Why trying to fix yourself is holding you back, according to a wellness expert
At some point last year, I became so anxious that hearing a bird at 4am would wake me up, heart galloping, sheets drenched in sweat. Before my eyes could open, my mind was ruminating on how I would die alone. Antidepressants and talking therapy – somethingI’d done for 15 years on and off –barely scratched the surface.
I knew what started this: I’d experienced some small-t trauma that had echoes of past traumatic incidents from my teenage years. So I read Bessel van der Kolk’s famous The Body Keeps The Score along with everyone else, underlining the parts that resonated. But the book collided with the rise of another trend in wellness: nervous system regulation.
‘The nervous system has an “alarm system” that constantly monitors what’s happening around us,’ says George Thompson, a core faculty member of the non-profit Polyvagal Institute, set up to ‘optimise the human experience’.
‘This alarm system adjusts our physiology to match the moment’s needs, such as putting us in fight-or-flight. And mental health conditions can arise when the alarm system reads danger into situations that are actually safe.’
And so, one afternoon, I find myself at a breathwork class. Held by former free diver Rodo Escalante, founder of AlchemyRewire, the class is a series of practices to self-regulate the nervous system through carbon dioxide and music; research conducted by the HHP Foundation found that those with a higher carbon dioxide tolerance had lower in-the-moment anxiety, and it’s been shown to help manage symptoms of depression.
As calming music played, I sat on the floor as Escalante guided me though a series of specific breaths into breath holds. Holding my breath felt unnatural at first; anxiety rises as soon as you remember that you’re going to need air soon. But he tells me to go back into my body and release my mind.
When I ask him for his thoughts on nervous system regulation as a trend at odds with talking therapy, he suggests that doing therapy after this type of work would be ideal; you’re relaxed, coherent and able to connect more deeply with who you are.
After our session, my sense of awareness is flattened somehow; my body removed from the electric grid I was on before. With no running commentary in my head, I walk home in peace. This, I think, is how normal people probably walk around feeling. After a few days of doing a shortened version of the breath-hold exercises at home, I realise I’m sleeping on
my back again, rather than in the foetal position with T-rex arms thatI’d been naturally defaulting to.
Over the next few weeks, the breathing calms me, but the feeling is only ever temporary – wearing off as the day goes on. Of all the advice I’m given, it’s this – from nervous system coach Kristen Csuhran – that’s most welcome: ‘Stop trying to fix yourself.’
Doing so, she tells me, is akin to rejecting yourself. ‘I have to tell so many of my clients to just go and be alive, shut it all off, have fun,’ she tells me. ‘What makes you feel joyful?’
In the end, I do the least joyful thing I can imagine and schedule some fun into my calendar. It helps.
More like this
6 signs you might be at risk of a nervous breakdown
'I learned to breathe properly and waved my city life stress goodbye'
You Might Also Like
