Borrow This Mantra: RHYTHM REGULATES

So here's the thing we're keeping in mind today: 

Rhythm regulates.

If you can believe it, there's a word therapists use almost as much as the word, boundaries.

That word is regulated.

When you’re regulated, it means that your nervous system, thoughts, and/or emotions are operating in a way that helps you feel centered.

When you’re dysregulated, it means that your nervous system, thoughts, and/or emotions are operating in a way that’s making you feel disoriented.

The opposite of being regulated is being overwhelmed. 

Learning how to regulate yourself doesn’t start with identifying unhelpful thoughts or learning to see things from a different perspective. That stuff is all good and well, but you can’t attend to complex thoughts and emotions until you get the basics down.

So what are the basics?

Regulating yourself requires you to turn attention towards your body.

Breathing, movement, eating, sleeping…these simple tasks are powerful drivers for mental wellness.

Ever just totally lost your shit and thought your world was falling apart, but then you ate a snack and realized you were just being dramatic because you were hungry?

Maybe you’ve felt a surge of anxiety while laying in bed, exhausted but unable to fall sleep? Perhaps you’ve snapped at someone while you were experiencing a sugar hangover, or you’ve commuted to work feeling absolutely despondent during a hangover-hangover?

You were dysregulated in those moments. You’re body had too much or too little of something.

This is the thing: you can’t do emotionally mature stuff like gain perspective or process your emotions when you’re dysregulated. It’s like trying to get a massage while jogging - no version of it works.

When you’re dysregulated and overwhelmed, your stress response gets activated. Your brain thinks you’re in a crisis and it makes it easier for you to do the things that would help you in a crisis, like make impulsive decisions which don’t require much thought, display extreme emotions, stay awake even though you’re exhausted.

Research demonstrates that when your stress response is activated, other parts of your brain get deactivated.

Your prefrontal cortex, for example, is the part of your brain responsible for accessing memories, maintaining perspective, and getting all of the other parts of your brain to work together. When your stress response is activated, your prefrontal cortex goes OUT TO LUNCH; it shuts down.

That’s why, when you’ve had a really stressful week and someone asks you what you did last Monday, you have no idea. You’re like, “I don’t even remember…this week is just a blur.”

Your week is a blur because you’re dysregulated; your prefrontal cortex is shut down, so you’re not retaining memories.

Here’s the excellent news: regulating your nervous system is simple!

Not only is regulating your nervous system simple, it’s a powerful skill. When you’re regulated, your physiological state is way less likely to negatively dictate your behaviors, skew your perspective, disrupt your focus, make it harder for you to connect to yourself and others, etc.

As psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Perry explains, "It's very difficult to meaningfully connect with or get through to someone who is not regulated."

This is why you don't feel like yourself when you're overwhelmed, you're having trouble meaningfully connecting to yourself; you’re dysregulated.  

Okay so what do I do?

As a preventative measure as well as an on-the-spot coping mechanism, remember this: rhythm regulates.

Rhythm is soothing; it heals us. It’s why kids and adults alike are more likely to fall asleep in moving cars; the slight rhythm of a moving vehicle regulates our nervous system. Once we’re regulated, we can finally relax.

The point that rhythm regulates is also why I’ll tell anyone who will listen that just walking is one of the best things you can do for your mental health. 

The repetitive rhythm of walking (left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot) is a balm to your nervous system. Any repetitive rhythm is a balm to your nervous system.  

Other examples of how to use repetitive rhythm to regulate yourself:
playing a drum / listening to a drumbeat
dancing
petting an animal
coloring
shooting hoops (not playing basketball necessarily, but dribble, shoot, dribble, shoot)
tennis (same thing as above, not playing, just hitting the ball)
swimming laps
stirring food 
painting a wall
deep breathing

There are so many ways to bring rhythm to the forefront of your everyday life.

Rhythm is also helpful to keep in mind when trying to help others who are feeling overwhelmed. Let's let Dr. Perry chime in again, "When someone is very upset, words themselves are not very effective. The tone and rhythm of the voice probably has more impact than the actual words." 

Makes sense. When I was a crisis counselor, I was trained to limit my sentences to five words max when helping the person in the immediate crisis.

I remember my mentor telling me, “When you get to the scene, all this great advice will pop into your head. Forget it all. They won’t be able to hear you. Find a statement that’s five words or less, and repeat those five words over, calmly. You can say filler words, but keep returning to your five words.”

The phrases I’d end up saying were things like, “Let’s go for a walk.” “Take my hand.” “I want to know more.”    

If you’d like to learn more about how to help yourself and others stay regulated through any moment – crisis or not – Dr.Perry’s book (which he co-authored with Oprah herself) is an absolute must read. The book is called “What Happened to You” and it’s written as a conversation between Oprah and Perry, so it’s easy to digest. It’s on my list of 20 books that changed my life for a reason.

Let me say it again, in five words or less: read this book.  

Katherine Morgan Schafler is an NYC-based psychotherapist, author, and speaker. For more of her work: get her book, follow her on Instagram, subscribe to her newsletter, or visit her site.