I first heard about the vagus nerve in Barbara Fredrickson's book "Positivity". It is a major nerve in the body that runs from the head down thru the face and vocal apparatus to the bottom of the stomach and into the intestine. I am reacquainted with this important nerve and its function in our bodies by a psychiatrist named Bessel van der Kolk, a Dutch-American who has dealt with traumatized women, children and men in this country for 30 years. The Kolk book is "The Body Keeps the Score". Both of these authors deal with psychology and both of them emphasize that the vagus nerve, called the "pneumogastric" nerve by Charles Darwin in his later book (1872) "The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals", relates to our emotional states and equally important lives we lead with others in our relationships.
Kolk writes:
Sadly, our educational system, as well as many of the methods that profess to treat trauma, tend to bypass this emotional-engagement system and focus instead on recruiting the cognitive capacities of the mind. Despite the well-documented effects of anger, fear, and anxiety on the ability to reason, many programs continue to ignore the need to engage the safety system of the brain before trying to promote new ways of thinking. (my emphasis, not van der Kolk's) The last things that should be cut from school schedules are chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else involving movement, play, and joyful engagement. When children are oppositional, defensive, numbed out, or enraged, it's also important to recognize that such "bad behavior" may repeat action patterns that were established to survive serious threats, even if they are intensely upsetting or off-putting.
van der Kolk MD, Bessel (2014-09-25). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Kindle Locations 1614-1619). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It is easy to find this focus on "cognitive capacities" in our schools and its relatives in our society. We have a basic bias toward testable facts and succinctly stateable ideas. We don't have a good name for this whole family of biases but they might be called something like "fear of laxity" or "overemphasis on effort" and sometimes more than effort, even all the way to things like fear and pain. Many people seem convinced that fear and pain are necessary in education and that activities that don't elicit them need to be eliminated or modified.
It can be eye-opening to watch how much you yourself actually move. It has been noticed increasingly lately that our inventions have put us in chairs at desks and keyboards more and more of our waking hours. It can be eye-opening to see how much we move in concert with others, as in singing and sports.
Most of us are blessed with chances to avoid being traumatized and nervous systems that quickly return to normal after a scare or a depressing injury. But our health, our well-being and our joy can be still be lifted by yoga, sports, dance and musical activities. These kinds of activities pay off throughout life more than algebra and the history of the Civil War. Maybe Garrison Keillor is not so far off when he reports that the Unitarians converted the Indians near Lake Woebegone with interpretive dance.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
