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We are born with a vast but nevertheless finite amount of adaptive
capacity. More adaptation means less remaining adaptive capacity.
Life has survived innumerable emergencies in its evolutionary past. Emergencies large and small are a normal part of a life that is never 100% risk-free. But they usually don’t last very long, and there are well-devised and simple workaday pathways to enter emergency response states (both physiology and mental-sensory-attentive states) and to then de-escalate and fully return to a "safe-enough" normality. If we can understand and use our human body-mind according to ancient "rules" by which these emergency adaptations re-normalise, then the body, physiology and mind – everything – will always be running at an optimum and will be the most healthy it can be given the immediate circumstances. [1]
To re-frame this slightly, an adapt-ed body-mind has already used up some of its adaptive capacity and so is less adapt-able, and probably also less resilient. The same physiological resources are used for everything, and the same physiological adaptive mechanisms are re-purposed for all adaptations. So Health can be defined as a state of minimum adaptation and minimum energy usage [1] (given the specific combination of adaptive demands being met), therefore equating to
Things that demand more adaptedness include stress, danger, being too hot or too cold, being hungry or thirsty, infections, exertion, loss (particularly including loss of companionship and the support it provides). Things that reduce adaptedness (and increase adaptability) include a sense of love, safety, sufficiency, play, community/companionship/support, times of awe or feelings of connection to something greater (if only the landscape), feelings of self-worth. Exploration and skilled effort sit in an interesting place in the middle of these two.
A friend recently told me a great story about adaptation.
When he was 13 years old his (large) family who lived in Kent took a holiday in Cornwall, a distance of over 300 miles. His mother made two blanket saddlebages - for him and his older brother, they were given some money, and told to cycle to Cornwall to meet the rest of the family (who travelled by car). [2] It was the early 1970's there were no motorways, B-roads were almost single track, it took them a whole week of pedalling, and it was a great adventure. When he arrived in Cornwall he tried to run on the beach and kept falling over because his legs had forgotten how to walk and had adapted to cycling. After a while - maybe half an hour - his legs re-membered, de-adapted from cycling and re-adapted to walking and running.
We are so vastly adaptive, and part of that adaptive capacity is the capacity to de-adapt, to make room for a new adaptation. I know this is not a very PC opinion, but my feeling - as much from personal life experience as anything else - is that most “neurodivergence” is actually adaptation to difficult early life, pre-birth and generational imprints. As an adaptation, it is inherently temporary, BUT has pushed the sensory and other aspects of the nervous system into zones that would otherwise never have been explored. So there are often secondary benefits. Identifying with the neurodivergence (as if the adaptation is who we are) prevents de-adaptation and consequent re-adaptation. My experience is that when the dysfunctional, dissociative aspects of the adaptation de-adapt, the secondary benefits can remain if they are still used - the baby does not go with the bathwater, because the body and nervous system always accomodates now it is used, and if you use an old skill, it remains.
References & Notes