Blogs
September Blogs
Families all have their own recipe of how they with each other. The core ingredient in the attachment recipe is not the actual problem, but it’s how we deal with each other in moments of distress or conflict. Your partner will respond to you based on the recipe that they learned throughout their childhood and how they were taught to manage the fight or flight response in the presence of vulnerability. These recipe patterns we all experience can go up to three generations deep, so they are deeply rooted within our interactions. However, it is important to know that new recipe patterns can grow and adapt as we establish relationships with our partners.
In times of conflict and distress, it’s important to know that talking does not decrease the stress response. Not at first at least. We need to use our bodies, not our words in these stressful moments. Our bodies can be known as a walking pharmacy, they help us to change stress responses in real time. It may seem like a difficult thing to do, but being able to physically connect in times of distress is one of the best things you can do to relieve the situation. At least 8 seconds of touch can help us to co-regulate with our partner and help to immediately calm our bodies down.
Saslow, L. R., McCoy, S., van der Löwe, I., Cosley, B., Vartan, A., Oveis, C., ... & Epel, E. S. (2014). Speaking under pressure: Low linguistic complexity is linked to high physiological and emotional stress reactivity. Psychophysiology, 51(3), 257-266. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12171
Turner, J. G., Clark, A. J., Gauthier, D. K., & Williams, M. (1998). The effect of therapeutic touch on pain and anxiety in burn patients. Journal of advanced nursing, 28(1), 10-20. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.1998.00770.x
Safe physical proximity is such an important concept when it comes to relational conflict. One of the best, core conflict resolution skills to have is trusting physical connection in the presence of distress. We must calm the body to provide connection during the conflict. However, we need to remember to do this safely. Conflict and distress can be very activating and frustrating, and may feel like unsafe physical connection is the only physical connection available. It is not and should never be what we resort to. It can be hard to remember to safely connect in a physical manner during the distress, but even the most simple gestures (hand holding, hand on the shoulder, rubbing the back, etc.) will be helpful
Holt-Lunstad, J., Birmingham, W. A., & Light, K. C. (2008). Influence of a “warm touch” support enhancement intervention among married couples on ambulatory blood pressure, oxytocin, alpha amylase, and cortisol. Psychosomatic medicine, 70(9), 976-985. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e318187aef7
Ditzen, B., Germann, J., Meuwly, N., Bradbury, T. N., Bodenmann, G., & Heinrichs, M. (2019). Intimacy as related to cortisol reactivity and recovery in couples undergoing psychosocial stress. Psychosomatic medicine, 81(1), 16-25. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000633
There are three main concepts for transitioning through stress: calming the body>to prime your brain>to change your mind. Calming your body helps activate different neural networks to change your experience of the conflict. Although we are physically responsible for calming our own body, we have the ability to calm our bodies with our partner through safe physical proximity. Once our bodies are calm, we can move onto the next two concepts of priming the brain and changing the mind. However, we aren’t able to jump into those concepts without having a calm body first. This can be why it is so much more helpful to focus on calming our bodies during conflict instead of jumping straight to verbal actions.
