Weightlifting to practice Mind-Body awareness

connect with your nervous system through interoception

Interoception is the practice of sensing internal signals from your body.  There are a myriad of ways to experience interoception. For example, when you complete 10 squats at a moderate pace, you might feel your body warm up, heart rate increase, breath quicken, etc.  Those are all examples of interoception and also a way to observe your nervous system response.

What does that have to do with wellness?  Well, these dysregulating nervous system responses might also arise when you experience anxiety or trauma triggers resulting from thoughts/memories. Perhaps if you can induce these nervous system responses intentionally in a safe enough environment, you give yourself an opportunity to practice bringing your body back to a more regulated resting state.

Weightlifting to widen your window of tolerance.

build capacity, capability, and confidence

Many practitioners in trauma informed, somatic informed, and neurobiology informed fields use a model called the Window of Tolerance, (Siegel, 1999).  This term has been adapted to refer to the range of specific emotions, affective intensity or physiological arousal a given person can tolerate before becoming dysregulated and hyperaroused or hypoaroused. (Ogden, 2001).

Staying in the window reflects the ability to observe your emotions and body response even if they are vacillating in intensity.  Being out of the window reflects an experience of either being so amped up that you are overwhelmed by emotions and body responses (hyperarousal), or you are so overwhelmed that your mind-body shuts down (hypoarousal).

Building a weightlifting practice offers an opportunity to widen your window of tolerance by expanding your capacity and capability both physically and emotionally. The more you do these workouts, the more likely your body adapts to that workload and possibly can take on more. This practice of mindfulness and intentionality might also be a helpful parallel in managing anxiety or trauma triggers which can potentially expand your window of tolerance in everyday life.