line Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Optimal Quality of Life Training cccecceereeeeereeees Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress cccseeees Breathe Deeply Smoothly Slowly and on Long Intervals Hold a Steady Upward Gaze with Wide Eyes Recognizing Muscular Tension and Dormant Muscle Release Tense Muscle with Compression and Massage Thinking Peacefullly cccccscccssseccssecsseesssseesseeesssaeessaees Reprogramming Facial Tension ccscccssscssseessteesseees Compressing Facial Muscles for Composure and Wellbeing Chapter Perfecting Your Smillecccccccccsscecsseeesseeeesseeesseeeenes Chapter Chapter Chapter Breathing Less Nasally and without Pharyngeal Tension Release Vocal Tension ccecceceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeteeeeneeeae Reprogram Your Posture for PoWEFC cccscceeseeeereees Chapter Antirigidity Therapy Bring Dormant Muscle to Fatigue Chapter Combine Antirigidity with your Exercise Routine Chapter Antirigidity Exercises for the Neck and Shoulders Chapter Antirigidity Exercises for the Lower Back Chapter Use Proper Posture and Antirigidity While Walking Chapter Chapter Healthy Eating Patterns cccccscccssseecssseesseeessees Chapter Chapter Chapter Stop Sexually Submissive Behavior ccccccecee Chronic Stress the Amygdala and Cortisol Listen to Your Heart and Gut cccccccccccceeeseseeeeeeeeseeee Serotonin Optimism and Cooperation ccccee Chapter Rise Above Status Conflict ccscccssceessseeesseeeseeeenee Chapter Happiness Is Playfulness Composed Kindness Chapter Conclusions PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body Indeed human infertility and sexual dysfunction are both known by medical researchers to be highly exacerbated by the stress hormone cortisol Chronically elevated cortisol levels can cause loss of libido and impotence in men mostly by inhibiting the production of testosterone In women it can cause severe fertility problems and result in an abnormal menstrual cycle This antagonism between the cortisol and testosterone hormonal axes is thought to be adaptive because in emergency situations engaging in behaviors that are encouraged by testosterone such as mating competition and dominance is unnecessary and possibly counterproductive If you put a mouse in a cage with a more dominant mouse its testosterone and fertility will decline significantly Similarly if you spend time believing that you are inferior or inadequate your virility will drop We must avoid sexual bullying and stop ourselves from thinking sexually selfsubordinating thoughts Fortunately the effects of cortisol on testosterone in both men and women are reversed when the stress goes back down You dont want your body to assume you are a pathetic monkey trying to sneak copulations in hiding So you need to send it the right messages You want to develop a mindset of sexual dominance and disinhibition affirming that you can achieve arousal at any time have sex anywhere and be in your sexual comfort zone under any social conditionsas long as it is ethical and legal of course This starts with slowing everything else down and making your sexual response a priority Just as subordination causes us to ignore our shallow breathing and protracted neck it also causes us to ignore both the tension and the pleasure in our genitals The best way to counteract this is to learn to listen to your genitals Sexual Exercise Listen to the Sensations Coming from Your Genitals Your genitals are continuously sending you sensory signals about their current state of arousal Most of us ignore this steady influx of cues leaving us out of tune with our sexuality Sexual suppression and submission have turned our erogenous zones into blind spots Feeling good down there is not a sin not a luxury and not something you have to earn It is your basic right as a mammal and an integral part of dealing with stress If you want to cultivate your sexual response you must pay attention to any and all pleasurable sensations coming from in between your legs Close your eyes and spend five minutes meditating on this area Focus on it completely like you are watching a movie At first you may not sense much but with time and patience you will begin to notice faint instances of erogenous squirming and pulsating Indulge them Learn to revel in them Doing this will help prove to your body that you are a lusty beast unencumbered by sexual trauma With time practice and the use of the other exercises in this chapter infrequent tingles and quivers will turn into a steady stream of notsosubtle heaving and throbbing Monitor your breath while you do this and imagine breathing straight into your genitals This will help you develop the laser focus necessary to become reacquainted with the full extent of your aphrodisia Chapter Stop Sexually Submissive Behavior One of the best ways to improve your awareness of sexual sensations is to stop bracing the muscles involved This is simply because if they are constantly strained they cannot respond actively to sexual stimuli There is no throbbing in dormant muscle Stop Bracing the Muscles Surrounding Your Genitals Hip or pelvic tension can be a conscious or unconscious attempt to downplay the potency of the genital region and is yet another form of submissive body language Over time the formation of dormant muscle leads to withered libido lessened enjoyment of sex and sexual dysfunction There are other sources of pelvic bracing Falling on the bottom bruising the tailbone long hours sitting at a desk or a bicycle seat and all types of physical trauma can lead to tension the area Pelvic bracing is linked to medical disorders Vaginismus is the involuntary contraction of muscles that surround the vagina The tight muscles make penetration and intercourse painful for women with this disorder Bracing may also make it harder for some women to orgasm For a woman to climax the muscles of her pelvic floor cannot be taut They must relax during sexual stimulation so that they can contract rhythmically during orgasm Many researchers believe that various sexual disorders such as male impotence latency to female orgasm and vulvodynia chronic vulvar pain can be due to excessive bracing of muscles adjacent to the sexual organs This seems even more likely when you consider that common preceding events for these disorders include sexual assault rape domestic abuse sexual humiliation chronic pain and generalized anxiety It is well known that the blood vessels surrounding the external genitalia constrict during sympathetic stimulation and dilate upon parasympathetic stimulation This means that blood flow to the penis clitoris and vulva is impeded by stress and accentuated by relaxation In fact the pelvic floor is one of the most reactive groups of muscles during startle When it contracts it results in a retraction of the clitoris for women and the penis for men Relaxation of the anococcygeal area is thought to be key in improving the sexual arousal response As a matter of fact engorgement of the penis clitoris and labia results from the relaxation of smooth muscle In other words blood doesnt flow until these unconsciously regulated muscles loosen up Sexual Activity Brace and Debrace Your Pelvic Muscles How do stress and intimidation affect the bracing of the muscles around your genitals Most people could not answer this because they have little to no awareness of this common reaction Lets try bracing them to see how it feels Tighten the muscles in your lower back Tilt your hips to one side and brace them Squeeze your legs together Tighten your urinary sphincter as if you were trying to stop yourself from peeing Now contract all these muscles and anything else local you can find at of their maximum strength After seconds let go entirely and register what it feels like to let the bracing here subside Repeat this contraction and relaxation four more times We signal sexual submission by straining sexrelated muscles in the abdomen and pelvis These muscles lose their healthy tone after sexual trauma or feelings of sexual inferiority Thankfully like all muscles you can rehabilitate them Most people have an untapped reservoir PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body of muscle in the groin that has atrophied The next two sections will show you how to exercise and strengthen it believe proper tone in these muscles allows the genitals increased vascular blood flow vasocongestion increases the prominence of arousal and heightens the accompanying sensations Exercise Your Urine Retentive Muscles You have numerous muscles situated between your sitz bones pubic bone and coccyx These muscles support the pelvic organs contract during orgasm aid in childbirth and ejaculation and provide core stability Abdominal Muscle Rectum Coccyx Pubic Bone Bladder Urethra Anus Pelvic Floor Vagina Muscles Illustration A Side view of female reproductive anatomy Note the location of the pelvic floor muscles stretching from the pubic bone to the tail bone coccyx B Frontal view of the pelvic floor musculature which is similar in women and men Several pelvic muscles are depicted including the ischiocavernosus bulbospongiosus coccygeus pubococcygeus the urogenital diaphragm and others In the s Dr Arnold Kegel taught people how to strengthen the perineum the area between the anus and the genitals He knew that these muscles are often injured in women during childbirth and he instructed women how to contract them reinstating their strength in an exercise that came to be known as Kegels Doctors have prescribed Kegels for many reasons including treating urinary incontinence ameliorating erectile dysfunction and controlling premature ejaculation Kegels are taught by having the patient repeatedly interrupt their urinary flow Dr Kegel recommended urinating a spoonful at a time Try this in the activity below Sexual Activity Contracting the Urinary Sphincter The next time you find yourself peeing stop urinating midstream Once you can stop the flow completely you have found the right muscles Try urinating for only a second at a time until you have voided your bladder Focus on tightening only the pelvic floor muscles keeping the abdomen thighs anus and buttocks relaxed This will allow you to isolate the contraction Doing this several times will help you identify the muscles and gain conscious control of them At that point you should do this exercise without urinating and from any position you want Chapter Stop Sexually Submissive Behavior Most of us learned to brace the Kegel muscles intensely as young children when holding it for long periods to avoid the embarrassing experience of urinating in public Can you remember an incident in which this muscle was likely traumatized by being braced heavily during the traumatic scenario of trying desperately to find a bathroom as a child Not only do the muscles surrounding the genitals seize up in these scenarios but distressed breathing predominates making the strain worse Most people have a strong tendency to hold their breath when performing Kegels and of course this defeats the purpose Therefore recommend pairing Kegels with paced breathing Sexual Exercise Diaphragmatic Kegels Perform hard Kegel contractions as if you were interrupting the stream of urine Do this while paced breathing This will build your capacity to activate the pelvic floor muscles without holding your breath Hold a forceful contraction during a second passive exhalation and then relax for a few breaths Do this times in a row You might also try performing rapid Kegels ie one to three per second for a minute These muscles contract involuntarily during arousal and orgasm So loosening them up and developing their responsivity may enliven your sex life Also after developing the muscular strength that comes from pelvic floor exercises men can perform a Kegel at orgasm to withhold ejaculation effectively allowing them to experience multiple orgasms also believe that strengthening and unbracing these muscles can facilitate female ejaculation and squirting The next section will provide you with an exercise that will dilate these areas rather than constrict them In a previous chapter we learned how important it is to perform forward bends after backward bends to neutralize the spine believe that performing Kegels without exercising the antagonist muscles leads to similar imbalances For example there is evidence that performing Kegels can lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder and this is a risk factor for urinary tract infection and other maladies As you might have guessed the counterpose for a Kegel is complete bladder emptying Exercise the Muscles that Expel Urine Interestingly the Kegel contraction is braced involuntarily during social competition Kegels result in a retraction of the clitoris penis and testicles potentially making them less conspicuous to a competitor believe that in this they are submissive and intended to hide the genitalia It is like the sea slug withdrawing its gill or the snail withdrawing its eyestalk Male monkeys and apes are frequently observed hiding their erections from other males especially from males above them in the hierarchy They dont want to be attacked for being aroused This is why think genital retraction due to chronic Kegel contraction is an innate defense mechanism protecting subordinates from sexually dominant individuals It is yet another display equivalent to a collapsed posture believe that losing tone and developing partial contraction in the pelvic region is a selfhandicapping mechanism that assumes advertising ones level of sexual arousal is dangerous PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body If you have balanced tone in your pelvic muscles your flaccid penis or clitoris will increase and decrease in size with your arousal level If you have strain or poor tone the flaccid organ may remain at its smallest possible size until full arousal is reached Most people are aware that the penis and clitoris shrink in size when exposed to cold In fact penile length decreases by up to in the defensive response to low temperature believe men with a history of chronic intimidation and sexual subordination are more likely to exhibit this kind of shrinkage when flaccid This likely corresponds to the grower vs shower dichotomy referenced in popular culture The growers may be men with a more extensive history of being sexually intimidated This may be reversible by performing the opposite of the Kegel It is easy for both women and men to pinpoint the muscles that expel urine They speed up the stream These muscles include the lower abdominal muscles and the bladder detrusor muscle They aid in the expulsion of urine by increasing the pressure applied to the bladder wall The stream of urine will cease when the bladder has been voided but the muscles themselves can still be contracted If you continue to squeeze the expulsive muscles very firmly after you finish urinating you will realize you can flex these muscles through their full range Most people never use this full range creating a missing corner of dormant muscle Thus it is also a reservoir that you can tap into and rehab Think of the exercise as an antikegel As we have seen in previous chapters sometimes the only way to free muscles from partial contraction is through hard full contractions Sexual Exercise Contract the Expulsive Muscles The next time you urinate try to expel the urine more forcefully than usual Steadily increase the force as you empty your bladder As it nears empty do not let up Instead squeeze the related muscles hard even after the stream stops Notice the posture that your lower back and lower abdomen have taken on and remember the feeling of contracting this muscle so that you can do it later After you have emptied your bladder continue to squeeze the muscle at to maximum force for an additional seconds It may ache tenderly but performing this exercise each time you urinate will make this aching disappear within a matter of days Start practicing it away from the toilet as well You should feel comfortable performing the Kegel and antiKegel contractions in the presence of others There is no reason to brace or selflimit your pelvic range just because other people are around To really stimulate these erogenous areas and all the tissues and blood vessels involved you can also try gently performing Kegels and antiKegels while you have an erection whether clitoral or penile Together these exercises will help put an end to neurotic pelvic flinching and straining Urine Expulsion as a Posture and Mindset You want to incorporate proper tone in these urineexpelling muscles into your daily standing walking and sitting postures The muscles involved include the lower abdominals so imagine being able to take a small punch to the lowest segment of your abs at any time This means you need to practice walking around with your lower abs engaged as if you were peeing want to Chapter Stop Sexually Submissive Behavior encourage you to walk jog exercise and socialize as if you are dribbling urine everywhere you go Listen intently to the sensations involved It should feel pleasurable Imagine spurting rainbows and gushing warm velvet from your urethra onto everything in front of you Experience everything orgasmically This should be happening as you look at yourself in the mirror as you walk around the block and as you squeeze in that last repetition while exercising Imagine that your genitals are permanently everted rather than inverted As you strengthen the retentive and expulsive muscles muscle memory will develop and they will come to hold balanced tone automatically believe this is highly beneficial for psychosexual health suppressed these muscles during my lifetime through acquiescent selfhandicapping behavior have always been averse to dirty jokes and overt sex play which may have led to less sexualized perineal posture growing up believe that unconsciously allowed my Kegel muscles to strain and my expulsive muscles to atrophy because was sexually repressive and analretentive Again the expulsive urinary and anal sphincter muscles work antagonistically with the retentive muscles meaning that expulsive qualities may be especially weak in retentive people If you think that you may be analretentive you are probably also urinary retentive While we are talking about poop please ask yourself whether combining distressed breathing while straining on the toilet seat during defecation may have traumatized your anal muscles If so you might consider using paced breathing while defecating when constipated and while contracting the anal retentive and expulsive muscles Strengthening the muscles involved in expelling urine will make your behavior more assertive Activity and tone in this area are associated with approach and the seizing of opportunities that are both sexual and nonsexual in nature It is difficult to maintain a dominant selfassured demeanor if the tone in the expulsive muscles is low You have probably noticed that worry or sudden fear makes your retentive muscles tense and the expulsive ones limp Similarly encountering something sharp or experiencing fear of heights does this as well For example peering over the ledge from the Sth floor of a parking structure can make your whole pelvis seize up This happens immediately and involuntarily during startle and fright Your pelvic floor recoils from threat When you take an ego blow or get upset or flustered the muscles that expel urine similarly drop out of flexion If your machismo is questioned but you have the gumption to reassert yourself you might notice the activity waiver and come back Activity here shrivels up when people get their balls busted For many depressed and anxious people these muscles drop out of tonicity during social encounters For sexually assertive people the expulsive musculature develops a stronger tone when around others they find attractive For sexually withdrawn people the tone may actually decrease in these situations Losing tone and accumulating strain in these muscles leads to emasculation andor defeminization When first started to engage the muscles that expel urine would become afraid of upsetting the bully introduced in Chapter realized that was afraid to engage the muscles even when he was not around When tried thoughts visuals and a feeling of being in the bullys presence would intrude into my mind unconsciously It took me some time to realize that was bracing these muscles in a restricted range out of fear of offending the bully This bully was muscular highly charismatic a felon and a murderer On one occasion had PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body seen him continue to make fun of and laugh at someone even after that person pulled a gun on him As many bullies do he would frequently tell sexually explicit stories describing his sexual prowess in attempts to intimidate other men This is one of the fundamental forms that sexual toxicity takes The man had acquired pseudopsychopathy meaning he had developed criminal antisocial and hypersexual personality traits after severe brain trauma He was catastrophically disinhibited after being fully ejected headfirst through the windshields of two cars he stole on separate occasions was subverting my sexuality in an attempt to appease this man Simply becoming explicitly aware of this subversion was enough to end it After bringing peace to this context realized that there were additional contexts that caused me to brace my genital musculature What contexts of intimidation sting you in the genitals and keep you stuck ina partially contracted Kegel Dont let anyone keep you in a retentive state in which the genitals are retracted or keep you from contracting your expulsive muscles Rather than being held taut in a restricted range these muscles should fluctuate naturally between the two extremes of retention and expulsion as you go about your day Once you become comfortable fully contracting the muscles that withhold and expel urine you should notice them quiver involuntarily more frequently Toning the muscles and stretching them out of partial contraction will increase the range of motion of your orgasms You may also notice that you experience increased blood flow and heightened turgidity in your genitals This suggests to me that formal physical therapy centered around exercising these muscles could treat both diminished sex drive and erectile dysfunction However most medical experts on the topic assume that these muscles operate autonomously and neednt be exercised This medical opinion is at odds with Ayurvedic medicine and tantric Hinduism which recognize the base of the spine as a chakra It is called muladhara the root chakra and kundalini yoga emphasizes that it must be used and meditated upon Additionally some Japanese Zen meditation practices emphasize the lower abdominal area dantian or tanden as a focal point for meditation believe the exercises in this chapter can guide you to exert control over and rehabilitate these foci At one point realized lacked the coordination to contract my urinary expulsive muscles and gluteus muscles simultaneously When tried held my breath Many people have this functional dissociation When these are dissociated you are limited to either doing one or the other However it is easy to fix Proper core stability demands that you be able to contract these muscles together actively Everyone should teach their body to activate both the urinary and fecal expulsive muscles while simultaneously contracting their buttocks Sexual Activity Pairing Expulsive Tone with Gluteal Tone Stand with optimal posture as described in Chapter With your feet parallel and the top of your hips rolled backward contract the gluteus muscles Now contract either your urinary or fecal expulsive muscles as if you were trying to pee or defecate Now try all three together Spend time in this zone varying these contractions to different degrees while engaging in calm paced breathing Chapter Stop Sexually Submissive Behavior As with many other examples in the Program Peace system if holding two dominant displays simultaneously is uncomfortable or difficult they likely inhibit each other However if you can calmly practice them together you disinhibit them and increase the probability they will arise together on their own Walk Confidently as if Your Genitals Were on Display In Chapter we discussed how submissive animals minimize the appearance of physical assets like horns claws and muscles This includes the genitals Your everyday posture and mannerisms reveal cues to others as to how comfortable you are naked Body language evolved during our history as unclothed apes so even clothed we often act as if we were naked Most people conceal their genitals during times of insecurity with their hands legs chairs or tables When a dominant person makes a power play it is quite common for other people of the same sex to place their hands in front of their sex organs The only time you should conceal or protect the genitals is to block a physical blow to the groin Most people walk in a way that hides or apologizes for their genitalia Walking like this involves hunching or crouching of the lower back Remember the lumbar lordosis and anterior pelvic tilt discussed in previous chapters We actually use these to withdraw our private parts from view They obscure the genitals like a dog hiding its tail between its legs You should do the exact opposite This means walking around with the back and hips open as if presenting the genitalia To do this flex your buttocks Thats right gluteal contraction puts your genitals on display by pressing your hips forward and rolling the top of your pelvis back as discussed in Chapter It is an entirely different style of standing and walking that comes across as much more sexually selfassured If you can imagine being comfortably naked in social situations you will project higher confidence The more time you spend naked the more comfortable it will become which is why strongly recommend sleeping naked when possible If you have never slept naked you may lose some sleep the first night because of how uncomfortable you feel But you will relax into it within a week also recommend spending time alone in your room in the buff as described next Sexual Activity Spend an Hour in Your Room Naked Make sure no one can see into your room and you wont be disturbed Lock the door Completely disrobe Place towels underneath you if uncomfortable sitting on the floor naked Spend a full hour reading watching TV meditating whatever you want completely naked It can help to have a mirror in front of you Use optimal posture Once you become comfortable try talking on the phone How do you hold your body when completely nude Do you tend to cover up or hide your genitalia Is your posture retentive or expulsive Notice these tendencies change as you become comfortable Experiment with pushing your pelvis out contracting your glutes and spreading your legs in different ways If performed with paced breathing this activity will transform your relationship with your birthday suit PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body Masturbation Trauma Most of us were petitioned by our parents at a very young age to stop touching our genitals in the company of others We learned to feel bad for stimulating the area resulting in a subtle form of trauma recommend briefly touching yourself in a sexualaffectionate way at least five times a day This can be a graze stroke or reassuring grope Some people already do this regularly To others it is very foreign You can do it alone or discretely in public Even a second of selfcomforting can help decrease bracing of the pelvic floor used to worry that frequent masturbation could cause specific forms of cancer until used pubmedcom to look at the actual medical studies It does not There are no diseases linked to masturbation So give yourself carte blanche to be completely selfindulgent However there are a few important caveats to keep in mind Masturbating to pornography may desensitize you to real people potentially leading to sexual dysfunction Also masturbating with a lubricant can make it difficult for men to sustain an erection with a condom Also consider masturbating while standing up to avoid losing the ability to remain aroused while standing Definitely consider masturbating while paced breathing For some people it takes time and work merely to reach arousal while paced breathing But the process will steel and gird your sexuality Studies have shown that placing tiny vibrators near or on the genitals of mice can increase sexual response interest and the production of sex hormones Studies like these suggest that the external use of vibrators may convince the mammalian body that it resides in some kind of maximally optimal sexual environment and may in turn elicit an optimal sexual response from it involving changes in gene expression Keep in mind though that masturbating to orgasm with some sex toys may make it difficult to sustain arousal during regular intercourse The fascia and muscles nestled in the pelvis control the responsivity of sexual arousal Massage and myofascial release are probably beneficial for these muscles however there is no existing rubric to help people do this safely and effectively Moreover excessive pressure could damage your sexual organs or drastically change the tone of the muscles that regulate blood flow to them For these reasons will not describe a protocol for genital massage here If you decide to use compressive massage on the areas between your legs recommend using only very light pressure That being said you should also find that groin stretching and antirigidity can be helpful in conditioning these muscles Sexual Expressivity The antirigidity exercises for the lumbar spine from Chapter will help free up your hips and lower back making your sexual expressivity more sensual and enjoyable Try to incorporate previously dormant muscles into intercourse and use them to explore new movement patterns Use the next two activities to enhance the coordination of the muscles and joints involved Sexual Activity Bump Your Pubis Against the Wall Find some privacy and turn on some sexy music Stand with your feet shoulderwidth apart and your toes touching a wall Press your pubic bone into the wall to the beat of the music You can bump against it like a bouncing basketball or smear yourself into it with each thrust Contract your buttocks firmly as you advance Vary the curvature of your lower back the distance between your feet and the placement of each blow against the wall Chapter Stop Sexually Submissive Behavior After a few sessions you will develop the coordination to turn it into a dance You can move each advance from left to right or from top to bottom Doing this against a door jamb can give you the leg room you need to bend your knees and drop lower You can also try this exercise by bumping your butt against the wall instead of your pubis Bang everything from your pubic bone to your hips your sacrum to your sitz bones into the brick wood or plaster Focus on rhythm timing and bravado Good sex should provide a massage to the pubic bone and the muscles that surround it for both partners The friction between your pubic hair and your partners should make rhythmic crackling sounds Pubicboneonpubicbone massage increases arousal and is one of the best ways to stimulate the clitoris Just like the muscles in our lower backs muscles that surround the pubic bone can take the form of tense cords that form tense cords Teaching yourself to massage them during the act of sex along with those of the other person can be very sexually empowering Sexual Activity Hump Your Pillows to Music Put on some music or a music video Stack pillows on your bed to support your pelvis in different sexual positions You can straddle these pillows kneel squat or lie on top of them You can also fold a pillow over a couple of times to Chapter Finding Happiness Through Playfulness Composed Kindness It can be freeing to be mellow and passive and to support the leadership of others Allow other people to take over and yourself to relax when they do Relish the relief from being in charge Do so while exuding balanced nonconfrontational energy Perpetual assertion takes its toll It involves intense face time eye contact talking decision making and an overtaxing of existing bracing patterns It leads to social fatigue and is why highpressure executives and CEOs can age so rapidly We should be handing over the pack leader role constantly passing it around from person to person sharing the stage the crown and the accompanying burdens Often in real life we are forced to play an inferior role At our workplace we must submit to higherups to keep our jobs and advance our careers There are many reasons you should treat your boss as the dominant individual Whats more it may be best for you your boss and the business to allow them to act superior in some ways That said dont hurt yourself just to let the boss be the boss Acquiesce appropriately to your employer law enforcement judges and other authority figures without diminishing your posture shortening your breath or surrendering your pride This will allow you to maintain a healthy serotonin level regardless of your place on the corporate ladder Just because you dont try to stop someone from acting dominant doesnt mean they are dominating you They are only dominating you if you are inhibiting yourself or avoiding confrontation with them out of fear They can never dominate you as long as you stay composed Take sovereignty from needless oneupmanship Keep in mind that everyone has essential observations and keen insights to impart All humans are our fellows and our equals As Ralph Waldo Emerson said Every man meet is in some way my superior So let every man and woman be your superior at times especially when they have something to teach you When you see someone do better than you at something you value dont feel envious or threatened Instead feel eager to learn This is ego stability and emotional strength When threatened by an intruder a dominant gorilla will let out a tremendous roar charge and knock down the newcomer with an immense hand swipe However outside of defending themselves and their group members dominant gorillas do not generally overtly assert their rank Even though gorillas are immense powerhouses animal behaviorists often describe them as shy because most of the time they dont feel like they have anything to prove It is not that they are shy it is that we are arrogant pompous and flagrantly adversarial The only way to transcend the dominance hierarchy is to be content when you temporarily find yourself in a subordinate position to be comfortable when others perceive you as subordinate without trying to change their mind You dont want to be a doormat but neither do you want to be consumed by resisting looking like a doormat Only doormats worry about being doormats Our unconscious mind values prestige over happiness The two are often at odds You can change this by intentionally pursuing happiness over prestige Optimism Excitement and Feeling Good It pays to be happy Optimists live longer have stronger immune systems recover from injury more quickly and have increased mental and physical health Happiness and positive emotions are linked to higher earnings better appraisal at work relationships of higher quality and increased likability Happy people are perceived as more intelligent competent and physically PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body attractive Optimists cope more effectively with stress are generally healthier and are less likely to become depressed When optimists have coronary bypass surgery they heal more quickly than pessimists Positive thinking results in a cardiovascular system that is less reactive to stress But how do we become happy in the first place Optimists attribute the cause of adverse events to external specific and transient factors In other words they see a tragedy as a oneoff fluke Pessimists on the other hand attribute failures to their own internal global and permanent shortcomings They see themselves as useless and assume the world is out to get them If this is you stop it Regain your optimism by recognizing that you have the potential to fix anything and everything that has ever been wrong with your life Recognize that the future you will be skilled and competent enough to solve any problems that arise We are constantly making expressions to ourselves as we go about our days alone Whatever these expressions are they constitute our true selves For most people its wincing If thats you make the gestures and facial expressions of happiness when you are by yourself The smiling and the postural alterations from previous chapters will help with this If solitary happiness is not practiced regularly attempts at appearing happy among others will be fake Remember how excited you could become as a child You had no reservations about expressing exuberance and enthusiasm Nothing is stopping you from feeling zestfully happy right now aside from the force of habit have spent much of this book describing how we use our bodily energy to traumatize our tissues This might make you assume that our life force is destructive It is not You must redirect that same life force away from anxiety and tension toward happiness and joy The more you do this the less energy there is to sustain stress Doing so actively reprograms how your body routes energy setting you up for hardwired happiness Accordingly all the exercises in this book should be done with joy and optimistic expectations This will make them much more powerful Be a lifeless corpse when it comes to tension ego and pessimism When it comes to playfulness however thats when you want to be alive and spend your chilike energy on positive social displays Lets start with laughter Laughter in Other Animals Many mammals laugh For example most rodents emit long ultrasonic vocalizations during rough and tumble play The sounds rats and mice make have been described as chirping and occur in the kHz range inaudible to humans When chirping they actively seek being tickled and played with They chirp when wrestling chasing or searching for one another They chirp during courting and before copulation Researchers have interpreted rat chirping as an expectation of something rewarding and it appears to elicit friendly social approach in other members of their species It also nullifies anxiety If you tickle a rat after a fearful situation it will neutralize the negative emotions and vastly decrease any fearrelated learning going on in its brain Dogs can pant using heavy forced exhalations in a way that suggests a form of modified laughter They use it during play Dogs exposed to a recorded doglaugh exhibit significantly reduced stress behaviors increased tail wagging the display of the canine playface as well as prosocial behavior such as approaching and licking another dogs lips Chapter Finding Happiness Through Playfulness Composed Kindness Chimps gorillas and orangutans all exhibit laughterlike vocalizations in response to physical play including friendly contact like chasing wrestling and tickling It is a shallow pant conveying nonaggression that is highly reminiscent of suppressed laughter in humans Their laughter shows the same sonographic pattern as that of human babies They also use similar facial expressions while laughing and are ticklish in the same areas that humans are Ape laughter consists of a series of exhalations and inhalations like panting On the other hand human laughter consists of a series of exhalations with no intervening inhalations Mice dogs apes and humans make their breath shallow to create rapport Insistence on breathing at long intervals caused me to stop doing this was so focused on diaphragmatic breathing that refused to breathe shallowly even when joking with friends This is like refusing to make anything other than an expressionless face Think of shallow breathing during fun jovial play as a form of healthy panting that serves as a temporary microbreak or counterpose to diaphragmatic breathing Refusing to pant is refusing to play Rehabilitating Your Laughter Will Make It Much More Pleasurable Gelotology is the study of laughter and the positive effects it can have on the body Proponents advocate the induction of laughter on therapeutic grounds Laughter yoga hasya yoga and laughter meditation also use voluntary laughter for therapeutic purposes Studies have shown that it alleviates both stress and pain These practices assume that voluntary or forced laughter provides some of the same benefits as spontaneous laughter Voluntary laughter is often done in groups and may turn into real laughter Participants are instructed to facilitate laughing by using childlike playfulness and eye contact These practices are great but think they do not get down to the issues crux From what have seen people who engage in this practice are mostly laughing superficially To reap the benefits we must isolate and strengthen the core laughing reflex The muscles involved in laughing have been traumatized by life stress As an infant your laugh was primordial and bona fide Years of anxious laughter and worrying that your laugh is too aggressive have damaged your instinctual laughing pattern As you might expect people who are depressed or anxious have the least convincing laughs Extremely dominant people laugh loudly without hesitating at whatever they like Most people however stifle their laughter in the same way they stifle their posture and breathing This explains why most adults laughter is eccentric and deviated from the innate laughter pattern A babys laughter is vivacious and natural To relearn to laugh genuinely it is helpful to watch infants and toddlers laughing Take the time to search for videos of babies laughing on the internet and mimic them You will see that infants dont stifle their laughter They dont worry about their laugh being too forceful or about offending someone Neither should we Your laugh should shake you to your core and be intensely pleasurable A hearty and progressive emptying of the lungs applies a significant load to the diaphragm and the muscles of the chest wall triggering the endorphin system This is why social laughter is correlated with an elevated pain threshold However most adult laughs hardly activate the pleasure system at all After years of stifling laughter we have forgotten how to laugh in a way that produces this response For many people the diaphragms role in laughter has been weakened so much that laughter no longer recruits endorphins and is draining rather than energizing PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body Fake or nervous laughter comes from the throat and often results in increased tension there During natural laughter the diaphragm does most of the work By training yourself to laugh through deep contractions of the diaphragm and abdominals you can rebuild an authentic laugh These muscles should reach exhaustion and start to fail during a good laugh If your diaphragm and abdominals begin to burn like they did when you were a child you know that you are doing it right The next exercise will show you exactly how to retrain your diaphragm to fully participate in the act of laughing Happiness Exercise Diaphragmatic Laughing Practice laughing while exhaling completely This involves an uninterrupted emptying of the lungs Inhale completely only after you laughexhale completely Your exhale should consist of a long series of laughing sounds punctuated by vocal glottal closure haha equals two glottal closures The brief closing of the vocal tract glottis against the exhalation allows pressure to build and makes the laugh sound like a series of rapidfire punches They should roll out somewhat like the Rs when you roll your tongue Practice this as an exercise and attempt to make the laughter last for at least five seconds but shoot for to seconds Laugh all the way to the bottom of your range of exhalation Use the principles of anti rigidity Try the following variations Focus on and coordinate the laughs glottal closures so that they proceed at a smooth and steady rate Notice inadvertent irregularities in timing as well as the tendency to gulp choke or falter and iron these out Its okay if it sounds mechanical and robotic at first while you are relearning the basics Cause the punctuated exhalations to roll out as fast as possible while maintaining a fixed rhythm After you gain coordination in speeding them up try slowing them down Do this using your voice at various pitches but focus most on using a deep voice to create a deep laugh Explore your preferred ways of laughing varying resonance inflection and timing Modulate each in as many ways as possible Employ different melodies and model other peoples laughs Spend time listening to and imitating actor Mark Hamills maniacal Joker laugh Try laughing while exhaling completely until it turns into a wheeze and you feel you dont have a cubic centimeter of air left in your lungs Ensure that the laughing pattern remains coordinated even at the bottom of your exhalation This will greatly strengthen the muscles involved Dont raise your shoulders when you laugh and focus on keeping them pushed toward the floor Maintain the tenets of optimal posture Dont allow your spine to curve into a forward C shape You might try lying on your stomach while you laugh to ensure that your spine is straight Do this with a thoroughly relaxed face or while you massage your face so that you can laugh heartily without intense facial constriction Induce paroxysms of Chapter Finding Happiness Through Playfulness Composed Kindness laughter without raising the eyebrows squinting sneering or tensing any other muscles The pressure to keep exhaling should be forceful and have a life of its own It should feel like a boa constrictor is wrapped around your chest squeezing you hard and only giving you a short period to inhale every few seconds Laugh authoritatively compellingly boldly forcefully mightily Work on making it contagious Because the muscles are strained stagnant and uncoordinated your laugh may sound like that of an insane villain at first But with practice it will become friendly and ebullient It is important to do this exercise loudly gleefully and unhesitatingly so make sure that you are not worried about others hearing you Do it in a closet or better yet in the car It will be uncomfortable at first The muscles you engage may be so weak that they feel susceptible to damage Mine certainly were If so take it easy the first few days and build up to doing it vigorously Use laughter to work out the cramp in your diaphragm This exercise is a powerful complement to diaphragmatic breathing exercises and will help you reach muscles that you otherwise could not To this end try it while lying on your stomach from a forward fold or from happy baby pose with your belly pushed out At first the laughing exercise should make you feel weary After only one week you will be able to push harder and be more adept at coordinating the pulses of laughter After a few weeks you will be good at it and find yourself laughing more often This exercise transformed my laugh from a flimsy perfunctory courtesy laugh into something enjoyable Now laugh spontaneously heartily resolutely and much more frequently find laughing tremendously gratifying and things that were barely amusing to me before are now hilarious believe that laughing evolved to help humans let off steam It may have allowed instances of camaraderie and social bonding to influence an individuals life strategy to place less value on the adaptive aspects of trauma In other words the more conducive your environment is to laughing the more your body assumes that your environment is a good one and that it is safe to be optimistic A real laugh was probably designed by evolution to help us attain a fullrange hard contraction of the diaphragm As with panthooting Exercise this contraction relieves the diaphragm of the partial contraction caused by stress and shallow breathing The more you rehabilitate your laugh the more you increase your diaphragms potential for providing you with endorphins Remember that endorphins are most reliably produced by grooming singing laughing and play These are addressed in Chapter Chapter this section and the next section respectively Some people with relatively calm nasopharynxes can clear their nasopharynx in the same way others clear their throats It is like snorting except it involves breathing out rather than breathing in Some people call it a nose laugh see it as a dominance signal conveying that the persons nasopharynx is not tense When my nasopharynx was tense was incapable of doing it Once you have compressed your nasopharynx using the exercises in Chapter you can build the coordination to perform this empowering laugh Some people use this signal to laugh at something they find inferior like rolling the eyes Please dont use it derisively or to ridicule people Instead use it as a heartfelt laugh to PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body communicate that you are enjoying absurdity People usually find it exciting and it makes them want to laugh along with you Happiness Exercise Laugh through the Nasopharynx Use a brief to seconds but powerful exhalation to force air out through your nasopharynx with the mouth closed This snort is similar to a scoff or chortle It sometimes arises when you try to withhold laughter First practice doing it in small short bursts to develop the proper coordination so that you can build up to doing it in a prolonged way With practice you will be able to hold convincing threesecond nose laughs It is a convivial way to express amusement that improves quickly with practice Be Playful We dont stop playing because we grow old we grow old because we stop playing George Bernard Shaw Play like laughter is a form of medicine but certain conditions must be met for it to be genuine All stressors anger fear pain hunger and separation reduce play Animals must be well fed comfortable and healthy for play to take place When these conditions are met rats and mice chase and pounce wrestle pin nip poke and knock each other over This is the kind of play that generates highfrequency laughterlike chirps at kHz Physical roughandtumble play is the most fun of all At one point thought all aggressive acts were unpleasant but judging from play in other mammals feigned aggression can be joyous It is important to note that when mammals play rapid role reversal is a defining element In other words they know it is friendly when everyone gets a chance to be on top Knowledge of this should influence us to pass being dominant back and forth with our friends The rat that ends up on top more often during pins becomes dominant The continuation of play necessitates a willingness on the part of the winner to selfhandicap Dominant rats that go easy on others always have playmates but those that bully are ignored when they try to solicit play Play helps animals determine who to avoid and with whom they can develop cooperative relationships They learn to dominate but also accept defeat without being defeated Dominant animals would rather play but aggressive animals would rather fight Rats involved in a fight bite each other and box This can lead to injury They stand on their hind legs and strike each other with their front paws When they do this the kHz laughter turns into kHz complaints This is similar to chimpanzees among whom play is accompanied by wrestling panting and a play face whereas fighting involves boxing tearing scratching biting and barking Chapter Finding Happiness Through Playfulness Composed Kindness Ilustration Animals playing Rather than being based around wrestling human play focuses on verbal interchange and banter Repartee involves provocation rejoinders biting commentary and if friendly laughter As in other mammals this form of verbal jousting can engender friendship respect and cooperation It can be made more fun with the use of bombastic quarreling absurd braggadocio frivolous histrionics grandiose pretentiousness and ostentatious balderdash When you do it be spunky employ exuberance and enjoy it You dont have to act excitable to be sparkling and bubbly you just need to be playful Usually if you manage to entertain yourself others will be entertained as well Remember to be like the mice during play and allow others their opportunity to be on top lest you risk losing playmates This includes giving others equal chance to talk and refraining from dominating conversations A dog initiates play by crouching A monkey initiates it by exposing its rear end Both of these actions involve selfdiminishment and vulnerability Showing others that you dont take yourself too seriously or exposing a vulnerability can make them want to play with you After experimenting with this for years now have concluded that you can be as vulnerable and nice as you can and as long as you are playful it wont be mistaken for weakness Play ranks among the most beneficial neuroplastic interventions Placing rodents into enriched environments where they can socialize wrestle and play with others results in heavier brains and higher levels of dopamine endorphins and serotonin Studies have found that rats deprived of play are more fearful and aggressive toward other rats Encouraging playfulness in animals is one of the few behavioral interventions known to reverse anxiety and depressive symptoms This is probably because it allows them to shift from the threat response to the challenge response Social play involves creativity and requires that we learn to approach others in diverting and lively ways Imagination and fantasy can also facilitate play My favorite way to play with people is to make up imaginary scenarios What would you do if am animated shameless and immature when doing this My scenarios include helicopters ninjas dinosaurs and hats with pinwheels on top of them When other people do this recognize it as play participate and egg them on by laughing with them Whenever someone uses an analogy or poetic license to describe a situation help them flesh it out until you have created a whimsical comical cartoon world Feel at home with wordplay punning nonsense and silliness Use Sensory Deprivation to Unmask Neurotic Activity Most of us are afraid that fixing our gaze on anything will make us look too calm We keep our eyes busy to make others feel comfortable Take a minute now and observe yourself looking around You should be able to sense pressure to keep glancing neurotically This comes froma form of anxiety in the eye motor centers that act below the level of conscious awareness The restlessness makes it difficult for you to maintain eye contact and to fixate on anything if other people are watching you The best way to retrain this nervous habit is to become more comfortable anchoring your gaze without worrying about how you may appear to others while doing it Eye Exercise Sustained Gaze Spend two minutes staring at a single point Notice any impulses to glance away and gently override them You might try to keep your eyes fixated on a single feature of the wall or ceiling or you might try to keep your gaze limited to a circumscribed region of space like a light fixture If youre having trouble cut out a picture of a face from a magazine and tape it to your wall or ceiling to gaze at contentedly Allow yourself to feel free to space out like a child absorbed in a daydream Dont be concerned about looking dazed or stupefied and dont worry if this level of ocular relaxation causes your eyes to cross for a few moments Sensory deprivation can help uncover baseline neurotic tendencies Lets start with sight Tracking your ocular behavior in complete darkness will make it clear how much of your eye movement is highstrung and unnecessary The best way to do this is to wait until nighttime turn off all the lights in your home and lie down on the floor of a closet or bathroom Do whatever you can to make this area completely dark You may need to put up curtains or drape some towels over the cracks Being in pitch blackness makes it easier to feel absolutely certain that no one can see your face expressions or eye movements Think back to the way your submissive signaling diminished when you took that walk around the block while pretending to be invisible Complete darkness allows you an even greater degree of invisibility and anonymity No one and nothing can be offended by how relaxed you appear because you truly are invisible Take the opportunity to relax fully and open your eyes very wide without compunction In absolute darkness feel like a slimy gelatinous sea slug that has been removed from all danger can feel the squinting contraction release in the same way that the sea slug we discussed in Chapter releases its gill The complete vacancy of visual stimulus will desensitize you and provide your eyes with the experience they need to grow wide This phenomenon is PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body also a bit like eyestalk extension in snails When you touch a snail its eyestalks retract The eyes invert within the eyestalks and travel down toward the head This action blinds the snail but is an essential defensive reflex meant to protect the eyes After several seconds when the snail starts to feel safe again the eyes slowly evert the eyestalks reach full length and the eyes pop out at the top Use the exercises above to develop fearless wide eyes and fully extend your eayestalks In absolute darkness you will also be able to see phosphenes which are colored shapes that are produced by your visual system These may take the form of dots stars lines static circles or various other shapes This visual activity will be accentuated if you lightly rub your eyes The phosphenes represent a type of background noise that is usually not noticeable yet always ongoing When the lights are on phosphene activity is put to work helping you make perceptual distinctions When the lights are off that activity hits a stumbling block amounting to a lowlevel form of hallucination believe these phosphenes can play a role in driving anxious thought Notice when they flash abruptly and calm your reaction to this You may notice that they flare when you look straight keeping you from maintaining a fixed gaze You may also notice that they burst in the corner of your eye When they flash like this in the periphery of your vision believe they may be reminding you to scan for potential threats that are to the side of you or behind you When first started doing this the phosphene activity appeared sinister and frightening even saw flashes of scenes from horror movies This all contributed strongly to the feeling of being unsafe in the dark This may have also been the case for my cat Niko He cried like a kitten in the dark closet the first few times but now he will join me of his own volition Notice your reactions and try to bring peace to your conscious and unconscious responses to the phosphene activity by pairing the experience with diaphragmatic breathing After doing Exercise twice for five minutes never again saw any frightful apparitions strongly recommend that you use this technique to free the background activity of your visual system from unnecessary negativity Eye Exercise Vision in Complete Darkness Lie down on the floor in a pitchblack room Keep your eyes as wide as possible and observe your eye movements Practice looking in different directions and sustaining your gaze at different points with the eyes wide and eyebrows relaxed You will notice your eyes dart around in the dark They will display an intense agitated tendency to move quickly on their own without any conscious deliberation Simply observing this and practicing sustained gazing in utter blackness will allow you to reduce the intensity Nonjudgmentally monitor the visual activity colored phosphenes the eye movement activity and the feelings that come from being in utter darkness Use this method to dismantle your fear of the dark recommend buying noisereducing earmuffs to use in your dark closet With the earmuffs on you will be able to hear the background activity of your auditory system just as darkness reveals the background activity of your visual system For most of us background auditory function takes the form of a ringing or buzzing in the ears which is known as tinnitus When first heard the hissing sound amplified by the earmuffs it was very upsetting abhorred it Chapter Hold a Steady Upward Gaze with Wide Eyes Many people feel this way which is unfortunate because some degree of tinnitus is always there whether we are conscious of it or not found that the practice of breathing diaphragmatically and listening to my tinnitus gradually reduced its volume and made it far less emotionally disquieting Paced diaphragmatic breathing will quickly help you come to peace with being alone in complete darkness with nothing but the background noise of your own visual and auditory systems This will make it so that their default settings do not haunt you during everyday life Conclusion The final exercise puts several of the routines from this chapter together into a single routine that you can perform while watching television Eye Exercise Watching TV Upside Down Lie on the floor on your back with your head near the TV and your feet away from it Watch a movie or television program upside down so that you are looking straight up at the screen Your eyebrows should be visible but out of focus just below the bottom of the TVs border Do not allow your brow to raise Keep your eyes wide and your face relaxed Try to maintain constant eye contact with the characters on the television Place your breath metronome next to the TV so that it can guide you in paced diaphragmatic breathing Remain this way for the duration of a TV show or movie Afterward look in a mirror You should notice that your eyes look fuller happier and calmer Watching inverted video is also a challenge for your brains visual systems and may build cognitive and perceptual skills Some of these exercises may seem strange forced and almost comical Remember though that when you perform them you are coactivating behavioral subroutines not ordinarily coactivated together because of social constraints By pairing these with diaphragmatic breathing you reeducate your nervous system to treat them as safe making that combination of subroutines possible The more you do it the more probable it is to arise spontaneously in the future and eventually become a fixed part of your personality You will rarely have the opportunity to make prolonged eye contact looking up with wide eyes breathing diaphragmatically in the course of everyday life To build optimal behaviors into our repertoire we must create artificially ideal worlds in which to practice The next chapter widens our focus Behaviors like squinting looking down and glancing away all have muscular components to them Chapter discusses repetitive muscular strain in detail and considers the panoply of negative effects on us This will set the context for the rest of the book which will guide you to overcome it PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body Chapter Bullet Points e Squinting eyebrow raising looking down and gaze aversion are forms of trauma that fracture our composure but can easily be rehabilitated e Widening your eyes relaxing your brow looking up and practicing a fixed gaze have many benefits and will literally change your perspective on life e Squinting is defensive and intended to protect the eyeballs On a fundamental level it is a sign of defensiveness or submission Deliberately widening the eyes can end excessive squinting and is especially easy to do when breathing long deep breaths e Raised eyebrows are analogous to the action of moving the ears backward in other mammals This action is performed by an animal being chased so that it can hear its attacker behind it It is submissive and so should not be strained for long periods e Eyebrows lowered is analogous to ears forward which is the posture for an animal chasing another This should not be strained either However becoming comfortable lowering your eyebrows into a full frown will increase your nonverbal dominance The same goes for glaring and the sideeye e Looking down is submissive and doing it habitually weakens the muscles that allow us to look up Looking upward above the horizon more often strengthens your ocular muscles and conditions your nervous system to stop casting your gaze toward the floor e Social trauma has caused us to become afraid of fixing our gaze on anything especially anothers eyes e Making prolonged eye contact with yourself in a mirror or simply gazing calmly at points in space will train your unconscious visual control systems to be comfortable maintaining a fixed gaze e After making eye contact look at or near the eye line rather than below it e Looking at characters on the TV straight in their eyes will strengthen your ability to look real people in the eyes e Speaking to someone on the telephone while making sustained wideeyed eye contact with yourself in a mirror will strengthen your facetoface rapport with others e Spending time in complete darkness while engaging in paced breathing will help you make your visual systems default activity less chaotic and frightening Using sound reducing earmuffs can do the same for your default auditory activity e Watching TV upside down can reinforce looking up and eyewidening Chapter Hold a Steady Upward Gaze with Wide Eyes Chapter Endnotes Pease B Pease A The definitive book of body language Bantam Books Lutz T Crying The natural and cultural history of tears Norton Hasson O Emotional tears as biological signals Evolutionary Psychology Even C Schrder C M Friedman S Rouillon F Efficacy of light therapy in nonseasonal depression A systematic review Journal of Affective Disorders Keating C F Human dominance signals The primate in us In S L Ellyson J F Dovidio Eds Power dominance and nonverbal behavior pp SpringerVerlag Keating C F Keating E G Visual scan patterns of rhesus monkeys viewing faces Perception Keating Human dominance signals ChevalierSkolnikoff S Facial expression of emotion in nonhuman primates In P Ekman Ed Darwin and facial expression A century of research in review pp Malor Books Trichas S Schyns B The face of leadership Perceiving leaders from facial expression The Leadership Quarterly Carney D R Hall J A A LeBeau L S Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of social power Journal of Nonverbal Behavior Tubbs S Human communication Principles and contexts th ed McGrawHill Hermann H R Dominance and aggression in humans and other animals The great game of life Academic Press Sapolsky R M The influence of social hierarchy on primate health Science Gomez J C Ostensive behavior in great apes The role of eye contact In A E Russon K A Bard S T Parker Eds Reaching into thought The minds of the great apes pp Cambridge University Press PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body Cruz W Differences in nonverbal communication styles between cultures The LatinoAnglo perspective Leadership and Management in Engineering Sadri H A Flammia M Intercultural communication A new approach to international relations and global challenges Continuum International Publishing Group Knapp M L Hall J Nonverbal communication in human interaction th ed Cengage Learning Knapp Hall Nonverbal communication in human interaction Hogan K Stubbs R Cant get through barriers to communication Pelican Publishing Company Farroni T Csibra G Simion F Johnson MH Eye contact detection in humans from birth Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Lohaus A Keller H Voelker S Relationships between eye contact maternal sensitivity and infant crying International Journal of Behavioral Development Van Edwards V Captivate The science of succeeding with people Penguin Random House Chance M R A Attention structures as the basis of primate rank orders Man Dovidio J F Ellyson S L Keating C F Heltman K Brown C E The relationship of social power to visual displays of dominance between men and women Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Dovido at al The relationship of social power to visual displays of dominance Nagasawa M Mitsui S En S Ohtani N Ohta M Sakuma Y Onaka T Mogi K Kikusui T Oxytocingaze positive loop and the coevolution of humandog bonds Science Tehovnik E J Slocum W M Carvey C E Schiller P H Phosphene induction and the generation of saccadic eye movements by striate cortex Journal of Neurophysiology Baguley D McFerran D Hall D Tinnitus The Lancet Chapter Recognize Muscular Tension and Dormancy You translate everything whether physical or mental or spiritual into muscular tension F M Alexander Suppose youre interacting with an abusive boss Without realizing it you hold some part of your body still in order to manage your behavior during the confrontation Tension in your jaw throat or shoulders keeps you from lashing out and losing your job Tension in your hips or feet keeps you from storming out of the room Similar tensions may arise when you deal with a relatives expectations of you or during a disagreement with a friend Mary Bond b This chapter discusses a form of trauma that transforms muscles on a cellular scale repetitive strain The first half of the chapter introduces the concepts of bracing and persistent muscular tension and explains how to recognize them in your own body The second half dives into the social and emotional aspects of muscle tension laying out the relationships between longterm strain pain breathing and submissiveness Exercises are offered throughout to aid you in recovering from your bodily tension Recognizing Excessive Muscular Tone It can be difficult to recognize the physical sensations of muscular strain We become so accustomed to the pain and discomfort that they become effectively imperceptible the same way we stop noticing unpleasant smells It often takes a significant shift for us to notice how our bodies really feel This happened to me after strained my shoulder skateboarding After the accident a doctor prescribed me a dozen pills of meloxicam a nonsteroidal anti inflammatory drug NSAID with analgesic effects After my first dose spent a few hours trying to analyze the effects of the drug My muscles felt looser and this quickly put me to sleep woke up in the middle of the night to feel my hamstrings burning intensely but they had not been stretched or exercised recently in any unusual way It took me a few minutes to realize that this pain was their normal baseline condition The strain had simply been unmasked by the NSAID drug had become utterly accustomed to the fact that this tension went to bed with me every night quickly realized that the problem was widespread My hamstrings were chronically strained from overzealous exercise but so were my hips lower back shoulders and neck That night as focused on gradually relaxing these body parts began to realize just how much had been clenching them in a bizarre contorted way This experience made me think of a lesson that my mother taught me In my twenties developed a condition called plantar fasciitis that causes pain in the soles of the feet She shared the method that she used to cure her plantar fasciitis saying something along these lines Jared its a medical disorder but it comes from tension You must be curling your feet into fists at night Right now you are unconscious of this tendency but it is possible to create awareness Each evening before you go to bed focus on the sensations in your feet and tell yourself that you plan to let the tension release and remain released as you sleep Dont allow your feet to remain clenched all night had painful plantar fasciitis for a full year yet after two nights of following her instructions meditating closely on the sensations of tension the pain in PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body my feet was gone Right there lying in bed saw the connection and realized that this same lesson applied not only to my heels but to my hamstrings my heartache my headache and my whole body Tone Hypertonia and Hypotonia Muscle tone also referred to as residual muscle tension or tonus is a continuous and passive partial contraction found in all skeletal muscles It is often conceptualized as the muscles resistance to passive stretching during a resting state Muscles receive continuous innervation from the nervous system ensuring that even in rest they remain in a semiactive default state Thus there is no complete rest in living muscle tissue Both extensor and flexor muscles are constantly kept activated which helps us maintain muscle readiness For instance your bicep a flexor and triceps an extensor are both always in a state of partial contraction They complement and support each other no matter how much you try to relax them Muscles on opposite sides of a joint contract in unison to stabilize the joint This kind of antagonism occurs all over the body It is beneficial and necessary Muscle tone is normal but it can become too intense under certain conditions and begin to cause harm Excessive tone is referred to as persistent muscle tension muscle spasticity or hypertonia Hypertonic muscles can be found in crucial places throughout our bodies and are sources of chronic pain stiffness and premature frailty for every adult on the planet The cause of excessive muscular tone and the accompanying pain we experience is multifactorial Hypertonia can be exacerbated by bad habits wear and tear genetic risk factors and injuries such as car accidents and falls However most of the preventable muscular pain that we suffer is derived from a lowenergy injury to the tissues known as repetitive strain A repetitive strain injury is caused by repetitious tasks or by sustained awkward positions Almost any job profession or chore you can imagine involves monotonous contractions through which muscles are subject to continuous or nearcontinuous strain While repetitive strain may occur intermittently its effects build up over years resulting in chronic conditions Longstanding instances of muscular tension develop pathways in the nervous system that reinforce and perpetuate them Simultaneously an array of cellular changes takes place within muscle cells themselves forcing them to contract permanently forfeiting strength and flexibility By becoming accustomed to such burdens we force ourselves to carry them unknowingly This is how we come to feel the weight of the world on our shoulders We are all hauling an invisible intangible load forcing dozens of muscles throughout our body to push and pull against absolutely nothing Refrain from Muscular Bracing Excessive tension in any posture is called muscular bracing and it is pervasive We brace muscles all over our bodies every day Squinting and the raising and lowering of the brow discussed in Chapter are also forms of bracing Mostly we brace as a reflexive response to things that make us worried or uncomfortable Due to the false sense of security it can afford some researchers have termed it muscular armoring Bracing is intended to prepare us to quickly initiate offensive or defensive movements as when we protect the neck by keeping the shoulders raised Small amounts of temporary bracing are healthy and can be helpful during rough and tumble play contact sports falls or collisions Unnecessary bracing however Chapter Recognize Muscular Tension Dormancy keeps the body on guard and rigid Thus when you need to move you are forced to overcome your own resistance forfeiting grace and coordination Keeping our muscles tense makes us feel in control but is a dysfunctional coping tactic People generalize bracing from physical challenges to intellectual and social ones This is why some experts refer to instances of bracing as neurotic holding patterns For instance we tense during social encounters especially confrontational ones People tense their bodies during standardized tests social gatherings and public speaking This hinders their performance by interfering with productive efforts and by causing discomfort and autonomic stress As we will discuss in Chapter the sensation of fear in your gut and the sensation of having your heart in your throat are also manifestations of chronic bracing Imagine that you are standing alone in a strange dark parking lot with nothing nearby to grab ahold of You hear someone yell Brace yourself What pose do you strike Whatever pose you imagined is likely one that you commonly adopt during stress and startle The muscles responsible for this pose are the ones you brace most often and so they are likely currently in the process of becoming locked up Explore this a little further using the first unbracing activity below Relaxation Activity Making a Claw Tense all the muscles in your hand making it into a stiff claw Curl your fingers so that all fifteen knuckles are partially bent Keeping your hand in that formation see whether you can tense it even further Keep it tight as you open and close it five times Now use your imagination Try to feel what would happen to your hand if you were forced to hold it like this for a week straight It would become immobile inflamed and excruciating Consider how often you tense your hand in daily life Has it already taken a toll Going forward work on undoing that tension Try to notice the claw whenever it materializes and allow it to revert to a soft lithe hand You also want your hands to be strong so contracting their muscles firmly is necessary The important thing is that you allow them to relax deeply after you stop using them Make a very firm claw and then let it relax five times in a row How you respond to the discomfort involved in the effort makes all the difference Dont allow the discomfort from the contraction to influence you to keep bracing Rather plunge into the deeper level of relaxation that is available after you have brought the muscles to fatigue There are cyclical relationships between stress bracing and arthritis Some specialists refer to forms of bracing as prearthritic postures Joints can only be braced for so many years before they become inflamed and degenerative My mother has osteoarthritis in her hands Some of her knuckles are larger and more deformed than others She firmly believes that the most affected knuckles are those that she braced more during stress over decades An extreme example is the raisedarm babas of India These are men who for spiritual reasons have decided to always raise one arm in the air Over the years their shoulders become stiff as a PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body board and completely useless As you look over the table below think about which bracing patterns you use Internal Facial Postural Tightening the Jaw Squinting the Eyes Raising the Shoulders Constricting the Throat Raising the Eyebrows Bracing the Lower Back Sucking the Tongue Straining the Smile Hunching the Neck Constricting the Nasopharynx Straining the Sneer Neglecting the Glutes and Abs Straining the Vocal Folds Pursing the Lips Bracing the Shoulder Blades Shallow Breathing Tightening the Cheeks Clenching the Hands and Feet Abdominal Tensing Drawing Down the Corners of Tilting the Pelvis to One Side the Mouth Table Common Forms of Bracing that Compromise Muscle and Cause Pain Bracing belongs to a more general category known as dysponesis or the misdirected use of energy in the musculoskeletal system of which unnecessary tensing of the muscles is just one example This wasting of energy is destructive For example dentists and orthodontists make particular note of jaw clenching teeth grinding and tongue tension because those movements push the teeth out of their optimal alignment In Chapter we will discuss how bracing the back pushes the spine out of alignment Muscular bracing is a factor in almost all joint disorders and is responsible for carpal tunnel temporomandibular joint disorder tennis elbow and countless others believe that most chronic injuries despite the fancy and distracting terms used by physicians start with tension caused by bracing One way a mammal remembers that it just glimpsed a predator is by crouching down and becoming very tense We often use muscular tension to keep something in mind When need to remember something or when there is an urgent need to do something that cannot be done right away become tenser The specific part of my body necessary to carry out the task is often where the tension manifests For instance will try to remind myself to write down a thought by tensing my fingers as if were gripping a pencil Recognize when this happens to you and try not to use tension as a mnemonic aid We tend to be negligent of excessive increases in muscle tension even when we are performing simple tasks We tighten muscles that are not involved in what we are doing and then keep those muscles tight even after we finish If the action is built into your job or daily routine you can start by improving the ergonomics of your workspace or taking more regular breaks You can also teach yourself to selectively calm muscles that you are not actively using for the task at hand The key is to constantly and creatively alter your body posture so that unused muscles are engaged and overused muscles are given a break Chapter Recognize Muscular Tension Dormancy Relaxation Activity Monitor Your Bracing During Teeth Brushing The next time you brush your teeth notice the movements in your hand arm shoulder neck face and torso Are you tensing muscles or expending energy that you dont need to For instance you might be gripping the toothbrush too tightly flexing heavily at the elbow or shoulder locking your jaw or craning your neck to one side Do you alter your posture and vary the repetitive motions to give your muscles breaks Use this activity as an example that you can extend to all your daily chores and rituals Generalize this experience to as many other activities as possible including writing with a pen typing with a keyboard or holding a phone tablet book remote controller or steering wheel Microbreaks Allow Muscles the Short Rests They Need Not all muscle tension is bad After all there is no way to exercise without tensing your muscles But bracing is very different from healthy exercise because it does not include tiny rest periods called microbreaks Sometimes all our muscles need is a few seconds or even just a few fractions of a second without being held taut When the electrical activity of muscle is tracked with electrodes these moments of downtime show up as electromyographic gaps brief intervals during which the muscles slacken and relax They are essential For example every step you take involves significant exertion as you push off against the ground However as one leg takes over the other is given a break during the time it takes to swing it forward again That respite allows the muscles to regenerate and prepare for the next step If you didnt have this microbreak after every step walking more than a few hundred meters would be difficult In much the same way all the muscles in your body require microbreaks Without momentarily reverting to a relaxed baseline tone muscles cannot replenish and unwanted processes ensue You have probably noticed the difference between fatigue caused by sustained bracing hyperfatigue and fatigue caused by exercise that contains microbreaks The former aches and is unpleasant while the latter is both soothing and exhilarating Indeed the most important factor in building healthy muscle is to allow it to relax The more relaxed your muscles are at rest the more quickly they recover from exercise This is why relaxed muscle responds dramatically to training whereas tense muscle responds sluggishly Whenever you are not using a muscle allow it to go limp It almost seems slothful but its not its the way you should live your life Intermittent breaks and rests can help you disrupt long periods of unnecessary rigidity Naps can work wonders in this regard During sleep and especially during REM sleep changes occur in brain signaling that cause vastly reduced muscle tone known as atonia This is one reason why short to minute naps can be so invigorating Short naps can also restore alertness mental performance and learning ability As you nap you are even giving your heart a brief rest which may be why naps have been associated with reduced coronary mortality Just remember that naps of minutes or more often lead to sleep inertia impaired alertness and tiredness When you feel depleted after the gym after an upsetting episode or whenever you start to feel stiff and sore set your phones timer for minutes and allow yourself a recuperative power nap Even if you dont fall asleep just giving yourself a few minutes to lay down during the day provides a reprieve that can be highly beneficial in the long term PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body Why dont we allow ourselves the microbreaks that our bodies call for Often it is due to social pressures Propriety and intimidation related to the status hierarchy cause us to brace then feel guilty about relaxing Chronic submissive signaling disallows you from claiming the microbreaks that your muscles need When at a dinner date or in a board room we dont give our neurotic holding patterns a single second of downtime Wellcomposed people give various muscles involved in social displays microbreaks In fact we can conceptualize composure as skill in microbreaking Of course even our breathing muscles require microbreaks Unbrace Your Exhalation with the Passive Exhale Diaphragmatic bracing is the central feature of distressed breathing and a core symptom of trauma Remember Activity in which you held your hand like a claw and kept it tight as you opened and closed it This is exactly what you are doing with your diaphragm when stressed This kind of bracing could be an excellent exercise for the diaphragm if it only lasted for seconds at a time but we tend to do it for hours or days at a time Continuously overtensing the diaphragm and other respiratory muscles reduces their strength and range of motion resulting in rapid shallow breathing The inbreath requires muscular contraction but the outbreath does not It is not necessary to do any muscular work during exhalation The positive pressure of air in your lungs is enough to create the force This effortless return of the diaphragm to its resting position is called elastic recoil The air naturally wants to be pressed out of your lungs as it would from a deflating balloon Unfortunately most of us keep our breathing muscles tense during exhalation and this ensnares us in a state of fight or flight Stopping this requires awareness and practice To perform a passive exhalation all you need to do is let your breathing go limp while you are exhaling After a minute or two of practicing this you should actually be able to feel the diaphragm simmer down Relaxation Exercise Unbracing the Diaphragm While Exhaling Perform paced breathing for five minutes Take full inhalations and when you start each exhalation let go of the diaphragm completely Every exhalation should be a completely passive form of freefall throughout which all the breathing musculature is relaxed Imagine the leisurely descent of a parachute You are not doing any work at all and it should proceed at its own pace The air should be oozing out of your nostrils on its own Once you practice this for five minutes you should be able to tell that you were holding your diaphragm like a tense claw during your exhalation before Allowing the diaphragm to go limp during the exhale is extremely important for its health because just like all muscles it needs periods of inactivity to regenerate Because you never stop breathing its only chance for such a microbreak is during the exhalation Imagine that for some reason you are responsible for driving a car up and down a low grade hill over and over again For a while you keep the engine on during the descent but since the descent lasts for a few minutes you realize that you can turn the engine off put the car into neutral and just let it coast without having to touch the brake the accelerator or the Chapter Recognize Muscular Tension Dormancy wheel This is what a passive exhalation should feel like After you finish your inhale just take the keys out of the ignition Your inhalation is also braced it is just much harder to notice An inhalation requires the contraction of the diaphragm down into the gut to create the vacuum that draws air into the lungs But this contraction is often braced beyond what is necessary like the opening of a tightly clenched hand This bracing impedes belly breathing and pulls the air into your upper chest If you can interrupt it during an inhalation you will feel your belly coming uncoupled from the bottom of your rib cage The passive exhale will help you with this uncoupling As you learn to sense your diaphragmatic tension during the exhale you can teach yourself how to lessen the unnecessary tension occurring during the inhale Once you have done this your breathing will become much more efficient and less labored It is worth mentioning that aside from bracing the inhale during the exhale many of us also brace the exhale during the inhale This is when we keep the thoracic muscles responsible for exhalation clenched while breathing in This is also completely unnecessary Spend some time trying to notice these effects in your own breathing After performing the passive exhalation for a few days a sense of irritation in your chest will dissipate When this discomfort and inflammation is totally gone you will feel a profound sense of relief The passive exhalation is so important that consider it the fifth tenet of optimal breathing Expect it to increase the benefits you get from paced breathing The passive exhale is such a fundamental routine that it is actually a reflexive response that all mammals use after a stressor has come and gone Can you guess what it is Once a stressful episode has resolved all species of mammal exhibit deep spontaneous breaths They inhale very deeply so that they can then exhale passively to reset and restore equilibrium in their autonomic nervous system We know this as sighing Even mice sigh and believe that like us they do it to provide the diaphragm with a microbreak However if you provide your diaphragm with a microbreak during every exhalation you wont feel the need to sigh anymore The trick is to learn to exhale limply even after a shallow inhalation Sighing is very frequent in people diagnosed with panic disorders used to sigh constantly but after diaphragmatic retraining rarely catch myself doing it anymore Master the passive exhalation because it is highly detraumatizing Persistent Muscle Tension Creates Trigger Points Excessive muscle tension and the absence of microbreaks eventually produce knots that can be felt under your skin They occur all over the body They are often palpable raised nodules tender to the touch producing a dull aching pain when pressed firmly In the medical literature these knots are referred to as trigger points trigger sites or spasms and they cause reductions in muscle mass flexibility strength and endurance They are hyperirritated spots in taut bands of skeletal muscle fibers created by chronic muscle overload They usually involve a local contraction in a small number of muscle fibers within a larger muscle bundle Many scientists refer to these knots as myofascial trigger points The myo is derived from the Greek word for muscle while fascial refers to the tough outer lining that keeps muscles in place fascia is a type of connective tissue that forms a continuous scaffold around all the muscles and tendons in the body Myofascial trigger points are small patches of muscle and fascia that pull together in an isolated spasm They are different from wholemuscle PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body spasms like a charley horse or cramp which are more transient have a sudden onset and involve hard contraction of the entire muscle Although they can contribute to cramping trigger points are different in that they are longlasting have a gradual onset and involve partial contractions in small portions of the muscle In addition to their immediate detrimental effects on muscle function trigger points often cluster together and pull on tendons and ligaments causing joint problems and deep pain The tension they cause at joints can result in clicking popping and grating sounds Over time they can contribute to bone spurs pinched nerves and arthritis Trigger points can be seen in greatly magnified pictures of muscle tissue like the one below They look like bunchedup distortions in a weblike matrix connective tissue Figure Knot of partially contracted sarcomeres in the muscle fiber from the leg of a dog at x magnification Compare with the normal sarcomeres above and below it This knot looks like an active contraction but has no electrical EMG activity and is thus stuck in partial contraction Reprinted with permission from Simons and Stolov Dr Janet G Travell MD is generally recognized as the leading pioneer in trigger point diagnosis and treatment It has been said that she singlehandedly created this branch of medicine Travell who was the White House physician during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations emphasized that trigger points are demoralizing and devastating to quality of life She called them the scourge of mankind Advancedstage trigger points are the worst They usually present in clusters are the most painful and involve highly warped muscle fibers with large numbers of molecular aberrations In reality most people are practically covered in trigger points from old injuries bad posture poor workout techniques and bracing Muscle Tension Develops at the Molecular Level To better understand trigger points we need a little more background on muscles themselves Muscles are composed of fibers which are themselves made of smaller fibers The thinnest of Chapter Recognize Muscular Tension Dormancy those hold sarcomeres in which contraction takes place A sarcomere is a microscopic structure built from two kinds of filamentlike molecules actin and myosin Actin and myosin form interdigitating strands that can be activated When active they move past each other quickly creating contractile force Fascicle Fiber Myofibril all I Ui ml a a illustration A Muscle made of fibers containing sarcomeres B Microscopic view of contracted sarcomeres in a muscle myofibril An actual trigger point may contain dozens of these tiny knots Millions of sarcomeres must contract to perform even the smallest movement After they contract the sarcomeres relax when their actin and myosin strands are uncoupled from each other and pull apart In healthy muscle actin and myosin wait patiently in a relaxed decoupled state until an impulse from the nervous system tells them to pull past each other again In unhealthy muscle they are stuck Many specialists believe that trigger points start to form when overuse causes actin and myosin to become fixed in an interlocked position This interlocking puts the muscle into a static state of contracture in which the strands no longer separate and relax Relaxation Actin ele ACTIN Contraction Illustration A Relaxed sarcomere on top and a contracted sarcomere on the bottom with actin and myosin visible B Myosin curls like a finger pulling on actin and allowing them to slide past each other to create muscular movement C Human neck and shoulders covered with clusters of trigger points PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body Trigger points originate from a few different sources sustained lowlevel contraction sudden muscle overload eccentric contraction when a muscle stretches and contracts simultaneously and gross trauma or injury to the muscle Regardless of the cause trigger points slow blood flow to the muscle and cause oxygen deprivation at the affected site The reduced blood flow then causes sarcomeres to contract further constricting the surrounding capillaries Capillaries normally supply the muscle with blood so when they constrict it leads to reduced circulation or ischemia that impairs many cellular processes Without blood flow chemical waste products from muscular activity start to accumulate Eventually the waste stimulates pain receptors in nearby nerve endings sending pain signals to the brain Active trigger points demonstrate an unusual biochemical mix not seen in healthy tissue It is an acidic milieu containing increased levels of proinflammatory contractile and paincausing substances And remember we draw our very breaths with muscles that are affected by these symptoms Muscle Shortening and Scar Tissue A muscle can change its resting length to adapt to the length at which it is habitually used or positioned Muscles usually become shorter due to prolonged contracture This is known as adaptive muscle shortening and places the muscle in a state of partial contraction It is another pervasive clinical finding that affects every person who has ever lived People confined to long periods of sitting exhibit debilitating shortening of the lower back and hip muscles especially the hip flexors Similarly wearing highheeled shoes causes prolonged plantar flexion of the foot which results in adaptive shortening of the soleus muscles Constant squinting shortens the muscle fibers of the orbicularis oculi narrowing the eyes Straining the sneer causes the muscles that lift the top lip to shrink making the face appear hideous When the muscles in your knees and ankles shorten they leave you vulnerable to sprains and tears Holding a hunched neck posture leads to shortening of the sternocleidomastoid and other muscles in the front of the neck making it very difficult to stop hunching because the decreased length of these muscles pulls the head down As Chapter will explain bracing the muscles surrounding the genitals may play a role in sexual dysfunction There are examples of adaptive muscle shortening in muscles all over our bodies The pressure from prolonged contracture pulls on tendons straining them and distressing the joints when they move Next ligaments and joint capsules retract These changes perturb nerve endings within the muscles and joints causing deepseated pain Muscle shortening also increases wear and tear contributing to inflammatory and degenerative changes such as tendonitis fasciitis bursitis and osteoarthritis Many different tissue types are damaged by strain including articular cartilages connective tissues tendons fascia menisci ligaments and spinal disks Adaptive muscle shortening can be made worse by the accumulation of scar tissue Scar tissue is a very tough inflexible fibrous material that binds itself to strained muscle fibers attempting to draw the damaged fibers together The result is a bulky mass of stiff tissue surrounding the site In some cases it is possible to feel and even see this mass under the skin When scar tissue adheres to muscle fibers it prevents them from sliding back and forth properly limiting the flexibility of a muscle or joint Chapter Recognize Muscular Tension Dormancy Scar tissue tends to shrink and deform the surrounding tissues diminishing strength and making the body feel heavy It tends to adhere to nerve cells leading to chronic pain Existing research has found that scar tissue is weaker less elastic more prone to future reinjury and up to times more painsensitive than normal healthy tissue This results in chronic pain that under most circumstances lasts a lifetime In people who brace the most these effects create visibly apparent postural distortions Excessive Tension is Debilitating and Constrains Your Physique Muscles encumbered by trigger points and adaptive shortening can be conceptualized as dormant muscles This is so because they are difficult to recruit dont move with the rest of the body and are starved of blood Dormant muscles cannot recover adequately after a workout and are resistant to growth and strengthening because they can never fully relax and thus can never fully heal As long as they are under constant selfimposed strain they will continue to grow harder more fragile and decrepit Scrunchedup muscles crumple your body and cause it to buckle under every movement Pregnancy itself does not necessarily adversely affect a womans physique Rather it is the months of prolonged bracing absence of postural variety and limited range of motion that can accompany the later stages of pregnancy for some women that have prominent longlasting effects Moreover although some of the natural variation in physique between humans is due to exercise genetics and exposure to testosterone much of it can be attributed to differences in dormant muscle that arose due to bracing during stress You have significant untapped reservoirs of muscle in your body that correspond to areas you brace and have been bracing for decades For example think about the hunch you probably have in your neck Starting at birth you had a natural tendency to straighten the cervical vertebrae in your neck stacking them in a straight line That straightnecked upright posture is optimal But social pressures can affect how we carry our heads and necks the less safe stable or welcoming your childhood environment was the more you were conditioned to hunch over communicating modesty or submission The standard submissive neck posture is to stoop over jut your chin out and tilt your head back All of those changes reduce your height and help you appear guarded But they also introduce a slant in your neck which is an inefficient way of stacking vertebrae against the force of gravity The excessive tension that develops leads to the proliferation of trigger points and those in turn cause muscle dormancy in your neck shoulders and chest and from there on down the spine Chapter will detail exactly how to reclaim your neck and regain its flexibility and full range of motion But the neck is just one example of a reservoir of muscle that has been suppressed that you can tap into These reservoirs can be found all over our bodies Take your clothes off and look in the mirror Any body parts that dont appear nubile and supple have great potential If all of our muscles were brought completely out of dormancy we would have the physiques if not bulk of elite athletes Injuries Lead to Muscular Bracing Injuries contribute to and interact with bracing After getting hurt individuals often try to avoid experiencing pain by tensing the area surrounding the site of injury When someone sprains their ankle they unintentionally contract many muscles in the ankle setting it in a fixed PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body defensive position This is intended to protect the injury In fact it is known as splinting because it acts as a splint to immobilize the joint Unfortunately it also deprives the muscles of the rest oxygen and nutrients they need to heal As a result splinting worsens the pain in the long term by overtaxing the muscles involved This happens partly because we tend to breathe extremely shallowly whenever we injure ourselves because as you know shallow breathing causes bracing This is why whenever experience an injury pull out my breath metronome immediately Injuries almost always result in some form of persistent muscle tension Even major medical procedures can contribute atrogenic pain is a term referring to pain caused by medical treatment and is especially common with the use of braces slings casts and surgeries Immobilizing a broken forearm with a cast can easily lead to frozen shoulder syndrome in which a group of deltoid muscles is barred from moving through its normal range of motion as tension gradually mounts had a melanoma removed from my shoulder blade in my midteens and recently found that have a series of muscular knots under the scar from bracing the area My brother received a large shot in the quadriceps during his appendectomy years ago and he says the same area troubles him often Think conscientiously about past injuries medical procedures and other forms of trauma identifying how they might be causing you to brace or tense muscles even today Stress and muscular tension also make us more susceptible to physical injury because tense muscles fail and tear under excessive force whereas relaxed ones are more resilient The muscles strained by sitting in a fixed position at a computer for eight hours a day are the most susceptible to damage from a fall or car accident Thus injury can lead to bracing and bracing can lead to reinjury Tense muscle tissue can be conceptualized as an injury or as a trauma even if there was no precipitating accident The word injury is defined as physical damage to a biological organism The word trauma is defined as an abnormality in an organisms tissues usually caused by injury By these definitions any form of persistent bracing and the trigger points stemming from it are both injurious and traumatic Unfortunately once they get bad enough they can poison us emotionally The Link Between Tension Pain and Negative Emotion These mountains that you are carrying you were only supposed to climb Najwa Zebian b Physical pain is an adaptive evolved mechanism The pain from a cut or burn informs us that our bodies are suffering damage It gives us builtin motivation to withdraw from the source of harm and learn to avoid it in the future But what about muscular pain also known as myalgia In contrast to physical pain myalgia has more to do with restricting movement It compels us to refrain from specific motions that might be damaging or harmfulit tells us not to overstretch a strained muscle not to bend a weakened joint too far It also tells us when we approach the limits of our healthy range of motion giving us important feedback about what our bodies can and cannot do This would have restricted aging huntergatherers from movements that had