.

Ani
Laughing. Yeah, I think we. It’s. That’s a weird one, I think, because there’s plenty of stuff out there on the Internet that tells us that we should laugh more, but somehow we don’t have the impulse to. To laugh more. We’ve like lost the impulse to laugh more. Because how many times a day do kids laugh and how often do we tell them to be quiet? You know, so at some point along the way, we learn to again, correct our behavior and modulate ourselves. And that kind of especially like big laughter is too loud or not okay. In some way. And like, we’ve been there. We have three kids that used to live in our house. And if three kids are especially big kids are all laughing like it is loud, you know, so it can be tough to be with that much noise.

Brian
How much laughter?

Ani
Yeah, yeah, Right.

Brian
But the science of laughter is really cool, right. Because it increases. I have a list right here. It increases. This is research supported. Laughter increases circulation improves Oxygen intake, decreases blood pressure, optimizes neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins, and it increases immunity and reduces muscle tension. So kind of good. How can you not like laughing?

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
For really. And I can. I can say, for me, laughing is not always easy for me.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
And as I have learned to laugh more over the years, I know it has supported my health in more positive ways.

Ani
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we laugh spontaneously all the time now. I think for me, basically, because I do all the other things more intentionally, and then the laughter can just. Just flow.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
Yeah. Boy, I think we need a break because both of us just really, like, got passionate about.

Brian
I don’t know how long we’ve been here. Has it been an hour? I mean, sometimes I usually watch the clock when we’re doing these things, but I’m like, I could just keep going. This topic is so riveting for me. So I just want to thank you listeners. Thanks for listening and just allowing us to kind of spout on about the body’s outlawed wisdom.

Ani
So try some of these techniques. Pass this along to someone else who needs to hear it, because I guarantee you’ve got a friend who, you know, apologizes when they cry or try not. Tries not to move or make too much noise or all that. And, like, they gotta hear it, too. So share this one out because everybody needs to hear it. It’s gonna make a big difference.

Brian
Cool.

Ani
All right. Your life and the life of others.

Brian
Thanks so much, friends, for joining us. We’ll see you again next week.

Ani
See you next week. Bye. Bye.