Have you ever wondered why your body sometimes screams "danger" in a perfectly safe room? We guide you through understanding neuroception, the unconscious system that dictates our sense of safety and danger.
We peel back the layers of potential danger signals our nervous system's can detect, and how this can have a real impact on our chronic pain or symptoms.
This podcast is produced by Alex Klassen, who is one of the wonderful therapists at Pain Psychotherapy Canada.
Together we have a therapy agency called Pain Psychotherapy Canada. Learn more about our work on our website and book in for a free 20 minute consultation with one of our therapists: https://www.painpsychotherapy.ca/
We also post daily on instagram: @painpsychotherapy
Finally check out Tanner's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Fl6WaFHnh4ponuexaMbFQ
Disclaimer: The information provided by Anne and Tanner on this podcast is for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice, psychotherapy, or counselling. It you choose to utilize any of the education, strategies, or techniques in this podcast you are doing so at your own risk.
Education and techniques discussed in this Podcast originate from Polyvagal Theory, Pain Reprocessing Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy. Reference: Peter Levine, Deb Dana, Dr. Porges, Pain Reprocessing Therapy Center, Alan Gordon, Dr. Schubiner, and Dr. Lumley.
Have you ever wondered why your body sometimes screams "danger" in a perfectly safe room? We guide you through understanding neuroception, the unconscious system that dictates our sense of safety and danger.
We peel back the layers of potential danger signals our nervous system's can detect, and how this can have a real impact on our chronic pain or symptoms.
This podcast is produced by Alex Klassen, who is one of the wonderful therapists at Pain Psychotherapy Canada.
Together we have a therapy agency called Pain Psychotherapy Canada. Learn more about our work on our website and book in for a free 20 minute consultation with one of our therapists: https://www.painpsychotherapy.ca/
We also post daily on instagram: @painpsychotherapy
Finally check out Tanner's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Fl6WaFHnh4ponuexaMbFQ
Disclaimer: The information provided by Anne and Tanner on this podcast is for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice, psychotherapy, or counselling. It you choose to utilize any of the education, strategies, or techniques in this podcast you are doing so at your own risk.
Education and techniques discussed in this Podcast originate from Polyvagal Theory, Pain Reprocessing Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy. Reference: Peter Levine, Deb Dana, Dr. Porges, Pain Reprocessing Therapy Center, Alan Gordon, Dr. Schubiner, and Dr. Lumley.
Hi, we're the MindBody Couple.
Speaker 2:I'm Tanner Murtaugh and I'm Anne Hampson and this podcast is dedicated to helping you unlearn neuroplastic pain and mind-body concerns. Hi everyone, hi everybody, welcome back to our podcast.
Speaker 1:Welcome back.
Speaker 2:We're getting over around a sickness in our house.
Speaker 1:Like always, I feel like most people might relate to this. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And one thing me and Anne have been talking about lots over the last couple of weeks is, however we're not in our house are sensitive people.
Speaker 1:Yeah like we're all sensitive and I feel like our animals are also sensitive All of our animals Well we're sensitive.
Speaker 2:Our kids are sensitive. It's not a bad thing we're not saying this as a negative. It's just a real observation we've made in the last couple of weeks. All our animals are sensitive except Hermione.
Speaker 1:Hermione is our littlest cat. Yeah, she is stone cold sometimes.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, she's icy, she's icy, she loves me. Like I fall asleep on the couch sometimes at night, she just sleeps on me all night.
Speaker 1:It's true, Me and her we don't connect as well.
Speaker 2:And Hermione, they're not friends. She's not sensitive enough for you.
Speaker 1:No, it's true, it's true, but we have been having a lot of like kid emotional outbursts a lot of the time and it's been hard to navigate in terms of like, how do you respond, what do you do, how do you not get frustrated, all of those things.
Speaker 1:Totally, and you know know, we're therapists so we know some of this stuff, but you know, we empathize with parents because this is a hard thing to navigate. Yeah, and one thing I want to say even though we're therapists, I feel like we don't really know what to do. Yeah, so like we know, but like applying it?
Speaker 2:you know, a big thing that we utilize is just giving our children space to feel emotions, yeah, which is very vital, which is easier said than done, because when you're, yeah, highly sensitive adults and I can be. I'm much more regulated in many in the recent years. But, yeah, we can be dysregulated and when we dysregulated we cannot expect our kids to be regulated.
Speaker 1:No, and I think that's so interesting. I think that's common knowledge or like sorry, not really common knowledge, but starting to get more popular that people are starting to understand that if I want to impact my child in a positive way, then I need to regulate myself, and so that's really more in the common common, I guess discourse. Now yes, but it's hard to do like you're saying and it's like after the fact.
Speaker 1:I think we always see that yeah but in the moment it's hard we'll think about like and this kind of leads into our topic about danger signals. When my kids are crying and freaking out, it feels dangerous to me.
Speaker 2:Your brain is lit up.
Speaker 1:Yes, my brain is lit up and then I react or I get defensive, and so, yeah, talk about dangerous signals. My brain is like, oh my God, this is not okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think this is one of the biggest responsibilities we have as parents. This is one of the biggest responsibilities we have as parents, that is often not like talked about or not accepted. Yeah, because, yeah, we have no business expecting our kids to be regulated if we're not. Yeah, and that was a hard pill for me to swallow.
Speaker 3:I think that's that's a big thing, that like motivated me to to actually become more regulated I wish I was enough, I wish like I wish, and I have been more so in recent years, I know, but it's one of those things where you know.
Speaker 2:When you see how you start affecting your kids, you're like, yeah, like I gotta work on myself. Yes, and we do this and we teach our kids the regulation skills.
Speaker 1:To be honest, I teach clients, it's so funny we have to say, like our son is learning about breathing in school, which is actually kind of amazing, Because I feel like I didn't learn that in school? No, that was another part of the discussion, so it's pretty cool that I think it's starting to be. But he knows this thing of bunny breathing.
Speaker 1:Or bear breathing bunny breathing or bear breathing or bear breathing, which is and that's kind of like the way he describes it like we don't call it bunny and bear breathing, but it's different type of breathing that we do as clients and so, but then in the moment, being like less supply, bear breathing is very difficult, especially if our nervous system is reacting, as this is dangerous yeah and we're being dysregulated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's one of those ones like we teach clients a lot and in our upcoming course we teach it like the triple inhale sign.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's the bunny breathing.
Speaker 2:But is that the bunny?
Speaker 1:breathing it is.
Speaker 3:It's literally the same thing.
Speaker 1:It's the bunny breathing you told me about In our course we should have called it bunny breathing.
Speaker 2:Now everyone do the bunny breathing Like it would have been great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But well, and I think, like when we there's big emotion, whether in ourselves or other people, either we've learned that this isn't safe and this is dangerous in some way, or, like society has been like hey, no, these big emotions aren't okay, we need to table them over there. So there's been messaging that we might view it as dangerous and then we might become dysregulated ourselves too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we're going to return to talking about this in a second as we go through, but our topic today is what are the danger signals impacting your nervous system and chronic symptoms? Yes, and we need to know this to heal chronic pain and symptoms.
Speaker 1:Right. So that was our example of one that impacts us, maybe sometimes that danger signal, like your kid's crying, is a common one.
Speaker 2:You know danger signals. They really cause our nervous system to become very dysregulated.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And can trigger and perpetuate chronic pain and symptoms. And I want to be clear like a starting place to regulating your nervous system is identifying what dangerous signals are causing the dysregulation in the first place. Yes, what I see happen a lot with people is they learn about breath work or somatic practices, somatic movement, whatever it might be Like buddy breathing. Yeah, emotional work, oh yeah, buddy breathing?
Speaker 3:I want to answer that again.
Speaker 2:And they just start to utilize that. Yeah, but they don't spend the time mapping out you know what are the danger signals.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is like the why, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's what brings you to the dysregulated state. This is how Deb Dana talks about it Like what's bringing you there. It's good that we understand, like how we experience, for instance, the sympathetic system, which is often like an anxious or angry feel.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Quick breathing. You know, know rapid heart rate, right um, and we understand the dorsal vagal system, which is where we feel exhausted, we shut down, we collapse, we go numb, we dissociate. So understanding that, like mapping that out for people, is important, but we need to know what's bringing you there yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Well, and sometimes I talk with people in this way of like okay, your symptoms started here, but what is perpetuating them? What is keeping them going?
Speaker 2:So danger signals is a term we utilize in our upcoming course and I utilize it often with clients, so I give everyone the definition here, okay, okay. Danger signals are internal or external signals that activate the sympathetic or dorsal vagal systems. Often these are referred to as triggers this is like the common thing that people hear a lot and they occur when a challenge or situation we face is just too big. It's too big for our nervous system to feel safe and be flexible. Now I'm going to get a little sciencey here.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I love the science.
Speaker 2:I'm going to throw out a really jargony term but it's an important term, so please don't turn the podcast off people. This is a vital term to understand.
Speaker 1:Bear with us, please.
Speaker 2:And this comes from polyvagal theory. It's really useful. This is something that I think about a lot when I was healing and even still now, and the fancy term is neuroception. So here's how I explain this to people. We all know what perception is right.
Speaker 2:We perceive things. We perceive things what's going on in our body, what's going on in our external world, what's going on in relationships, and this is very conscious, we're very conscious of this. So when you meet a new person, we don't think about it like this, but we're making perceptions. Is this new person safe? Are they dangerous? What are the signs that are telling me this? The thing about perception is neuroception happens first. So when we talk about neuroception, what your nervous system is doing in every moment of your entire life, even before you had conscious memory, it's unconsciously to you, it's scanning.
Speaker 2:It's scanning internally, externally, in your relationships, and it's scanning for signals of safety or signals of danger.
Speaker 1:Can I talk about horses for a minute?
Speaker 1:here, let's hear the horse talk well, I was just gonna say this really applies to animals and and this really applies like from what I'm learning to horses in terms of like they, with their neuroception, are always scanning and so because they're prey animals, right, and so they always are aware and looking for safety, and it's neuroception going on, for sure yes, and the thing about neuroception is, a lot of people are just unaware, and so you're getting these signals of safety or danger and you're feeling a certain way in your system, but you're not really sure why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so part of the reason we're doing this podcast episode is to bring conscious awareness to the neuroception that's happening and, and you know, here's the.
Speaker 2:Thing about neuroception that kind of sucks. People don't love this part. But when we talk about you know neuroception, you know the danger signals, the triggers. They don't always make logical sense or indicate real danger, and so what happens is, neuroception can be accurate or it can be inaccurate. There's some people walking around in the world I am not one of them. I don't claim to be. My neuroception has become more accurate over time but there's some people walking around in the world where their neuroception is super accurate. It's picking up the right signals of danger or the right signals of safety, and so they get the right amount of energy in their nervous system, yes, and their system's, as a result, flexible. They're not getting locked in a sympathetic fight-or-flight or a dorsal kind of shutdown place. It's accurate.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:But when we face overwhelming situations, trauma chronic pain and symptoms. The neuroception becomes inaccurate. So, over time that kind of changes the neuroception becomes inaccurate. Uh, so, over time, yeah, that kind of changes the neuroception, exactly.
Speaker 1:So what happens is, all of a sudden, your nervous system is picking up on signals of danger in your current environment, when you actually might be safe so would that be that idea and I think this is something that I commonly talk about with people that idea of like getting stuck, yes, and the nervous system getting stuck?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because the nervous system it, you know, it developed based on your biology, based on every moment in your entire life.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And so it's doing its best to protect you. So if you've faced overwhelming situations or trauma or difficult things in the past and you have reminders of that in the present, you get these conditioned responses, these associations taking place all of a sudden. Now your nervous system is reactive, yes, it's very reactive, and that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Um, and it makes sense based on you know what you went through, but now currently maybe you're safe and it's no longer adaptive, unfortunately, Well, and so back to that idea of understanding the why of things, understanding if okay, maybe this might, if this might be going on for you in terms of your neuroception, and then again looking at the triggers or dangerous signals, and having an understanding of why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now, as a funny little side note, we share this with clients because I think it's hilarious. Neuroception can be inaccurate. The other direction.
Speaker 1:Like almost like I'm safe when I really need it Exactly.
Speaker 2:There's people walking around the world where they're picking up on more signals of safety than actually exist. Now, if you're listening to this podcast, you're like, wow, that sounds nice. I know.
Speaker 1:I was just thinking, yeah, it sounds blissful. I don't know if that's what I'm talking about, so I'll give you a little story on this.
Speaker 2:When I was younger and in my young 20s in bands and we were kind of like rock bands.
Speaker 3:We'd play shows and stuff.
Speaker 2:We had this one drummer and he was a great time to hang out with, like I. Even now every once in a while I think about it. I'm like man. I miss that guy, like I've talked to him many years because he was. He was fun, loving, he was always in a good mood and I learned over time, thinking back now, that his neuroception was off, like he was always feeling safe and there was situations. So I remember one time he was driving to band practice and he never showed up and I was like what happened, man? And he was like my car ran out of gas on the road. So he's just like he lived in kind of this la la world and he didn't take action when he needed to. So it actually did get him into difficult situations. So it can be off in either direction, but for most people with chronic pain and symptoms that's not relevant but it's kind of an interesting idea.
Speaker 2:And so you know we need to understand and map out the danger signals, and this allows us to understand the different triggers impacting your nervous system state daily and what may be triggering your chronic pain and symptoms. And everybody's unique, and so this is this kind of list that we're going to go through is a general list it's a general list, but we really and we'll give everyone a task at the end, but think about this, because everyone has unique danger signals yes they do they're.
Speaker 2:they're unique to your nervous system, and so the first thing I talk about with people is trauma, because a lot of danger signals that people are having in the present link back to a trauma response they had in the past.
Speaker 1:Right. So that idea that neuroception can become changed or off or impacted, that can start from long, long before chronic pain and symptoms arise.
Speaker 2:Yes, and this is why trauma can cause chronic dysregulation of the nervous system like fight flight, freeze shutdown. Yeah, and a great quote by Deb Dana. She talks about how trauma replaces patterns of connection with patterns of protection.
Speaker 1:And that makes sense that it would do that in those patterns of protection. But that's not always helpful for us in the long run.
Speaker 2:So, instead of your nervous system picking up on signals of safety all the time, now it's picking up on signals of danger all the time. Because it's in the state of protection, like it wants to protect you, and these danger signals become associated with trauma and can keep us dysregulated in the present moment, even if the danger is long past. So I don't want to spend too much time on this of what trauma is.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But I do want to reference a few ideas of what trauma can pertain to and I'm careful here because it's different person to person.
Speaker 2:Like one traumatic, like one event doesn't traumatize every single person on the earth, like it's unique to your nervous system, but are common things, like you think about childhood, adverse adversity like a death in a family residing in institutional care, financial concerns, being afraid of a family member, conflict in family, parental divorce, serious chronic illness in a family or having a family member addicted to drugs or alcohol or have some type of mental health concern, right like when we face this as children. A lot of children don't put it together at the at that time, but then all of a sudden they start to get danger signals, as as adults, that link back to all the adversity they went through as a child.
Speaker 2:And so you know, the extreme end of this could be sexual, physical, emotional abuse, whether it's in childhood or in adulthood. But we also talk about bullying, like even from my own story that really affected me. It still affects me. I'm aware of that and I'm very aware of the danger signals that my nervous system looks out for because of the bullying I went through. It could be injuries or accidents, unsafe relationships, life-threatening events, medical trauma and a term that we talked about a few times sensitization trauma, where chronic pain and symptoms almost trigger a trauma response.
Speaker 2:Because it's confusing, it's overwhelming, we don't see a trauma response. Because it's confusing, it's overwhelming, we don't see a solution.
Speaker 3:We feel hopeless, helpless.
Speaker 2:It makes sense that we have this trauma response.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so, like we said, trauma, it causes your neuroception to become inaccurate in the present day.
Speaker 2:So people places, situations, sounds, smells, sensations in your body become these danger signals because they linked back to a trauma response you had in the past. Right, and sometimes we're very aware of this, yes, and sometimes not so much yes. So that's part of why we're going through this is we need to bring awareness to like what are the danger signals and we're not going to necessarily understand how that developed, especially if it was like when we were a young child.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we don't always need to know. You know that. Have those answers either. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know a few of mine that I've worked on over the years is bullying. So what happened with bullying when I was younger is I developed this real fear of rejection, and so my nervous system is high tuned to this and I've had to work on it. It's gotten better over the years, but it looks for signals of rejection. What are the danger signals? So, even if a friend doesn't call me for a couple of weeks, all of a sudden I'll just feel on edge.
Speaker 2:I'll feel in this like high sympathetic, anxious zone Right, and that's what's taking place. Is I have this kind of dangerous signal to any fear of rejection?
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I'm scanning for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The other common one that I had to work through lots of people with chronic pain and symptoms have is like medical trauma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's huge and I know we're not going gonna spend too much time here. We do have another podcast that we really do talk about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But, yeah, but what happens is we've had scary procedures in the past, bad interactions with the medical system.
Speaker 1:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:Now, when people are going to a doctor's appointment or interacting with the medical system in any way, even if they're positive interactions, interactions they're having like this survival response, like fight fight free, shut down, right, like they're having this response right, yep, um, and that's going to really affect um yourself in the present.
Speaker 1:That's something we need to work through right, and a lot of it is like what you're saying is having that awareness that, okay, this is happening yeah, but it can also be sensations.
Speaker 2:So, a sensation of mine that still gets me sometimes is like a sweaty sensation, because and this makes sense for a lot of people when in the far past, when I would have like almost panic anxiety, I would feel very sweaty.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it got linked. So the sweating got linked is like oh, you're in danger. The issue, though, becomes that you get sweaty sometimes. That's part of being a human being, yeah, and so I've had to work on it over the years, but years back, like even if I was like under a blanket, I was getting hot, all of a sudden, I'd feel myself becoming dysregulated.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I couldn't tolerate it.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, and that's it. So it's about understanding, okay, this is what's happening. And then, almost like we talked about like corrective exposure or that corrective experience or that kind of like retraining the brain around that and that piece is really important. But that's why we need to understand, okay, what are these dangerous signals and what's happening to us, so we can respond to them correctly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we work with people, you can uncouple them. Yes, so you can separate the dysregulated response from the danger signal.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But the starting place is understanding what are the sensations in your body that signal danger to you In the external world, like social rejection for me what are the signals of danger? Yes, those are really important things for me to know because, even if they still trigger me sometimes which they do I want to be clear to people like I. I able to identify oh, this is what's happening. And I can break that response and I've gotten better at it over the years, but this is an example of what I want people to work through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Now a few other things on the list here, yeah.
Speaker 2:Perfectionism yes. Chronic stress yes, burnout.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now what happens to people is, you know, perfectionism a coping mechanism. So people are coping often with the fear of failure. So the fear of failure is almost like this danger signal of a lot of people.
Speaker 1:And I think that makes sense. Like no one enjoys failure, it's like no one feels good at that.
Speaker 2:Of course, but it's extreme, yes, there's a real fear of it, and so perfectionism is the result. But then perfectionism can become the danger signal. Yes, and I know this from experience with like pressure, intensity, self-criticism. So I'm like trying to cope with a danger signal of fear of failure, but my coping is then becoming also a danger signal. Yes, so finish the cycle, people. But it's important to understand this right, like you know, throughout your day, like what are the signs that are signaling danger to you?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like when does the pressure become too high? Because I know that for myself. You know life's pressureful sometimes.
Speaker 3:You feel?
Speaker 1:pressure yeah.
Speaker 2:But I know where the line is, where it's like. If I push past this point, I feel incredibly dysregulated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel incredibly dysregulated, yeah, and you've had to kind of you noticed that, tanner, by observing it, by being curious about it, by asking questions about it and identifying that, and then you've learned kind of how to work with that. So that's been really useful for you.
Speaker 2:Yes, but it's even working like working late at night. Clear danger signal for me, like anything past 5 pm. It really is like danger signal for me, like anything past 5pm. It really is like it signals to me. I don't know how that developed when in the morning I'm fine.
Speaker 1:Well, and one thing I want to say about this is you've really learned. Okay, I can't work late at night, I get dysregulated, but it doesn't mean you're afraid of it. So I want to be clear that we're not identifying dangerous signals and then kind of complying to them or avoiding it.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like this misinterpretation in the brain or nervous system, but it's a balance between. I'm not going to push it either. It's like finding that balance.
Speaker 2:It is, yeah, it's finding the balance and it's finding out how much exposure you need. Because I run a business, sometimes I have to work past 5 pm.
Speaker 1:And then you need to teach yourself that that's safe still.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I have over time.
Speaker 2:So it's a much less dysregulating feeling now and sometimes I actually feel okay doing it. Yes, where years back it would have really set me off.
Speaker 1:Okay, so back it would have really set me off okay. So it's feeling it out that way in terms of like, because we don't that other neuroception guy that like everything is safe, we're not saying, okay, go all the way to that end. It's kind of creating this where you know this middle ground, of kind of where it's supposed to be, of like yeah, and that's the thing is, you want to honor your nervous system yeah like I'm never going to be someone that can work from like 2 to 9 pm every night.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:I think that would be a really difficult thing for me. But I want it to be. I want my nervous system to be somewhat flexible, and so identifying that that was a dangerous signal for me was useful, because you're, yeah, like I remember I'd work at this one job in public health many, many years ago. And once a week you'd have to work till like 8 pm and it was like 40 minutes drive from our house. By the time I got home it was 9 o'clock.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that I'd be so confused Like why am I so? Why am I such having this fight or flight, anxious, angry response every Tuesday? Night, when this is happening and so bringing awareness of like oh, this is a danger signal for me was really useful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. I think, like back to the story that we started off about our kids, like we started with this podcast. I'm not expecting like I think it can be like a danger signal for me and I can get really dysregulated think it can be like a dangerous signal for me and I can get really dysregulated. And I'm not expecting to never get dysregulated if they're kind of like screaming and crying. But understanding what's happening to me could help me better learn how to regulate myself within that exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, we need the awareness, the neuroception is happening. Yeah, and so the next one is socialization and isolation. Yeah, and this is important because a lot of people with chronic pain and symptoms. We start to view socialization as this dangerous thing. And this makes sense because when you're in a state of survival, yes like your nervous system, doesn't care at all about socialization.
Speaker 1:Right, there's no room for that, I don't care about this.
Speaker 2:Like we're in protection mode here, and so for a lot of people, a danger signal and especially if you've faced adversity relationships in the past yes, is scary, like I know for myself. I have really had to work on that because being around people interacting was very overwhelming for me where compared to like hanging out with the animal was a very regulating, calming thing.
Speaker 2:It felt safer yeah and so socialization can be a common danger signal. But then what happens to people again is then they isolate right, and the isolation then can become a dangerous signal. So it's like that's how they cope. Yes, and I get it. I don't judge people because I've been there. Yeah, but the problem problem is like your nervous system, to regulate it needs co-regulation. Yes, it needs interaction with other nervous system in a positive way, like it needs that, and so the isolation actually starts to send signals of danger to people's nervous system. But sometimes for people that feels safer than the socialization.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I think this can be a difficult one, especially when people start to realize this. But then it's like well, how do I start moving towards socialization? Because it can be so triggering or overwhelming, exactly.
Speaker 2:And it's a balance. I'll never be extremely extroverted. I'm not going to be extremely extroverted, like that's not in the cards for me, like I like my alone time. But I know if I spend all week not interacting with friends or family like I feel it yes. And so it is a balance Like you want to honor your nervous system, like we said, but we also want to provide it signals of safety.
Speaker 1:Yes, and we know, with corrective exposure our nervous system starts getting those safety signals and it becomes a little bit safer and easier as you move towards.
Speaker 2:Exactly Okay.
Speaker 1:Next danger signal Difficult emotions yeah so what we were talking about with our kids then.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And our own difficult emotions that can arise.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is one you know. One of the main causes of chronic pain and symptoms is the suppression of emotion.
Speaker 1:Why do you think that is Tanner?
Speaker 2:Well, when we suppress our emotions, what happens is we're suppressing important things that we're meant to feel. Yeah, we're meant to feel them, yeah, and we suppress them, yes, and then, in all sorts of ways, things that we're meant to feel, yeah, we're meant to feel them, yeah, and we suppress them, yes, and then, in all sorts of ways, we resist them and we have a podcast episode on that, like four ways we resist emotions people can check out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you resist them, then your nervousness is going to become incredibly dysregulated. Yes, because it's not all about being calm like we need to be angry sometimes, we need to be sad sometimes, so it's going to become further dysregulated and then the brain's going to trigger chronic pain and symptoms because the state of danger is increased yeah, and so it's this cascading effect that happens totally like.
Speaker 1:It's that idea that our emotion, like our emotions, have to go somewhere yeah and I think it's important to think of it that way, as like, oh, I'm being triggered here, I have emotions here, but if I'm just like stuffing it all down, where is it going? What's it doing to me?
Speaker 2:And for a lot of people the danger signal can be a certain emotional state, and it's different. Again, it's unique. Like I've worked with people where anger is the main one that they view as dangerous Sadness guilt guilt, shame. Shame is a really common one, of course, but it can be positive things, it can be love, it can be joy. Yes, and these are sensations like basically, when that emotional state comes on your body, people, through neuroception, pick up of like oh, this is dangerous don't feel this, yes and so you can see the issue that starts to take place, and this is why one of the the main components we talk about is processing emotions.
Speaker 2:We have like many practices on it in our, in our upcoming course yeah and as well when we're working with clients. This is one of the main pillars that we focus on yeah, for sure yeah, next, lack of movement.
Speaker 1:Ah, lack of movement, yes yeah, or the movement itself. It could be either or and I think a lot of people listening to this can probably relate to that this one, because when you have chronic pain and symptoms, movement's one of the first things to go. Yes, which makes sense again, I want to validate that that makes sense, that it does go and no one wants to feel pain. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I did the same thing. I stopped moving my body almost completely by the end. But the lack of movement unfortunately actually starts to signal to the brain oh, this is unsafe.
Speaker 3:Like I'm not safe to move.
Speaker 2:Yes, my body's damaged in some way. It must be because you know Tanner's not moving, so there must be something wrong.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it just reaffirms that and continues that belief.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and lack of movement naturally causes us dysregulation.
Speaker 1:So right, and I think that is a key thing that I'm starting to talk more about with clients for sure is how much regulation can come with movement and leaning into movement.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's really difficult to be regulated when we almost don't move our bodies at all.
Speaker 1:Yes, why why?
Speaker 2:is that, do you think? Because it you know, our nervous system responds to this, um, especially like slow movement, flowing movement, yeah, certain postures like they affect your system, they can help bring on a ventral, vagal state of safety, connection, calmness, ease. But when we resist, when we freeze and we don't move at all, like we're not able to express emotions very well, we're not able to you know, experience emotional states we're not able to work through survival. Energy Like movement's very key for regulation and movement's very key to unlearn chronic pain and symptoms.
Speaker 1:Well, something that comes to mind for me is dancing, and it doesn't mean everyone has to like do dancing or love dancing. I don't really like dancing, to be honest, but what I know about dancing, though, and what most lots of people like about it, is it brings on that feeling of connection, safety, that ventral energy that you're talking about. Like that's what people get out of dancing, out of movement, and there's something about that in terms of like there's something happening to the nervous system when people are dancing.
Speaker 2:There is Like expressive movement is very key, yeah, and we talk about this lots with the clients and in our course we have so many movement practices.
Speaker 1:Yes, that are essential for us, and it doesn't have to be dancing. It doesn't have to be dancing.
Speaker 2:We have one video where we dance, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Anne wasn't happy about it. I'm embarrassed about that video, that one. If you do, I'm not going to watch.
Speaker 1:It is something I think universally. People feel good when they enjoy dancing, when they are dancing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so the danger signal can be both the movement becomes a danger signal for people, but then, unfortunately, the lack of movement becomes a danger signal. Yeah, so it can go both ways, and we've discussed this quite a bit with different things, because it's the way we cope we just stop moving. But this is something people need to overcome, and two episodes ago we gave a whole outline of how to start to break conditioned responses with movements positions. So if you're listening to this and you haven't heard that episode, go back and listen to it. It's one of our longer episodes because we made it maybe a little too detailed. We gave away all the secrets, so just go listen to it. There's a lot of info in there. Yeah, now this next one's a little close to home for me.
Speaker 1:And it's going to sound a little odd to people, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Done a lot of research in this area. Premature birth yes, now let me explain this first. Okay, okay, this is close to home, because I was premature, you were premature, both our kids were really premature. Like our kids were born at around 30 weeks. Yeah, so yeah, like three quarters of the way through a pregnancy and spent a lot of time in the NICU, and we know with premature birth that dysregulation is much more common when you become an adult.
Speaker 1:Yes, and why is that Tanner?
Speaker 2:You know it's kind of complex and we're not exactly sure. I know in polyvagal theory Dr Porges has talked about it quite a bit um, and I think it'sa it's important because you think about what happens when you're premature yeah so our kids were in the NICU for two months at least a bit longer, and usually babies at home, constantly being touched by their parents the problem with the NIC, and especially our second child during COVID, there was such like we would go and we would spend hours with our kids in the NICU but eventually have to go home to sleep.
Speaker 2:So they're getting less interaction, they're in this very sterile environment and, of course, their bodies, their brain, their nervous system is not fully developed compared to a baby that usually goes to full term. So there's a lot of effect here and, yeah, the reason I put this in is to explain to people that you know trauma, overwhelming situations they can happen before conscious memory I think.
Speaker 1:I think that could be overwhelming for people like people that might identify with premature birth are like, well, there's nothing I can do about that, or no conscious memory say what can I do about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one of those ones where you're not going to process the trauma memory, but we can start to identify danger signals and you may not be 100% certain if that's where they came from, but it's important to understand. This goes for anything Like people who have had abuse in families before they really had conscious memory that's going to affect your nervous system and you can. I want to give a bunch of hope here. You can still work towards regulation.
Speaker 3:You can do all of that.
Speaker 2:You don't need to you're not going to like magically remember things before you had conscious memory. That's just not going to happen.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:But your body remembers.
Speaker 1:Well, and just that awareness that maybe that is what's going on is important, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Next dangerous or oppressive social factors.
Speaker 1:Yes, and we've talked about this at different points on the podcast. Before we talk about social safety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is vital because the we've talked lots about danger signals that are almost sensations or you know things in our environment, but it can be bigger environments it can be your larger family or community, yeah, society as a whole, like if they're.
Speaker 1:If you're picking up signals of danger or oppressive factors, those are going to be dangerous signals for you now sometimes like so we've talked about in this podcast today tanner, like neuroception being off, like maybe it is safe, but we're kind of picking it up as dangerous, but often with society and like oppression and different things going on.
Speaker 3:That it's not, it is dangerous it's accurate.
Speaker 2:So that's it. What would? We say about that and, yeah, I think this is an important point to hit on.
Speaker 2:Whether neuroception is accurate or not doesn't matter so much like it might matter based on the actions you take right but it you still need to work with that energy, okay, like it's still there, like you're still having to fight, fight, freeze response you need to you need to do the work to work through that okay now, like if we determine, okay, like my neuroception is actually accurate here, like I'm picking up on dangerous signals in my community, right, so you're part of some type of community and someone's being a real jerk, like that's gonna right, that's gonna affect things and and you're gonna have to work through that and you might have to change things as much as you can in your environment, and those are harder changes to make yeah when we talk about like larger societal oppressive factors.
Speaker 2:You know one person it's hard to have an effect on that. You can still be part of advocacy groups. You can be part of all sorts of things that can support you in actually working towards a sense of safety. But yeah, these danger signals can be wider than our small net group.
Speaker 1:Well, and it is understanding that Like, okay, this isn't accurate. I am perceiving this as dangerous and as accurate, but then how do I still take care of myself and my nervous system within that?
Speaker 2:exactly now. The last one I want to mention here is a common danger signal for people in chronic pain or symptoms. Is chronic pain or symptoms?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, and I think that's number one, of course. It's like pain comes on dangerous and that's part of what kind of perpetuates chronic pain and symptoms. Is this view that is dangerous?
Speaker 2:yes, and that makes sense. Pain, physical symptoms is out where I talk about our literal danger signals from your brain yes and when the body's not damaged, we misinterpret. We think there's something really wrong with the body right but yeah, like we can, we can have an overwhelming response to those sensations.
Speaker 3:That's why we do somatic tracking that's why we do the brain retraining.
Speaker 2:That's why we regulate and work on attending to the sensations, changing the emotional response, so they're not so much sending a danger signal, like now, the odd time the pain comes on yeah the, I still feel a little bit of danger. I might worry about it a bit, but it's not as nearly as severe as it was when I was in chronic pain or symptoms or immediately after when I had relapses.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you've done a really good job, Tanner, at teaching your brain. Okay, this is actually safe. I don't need to react in this way or view it as dangerous. Through that corrective exposure therapy, through that brain retraining, through all these different pieces of kind of making that shift.
Speaker 2:Yes, so it's vital for people to understand that of how they're responding to their pain or symptoms. They, like we are an angel, signals for you, because that's what makes us human. Yes, but we do need to retrain the brain.
Speaker 1:Well, and it is asking okay, is my response to my pain and symptoms perpetuating it further?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is our list.
Speaker 1:I want to be clear.
Speaker 2:This is not a complete list.
Speaker 1:No, and you might not relate with everything on this list either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like everyone's nervous system is unique. Yeah, with everything on this list either. Yeah, like everyone's nervous system is unique. Yeah, but the first step towards regulation and healing chronic symptoms is figuring out what your unique danger signals are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so the task? Okay, okay, it's a simple task, yeah, and it's one of these things that you're going to do ongoing. I'm still learning more about myself. I'm still learning what danger signals are happening. Sometimes I'm not necessarily sure, like what brings me to a dysregulated place, but you know, we want people to review the danger signals we covered in this episode and write out what danger signals could be leading to your nervous system dysregulation and chronic symptoms.
Speaker 1:Why do you think this would be a helpful task for people to do?
Speaker 2:It's important because otherwise we are hucking all sorts of things at ourselves but we're not even sure what's bringing us to a sympathetic fight or flight, anxious, angry place yeah. Or what's bringing us to a dorsal bagel shut down, collapse, numb despair place yeah. If you don't know what's bringing you there, that's going to keep happening. So the first thing is we got to bring that awareness to it. Yes, so thank you everyone for listening.
Speaker 1:Thank, you for listening.
Speaker 2:We, uh, we're going to go off and be our sensitive, close-knit family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to go see our sensitive dogs now.
Speaker 2:Our dog's sensitive.
Speaker 1:She's very sensitive.
Speaker 2:She's no, our dog's sensitive. She's very sensitive. She's a sensitive being. She's come to us. You know she's joined the sensitivity club. She knew. Thank you everyone for listening and we'll talk to you next week. Talk to you next week thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:If you want to book in a session with one of our therapists, you can go to our website at painpsychotherapyca.
Speaker 2:You can also follow us on Instagram at painpsychotherapy, where me and Anne are posting content daily and are there to respond to your comments. Also, check out our YouTube channel, which is named Tanner Merton, msw RSW.