A systems view of biological health

Section 4: Application and Practical exercises

8.1 : Movement : as a means to regulation and recalibration

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So far as your body is concerned, movement - the ability to move, the quality of movement, the type of movement - is of primary importance.

A study of mice [1] shows that freely chosen movement (running) can renew neural connections and completely wipe out the effects of PTSD. However, it's not just movement itself, because your mental-emotional state and expectations and attention strongly qualify and contextualise the meaning of the movement.

And here we come down to the difference between humans and animals. Humans (at least the ones in our 21st century western digital-techno-industrial society) tend to focus on what's wrong. In contrast animals are intrinsically optimistic, and (if not suffering from PTSD) are always actively calibrating themselves against their environment so that they settle into real safety quite quickly.

So yes - running can requre your brain, BUT to do so you probably need to understand and apply the rest of the material here.

Most of all, movement will bring a lasting sense of safety if there is a simultaneous genuinely interested focus on the (genuine) joy of moving.