Active rest

One of the cornerstones of our approach to health and wellness is to hone strategies for nourishing the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and support much-needed rest. This is especially essential in today's fast-paced life where we often find ourselves stuck in a constant state of fight-flight-freeze-fawn. A more detailed post on the nuts and bolts of Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous System anatomy is forthcoming. If you need a less detailed refresher, take a look at this video.

In this post, I’d like to share with you an approach for nervous system health that is a staple around here, and that is to integrate active primitive reflexes using gentle rhythmic movements, such as those used in Blomberg Rhythmic Movement Training (BRMT). Here’s a short’ish description of this approach.

Primitive Reflexes and how they affect our health.

Primitive reflexes are involuntary, instinctual, stereotypical rhythmic movements that develop in utero and during the first couple of years of life. They originate in the lower portions of the central nervous system (i.e. the BRAINSTEM) and should be present in all babies. Interestingly, these reflexes play a significant role in our survival and should integrate or "go away" as the baby grows, and establishes permanent, life-long postural reflexes like walking, sitting, cross-crawling, etc.

You can watch this video to get an idea of the reflex movements I’m talking about.

All the movements we see Baby doing in the video are not voluntary. They are involuntary, reflexive movements. I like to think of these reflexive movements as our very own special superpowers that allow us to survive and thrive outside the womb.

These superpower, reflex movements are bonafide reflexes because they occur in response to gentle stimuli in utero (amniotic fluid pressure, mom's movements, baby moving and hitting edges of sac, baby moving and touching own body parts, sounds, light, etc.), as well as stimuli outside the uterus, during the first year or 2 after birth.

There are a number of different primitive reflexes, and they develop in a specific order; they integrate (i.e. they “go away”) one after another on a schedule; and certain reflexes need to be integrated before others can develop or integrate. When primitive reflexes integrate, they lay the groundwork for postural, life-long reflexes to be established. These postural reflexes can only develop after specific primitive reflexes develop and become integrated.

Because of this programmed, ordered development of specific movement patterns, if one pattern is affected, doesn't develop, or doesn't integrate at the right time, everything that comes later is also adversely affected. In other words, primitive reflex integration is incomplete or deficient, and this may impact cognitive, emotional, and motor skills. In these situations we say that primitive reflexes are active. This can occur in premature babies, babies born via Caesarean section, or those who spend early hours/days in an incubator. In the infant and in the 2-3 year-old child, active primitive reflexes are also caused by environmental factors such as toxins, poisons, man-made non-native EMFs (nnEMFs from cellular technology, WiFi, etc.), dietary sources of toxins, trauma, stress, and more. In older children and adults, primitive reflexes can become active again due to lack of proper movement, stress, trauma, injury, disease, aberrant movement or sensory stimulation, nnEMFs, toxins, and other factors.

Active primitive reflexes may manifest as a decrease in stress tolerance, oversensitivity of the senses, motion sickness, difficulty with eye contact, acting out, excessive shyness, learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, chronic pain, asthma, gut issues, joint pain, stress and anxiety (to name a few symptoms).

So how can we reverse this?

Active Rest

The answer lies in Active Rest (some might call it "restful activity"). We need to seek and achieve Active Rest.

This term was coined by one of my mentors, Dr. Dave Boyland. Although he's classically trained as an athletic trainer (AT) and a physical therapist (DPT), the tools he's incorporated into his practice are vast, and he realized long ago that no amount of training and repetitions (as AT and PT promote) will hold unless the basic, foundational framework that is our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is properly in place.

Remember, the ANS is our nervous system below the level of consciousness. It is responsible for involuntary functions like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, sleep-wake cycles, menstrual cycles, metabolic function, neurotransmitter and hormone production, etc. All of these physiologic outputs happen without us thinking about them. The circuitry that controls them lives in the brainstem, hypothalamus and limbic system.

Conversely, the conscious brain is the brain that does the "10 reps, 3xper week for 8 weeks" kind of thing; this is an approach that lives at the level of the conscious brain. The conscious brain needs to think about this, needs to count, needs to keep track... This is the traditional, reductionist, repetitive training/drug and surgery approach to healing. But this approach is, more often than not, deficient... it leaves people wanting.

True, lasting healing, requires a fully-functioning autonomic nervous system framework. Only when this framework is properly linked up can lasting healing really take place.

And so, we talk about Active Rest. Rest within activity. Rest within movement. EASE. Why? Because proper brain development, complete linkage of all brain levels, only happens if there is movement. This movement, in turn, must be rhythmic. It's the rhythmicity that elicits true rest. After all,

By incorporating movement, in the form of breathing and gentle rhythmic movements, into our daily lives and routine, we can stimulate neural connections to support improved impulse control, attention, balance, coordination, stamina, and learning.

Gentle rhythmic movements that replicate the involuntary movements done in utero and during the 1st year of life, controlled by the brainstem, help integrate these automatic movements into higher-level postural reflexes. When this level of nervous system integration happens, we say that the brain is linked up. All the different parts of our brain begin talking to each other. Remember, a "linked-up" brain is a restful brain. The way to make sure all the different parts of the brain are talking to each other and linked up is to move.

Rhythmic Movement Training

Dr. Harald Blomberg, a visionary in the medical field in Europe, realized the importance of rhythmic movement in development a few decades ago, when he was observing babies move. He was a psychiatrist by training and worked extensively with individuals with ADD/ADHD and autism, as well as other psychiatric disorders.

He noticed that one can recapitulate the movements a baby does during development, later on in life. In doing this, one can gently "remind" the brainstem of the reflex movement programs it was born with.

When the brain is reminded of this, through gentle rhythmic movement training, little by little the necessary circuits that communicate with the hypothalamus and the Vagus nerve begin to come online again. Remember, the hypothalamus houses sympathetic circuitry and the Vagus is our main parasympathetic nerve; it lives in the medulla.

So Dr. Blomberg developed a sustainable primitive reflex integration program that consists of passive and active rhythmic movements that replicate involuntary, instinctual, stereotyped, rhythmic movements done in utero and during 1st year of life and which are controlled by the brainstem (operating below level of consciousness).

When done correctly, these movements:

• Provide the INPUTS the brain needs to develop higher-level inhibitory functions exerted by the basal ganglia; this, in turn, leads to inhibiting active primitive reflexes, enabling the development of life-long postural reflexes necessary for healthy motor and sensory development.

• Stimulate neural connections to support:

  • improved impulse control and attention,

  • improved balance, coordination and stamina,

  • improved speech, learning and developmental delays

• Accomplish a much larger goal –

  • They provide the sensory stimuli necessary to achieve COMPLETE NEURODEVELOPMENT and/or NEURAL REHABILITATION

  • They help the brain functions as a whole rather than a collection of poorly communicating parts

• are the only primitive reflex integration tool that can be used with infants!

One doesn’t have to be a child to enjoy these rhythmic movements. I use these myself and in my coaching practice every day, with adults as well as children. Rhythmic movement training (RMT) is an easy to implement and sustainable way to nourish the nervous system and address foundational issues that may be at the root of behavioral, emotional, and physical problems. I first came to this work when struggling with lower back pain that never quite resolved after a bout with sciatica in my 20s. It is a wonderful tool to complement seizure management practices, it addresses the root cause behind ADHD and has been shown to significantly improve day-to-day abilities and activities in individuals with autism. RMT is a great adjunct for depression and anxiety therapeutic interventions. And because of it’s direct influence on neuronal circuitry that links up the brainstem, cerebellum ad Basal ganglia, these gentle movements seem to help in some movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease.

As per usual, none of this is medical advice. However, it is meant to inspire you to think outside the sick care system box. Consider that, perhaps, YOU DO HAVE what is needed to resolve chronic pain (not just manage it). Maybe the school-aged kiddo in your life who struggles with reading or writing or language development or attention issues in class simply needs to rock rhythmically, using these gentle movements! Could it be that these “learning issues” are a simple case of an unlinked brain due to active primitive reflexes?

Anyway, food for thought.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions. RMT is a staple in my practice, along with helping folks establish heathy light diets and proper hydration routines. I believe being well is all about REST, WATER & LIGHT:

If you’d like to learn more about what we do, check out the Our Services drop-down menu and look for Primitive Reflex Integration options.

For now I leave you with a challenge:

😊 If you have a baby in your life, or have access to one, I invite you to admire and appreciate all the hard work his/her brain is doing as it links up and develops. Every little movement done is for a specific purpose. Every movement is instinctual, reflexive. Each movement has nothing to do with "strength" and everything to do with a pre-programmed code for movement that only responds to the proper stimulus (mom's touch, vibrations, nursing/feeding, rhythm, bouncing, rolling, breathing). Repetition and rhythm is where it's at! Be Delighted at how amazing you are. The movements you did as a baby are remembered by your adult brain and you can do them again, now, to heal.

May you BLOOM where you’re planted and find EASE.

Amanda