Something that I think sometimes gets left out of the healing journey is the importance of the people around us and how the people around you can either heal you or hurt you. The more I have learned about healing, I am seeing more information appear on the importance of nervous system health. The reason for that is because it is only when a nervous system is calm, balanced and in 'rest and digest' mode that it can begin to start healing or working on itself. When the nervous system is not calm, it puts your body in a state of constant alarm and hypersensitivity to danger which leads to inflammation. This concept of healing through our nervous systems is known as co-regulation. We have been co-regulating with our parents from the moment we were born (if not earlier!). So, what is co-regulation? Co-regulation is most simply described as a state where one nervous system calms another. The founders of the Polyvagal theory say that it is "through reciprocal regulation of our autonomic states [of our nervous system] that we feel safe to move into connection and to create trusting relationships". This means that as kids, we used our caregivers to calm our nervous systems, and if our parents were attuned to us, we were more likely to grow into adults with a nervous system that could stay calm, resilient and co-regulate itself too. On the flip side, however, if our parents weren't attuned to our needs, their dysregulated nervous systems might have dysregulated ours. Once our nervous system is dysregulated, we often find it hard to calmly connect with others - and that is well documented in the now well-understood concept known as the Polyvagal Theory. One of the biggest challenges we face today is stress and loneliness because both get in the way of this co-regulation and prevent us from connecting with those around us. Loneliness is an incredibly complex topic that is a huge stressor for people today. This state can cause our body to signal to our nervous system that our surroundings are not safe and we need to move into a state of protection. Learn more about the benefits of co-regulation and why this may just be the key to your health on the blog today!