Compassion & The Stress Response

Original photo by @madelynhannah via Instagram

Compassion and The Stress Response 

When the Sabre tooth tiger approached our ancestors in the cave, they didn’t stop to count how many teeth the tiger had, wonder how hungry it must be and how many tiger cubs it needed to feed.

No, our ancestors, with the help of their in-built physiological stress response, which was designed to save their lives, either fought (fight) or fled (flight). 

When a tiger is staring you in the face, ready to make you it’s next meal, there really isn’t much time to waste being empathetic, compassionate and understanding towards the tiger.

Thankfully the stress response makes this very difficult to do in the moment anyway! For when the sympathetic nervous system is activated, along with a host of physiological changes to our hormones, heart, blood and breathing etc., our brain functioning also changes. Blood rushes from the frontal lobe so that it can be used for the vital organs, movement and identify sensory stimulus.

The frontal lobe, responsible for higher order thinking and emotional expression, regulation and understanding is bypassed for the sake of survival. 

Fight or flight. 

Working with children on the autism spectrum, I’ve seen this play out almost everyday for the past decade. As an occupational therapist in this field, it is crucial to understand the relationship between regulation (a state of calm, balance and homeostasis), relationship, understanding and development. In short, we are not available for learning and engaging if we aren’t regulated.

These days, whilst tigers aren’t turning up at our front doors, that same in-built physiological stress response is being triggered, and more frequently, by things like work deadlines, disagreements with loved one and even traffic jams! The body of a stressed individual can’t distinguish between a tiger, traffic jam, strain of home schooling or a new public health order restriction.

With the added pressures of a global pandemic, it is therefore no surprise we are seeing so much division and a lack of compassion and understanding on social media, mainstream media reports and even in our neighbourhoods. 

Practicing Vedic Meditation won’t make these difficult conversations go away, but by reducing the stress in the physiology we front up with more space for compassion, love and understanding.

We are either contributing to love and harmony in the environment or stress and division. This also applies to when we are acquiring and sharing knowledge. Are we looking for unity, care and understanding or to be right, ridicule and convert?   

Sending love