What can we do to calm the nervous system after experiencing a stressful situation? The big question we'll answer in this article.
Last update: January 04, 2022
During a short, but interesting, lecture on practical emotional intelligence, Dr Marian Rojas-Estapé said they tried to rob her in an underground parking lot, but she managed to escape.
The most interesting part of the story was not how she managed to free herself, but how she managed to recover her composure afterwards. Dr. Rojas-Estapé said that her experience had very upset her.
She had come home very nervous, and on the way she had spoken to her husband in an incoherent way, using short, disjointed sentences. As if her brain had been hijacked by cortisol, a product of stress.
Cortisol and oxytocin (practical emotional intelligence)
We have all experienced situations of this type: those in which we feel the heart beating so hard that it seems to come out of the mouth. These are moments in which we act unconsciously, in which we totally rely on our intuition. Because faster and able to process a huge amount of information, and in such moments the details can be very important.
Marian escaped danger by telling the robber that the luxury car parked next to hers belonged to someone else. Probably her statement, her reaction, perplexed the robber, who expected fight, surrender or flight, not that statement.
Experts say that when cortisol is activated so abruptly, it takes hours to recover to baseline levels. The so-called "I have not yet recovered from the shock". It is not a metaphor.
Our body needs time to recover basal levels of activation after an alteration of this type, with the resulting waste of energy.
Throughout history it allowed us to adapt to the surrounding environment. “Our biology has learned”, fruit of natural selection, that to escape from serious threats we need a lot of energy, so our body prepares to produce it.
He also learned that there may be significant others close to one major threat, so he is preparing to invest energy over a relatively long period of time.
However, in the modern world we don't need to run to survive these threats, but rather of practical emotional intelligence. On top of that, once you enter a safe space, the threat usually disappears instantly.
On the other hand, we live in a world so overstimulated that our alert system is somehow unhinged. It is as if we are living in a constant state of hypervigilance.
Aversive conditioning can be so strong that before reading the expected message from the boss, for example, the body is immersed in the same state it would be in if we had a thief at our side.
Take action to regain control
What can we do to calm down? Based on our practical emotional intelligence, what resources can we rely on to recover our basal state?
Marian did not consciously set herself this goal, she breastfeed her baby only when she got home and realized the effect it had on her nervous system. The levels of oxytocin in her body went up, so she relaxed.
Obviously this is not a measure that we can all take at any time. So the question is what other actions increase oxytocin levels so as to obtain the same relaxing and anesthetic effect; we also know that high levels of oxytocin reduce the intensity of pain.
- Social circle: we can count on many personal resources. However, if we have trusted people around us, they multiply. Living with the feeling that there are people ready to give us a hand in a moment of difficulty, makes certain situations appear less threatening.
- Physical contact: hugs have a calming effect. The other person's arms, surrounding us, act like an oxygen cylinder, allowing us to breathe better.
- The peaceful return to one's inner universe: we can always try to regain control of our attention, stop focusing on the future or the past if that is where what distresses us comes from.
- Emotional outlet: crying acts as a release of emotions, thus decreasing the levels of cortisol in the blood (stress hormone) and increasing those of oxytocin. For this reason, after an episode of crying, we find relief and calm.
- Kindness and generosity: offering, giving, lending, in short, making life easier for others also helps us to release oxytocin.
Conclusions
Our emotions can be automatic. Fear is. Activating our parasympathetic system increases cortisol levels.
The good news is that we have individual and external resources to act (practical emotional intelligence) in order to regain baseline after significant activation.
