Anna Ferguson

But in today's day and age, it's like, well, I can't punch my computer.

Like I need that.

So we tend to sit, we are still, we clasp our hands together.

We don't want other people to see that we're stressed out or anxious so that energy doesn't get utilised.

And if we shake, we're embarrassed by it.

We feel shame around showing other people that this is the state that we're in.

So that energy will eventually start to kind of shape your nervous system, your fascia in a way that holds a lot more tension.

So it keeps you in a state that's kind of on and ready and hypervigilant.

So for me, that shows up as like shoulder tension and lower back pain.

I find it when I go to bed, I grind my teeth at night.

lots of people will go to physios and go, I have this unexplained tension in my body and I don't know where it comes from.

And this is essentially like our muscles tense in order for us to take action.

If that action isn't taken, then they don't downregulate.

So if you are someone that does shake when you get nervous or scared, use that as a sign that your nervous system is actually downregulating itself in real time.

And if you can actually amplify that, make it bigger and shake along with it, then you're actually giving yourself a really beautiful opportunity to close that stress response loop and come back down to that state of calm.

So a lot of the time in 21st century society, we don't have the space to regulate in real time or work with our energy in real time.

I hope this starts to change and it becomes more socially acceptable to do these things.

But essentially, you can start to kind of create protocols that work for you.

And I highly, highly encourage for people to start to explore these when they're not in a highly stressed state, because essentially when we're in a fight or flight response, we're not in a state that we can learn.

If you're having a panic attack, Sarah, and I say, okay, well, here's the thing.