Solis

On Saturday, I wrote about the definition of stress (at base: what your mind does to your body when it encounters something new) and the two types of stress (the energizing "eustress" and the dulling, familiar "distress"). In order to help folks who are experiencing nervous anxiety as they begin (or contemplate beginning or panic about contemplating beginning) lifestyle changes, I offered the metaphor and science of mazes as a way of understanding what your mind is doing to you.

That post ended with diagnosis, but no treatment. The stress researchers do offer practical, substantiated advice for those contemplating mazes or amazing steps forward in their lives. Dr. Sternberg picks up her narrative:

One of the things that affects stress levels is the degree of control you have over a situation. The more you are in control, the less stressed you will be; the rush of hormones and nerve chemicals will make you feel stimulated, even exhilarated. The less control you have, the more stressed you feel. In a maze, you have no control over the twists and turns and dead ends you encounter, and this causes tension and anxiety.

Part of the trick to reducing the stress response is to fool your brain into thinking you have some degree of control. One anti-stress buffer that can bring you back to balance, especially in new environments and novel situations, is practice. Each time you walk through a maze, the stress reaction lessens until eventually it disappears. You have learned each twist and turn, and you don’t have to make choices at each step. The route is no longer new. The more familiar places are, the less likely they are to trigger anxiety and the stress response.

Sternberg contrasts mazes with labyrinths: complex paths that require no choices of you.

Unlike a maze, with many choice points and many paths, a true labyrinth has only one path in and one path out. . . There are no decisions to be made and no blind alleys, and, most important, you can see the path ahead. There is no reason to be vigilant – you simply follow the path. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth does not inspire fear or the stress response. It calms.

In purely local terms, she seems to offer an explanation for the ritual of progressive "tasking" which helps subs develop the obedience instinct. That is, as you train yourself not to second-guess every command, question every task, pause to assess every instruction -- that is, when you begin surrendering to the competence and goodwill of the Instructor -- distress evaporates and eustress becomes possible. That impulse is contrary to our life-long training ("it's my body and my life, I'll do with them exactly what I please"), which explains why obedience must be gradually inculcated and continually reinforced. When you get to the point that it doesn't even occur to you to think "why should I pin a coin to the wall with my nose?" much less "this is pointless, let's just pretend I did it," you're halfway home.

Too, I wonder, but cannot know, whether she’s offering another way to think about “sub-space”?

Esther Sternberg, M.D., staff scientist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, researcher in the science of mind-body interactions, from Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being (2009)