Strengthen Your Nervous System Like You Strengthen Your Body

We’ve come a long way over the last 150 years since Sigmund Freud popularized the idea of psychoanalysis to answer the question “why do we do what we do?” But, like many other human endeavors, we are not a place of new “discovery”; we are better described as having a modern understanding of what many human cultures, ancient and modern, have know about the human experience and how to best survive and thrive in a chaotic, unpredictable world.

Thanks to more fields of study, a greater diversity of researchers (and their associated experiences, curiosities, and questions), and better tools and methods, we can now explain how varied human practices, like focused breathing, word choice, touch, and reflection change and influence our nervous systems and the nervous systems of those around us. These are exciting times!

Understanding this is like understanding how different exercise practices influence your organ systems to change your muscles, your lung capacity, your heart health, even your mood. Hundreds of years ago, exercise just happened in the living of day-to-day lives; in the 2020s most people have to be deliberate to get enough exercise because our culture has evolved away from what kept us in top shape throughout the millennia of human history.

Our nervous systems deserve the same understanding and attention as we’ve given to our muscle groups over the last several decades.