Getting Our Asses to Sleep
While the brains and bodies of us modern day humans have evolved quite a lot since the days our primitive ancestors roamed the earth in nothing but furs and loincloths some 50,000 years ago, there is one thing that has remained fairly consistent: and that is the ways by which our brain perceives and reacts to stress.
“Stress” for our forefathers was typically utilized in the physical sense. As in, why yes, I am rather stressed as there is a saber tooth tiger, or a massive wooly mammoth, or a cave bear who has ventured out from within its safe and warm dwellings that is hungry and looking for a snack out of my family and I!
Stress.
The brain perceives this physical threat to safety and gears up our sympathetic nervous system. This cues our brain to send signals to our adrenal glands, resting gently on top of the kidneys, to secrete cortisol into our bloodstream like yesterday! This cortisol raises blood pressure, dilates pupils, quiets the subtle work of our immune system, and shunts blood and glucose to the extremities gearing us up for a dead sprint with survival being the intended outcome.
Flash forward to today. A today in which our physical safety is rarely threatened. A today in which 99% of our stress is of mental, emotional, chemical, and spiritual origin.
Stress of deadlines.
Stress of having enough time.
Stress of taking care of those who are completely dependent upon us.
Stress of financials.
Stress of feeling adequate.
Stress of being good enough.
All of these seemingly small moments of stress cue to our brain that we are under threat, as our brain, as magnificent as it is, cannot discern the physical stress from the mental, emotional, chemical, spiritual stress which are seemingly far less threatening to our physical wellbeing.
Until it’s not.
Our brain perceives that our safety is always under direct threat, leaving this highly organized, enigma of oozy tissue in our heads to react as if a tiger, a mammoth, or a bear were, in fact chasing us, leading to a constant cascade of cortisol secretion, which is detrimental when it lasts longer than just a brief moment. In this case we are typically left with increased blood pressure, anxiety/constant alertness and scanning for threat, and a shunting of blood away from vital organs.
With all of this being said, the question I invite you to ask yourself is “if a bear were chasing me, would I be able to do ____ ?”
If we were being chased by a bear, sound, restorative, restful hours of sleep would be few and far between, as our brain, without out consent, would be in a constant state of high alert.
Brain self talk would sound a little something like this: Sleep? No, I couldn’t possibly. The bear could come back. He might be hungry. If I sleep, I might not hear him. What about my kids? What about my partner? I’m scared of what could happen. I hope he doesn’t get my foot. I really like my foot.
Sound familiar?
Our deepest healing happens in the wee hours of the night in which we are getting sound and quality sleep, and this can only happen if our nervous system perceives that we are safe. When we are under duress either mentally, emotionally, chemically, spiritually, or of course, physically, it is near impossible to achieve these deep states of sleep and healing.
So what can we do about it?
As vitalistic chiropractors, we are focused on your nervous system. Our goal and very reason for being is to unload the onslaught of stress that lingers in those hard to see places and feel places interrupting the connection between the brain and the body. We strive to interrupt the patterns of stress by way of the chiropractic adjustment, allowing for the loop of survival that has been engrained in the neurology to come to a halt, to unwind, and to un-learn.
When this happens, we help to shift the nervous system from a state of alarm into a state of restoration. We tell that metaphorical saber tooth tiger, or mammoth, or bear to go and take a hike or an extended hibernation so the body and mind can have a moment to sync back up and recover from the constant stimulation that is our every day existence.
This holds true for adults who have been on this planet for many years living in set patterns and ways of being, just as it does for lives and nervous systems that are brand new to this earth. The reasons and causes for stress may be different, but as we’ve discussed here, the end result is the same.
So who is ready to get their nervous system checked and catch some Z’s?
