The Art of Coming Down: Helping the Body Move From Activity Into Rest

Clients arrive to treatment carrying the day with them. They may be lying completely still on the table, but the body hasn't arrived yet. The breath is high. The jaw is working. The eyes are moving underneath the eyelids. A shoulder doesn't quite want to release into the table. Sometimes the person is still talking fast. It usually takes about an hour for things to shift: the breath gets deeper, the body heavier, the face changes. And suddenly the body is actually responding to the work. This transition interests me enormously because we all need to be able to make it, not only during massage. We need to know how to come down.

Modern life asks us to move between states very quickly. We can finish a work call, answer a message, put a child to bed, read something upsetting on the phone and then decide that now we are going to sleep. The mind understands the schedule but the body needs more time.

We need activation

I want to be careful with the language of “calming the nervous system,” because I think sometimes we make calmness sound like the ideal state. But it isn't- the world has duality. We need activation.

The body has extraordinary systems for mobilizing us. Heart rate, blood flow, and hormones change. Attention narrows or expands. Muscles prepare for action.

You need activation to work, exercise, respond to danger, perform, create, care for other people and move through the world. The issue is not activation itself. The question is whether we can also transition out of it. This is where ritual can become very useful.

Ritual gives the body information

A ritual can be simple: a sequence repeated with intention.

You lower the lights.

You heat water.

You bathe.

You use an oil you associate with evening.

You work on your feet.

You sit.

You breathe.

When a sequence is repeated, the body becomes familiar with it. We understand this intuitively with children. We create bedtime routines because the sequence helps prepare them for sleep. Adults are not somehow beyond this. We respond to rhythm too.

Start with the senses

If I want to change someone's state during bodywork, I have several ways of communicating with the body before saying anything: touch; temperature; sound; aroma; movement; breath. These are also available at home. Establish your preferences:

Light or dark? Silence or sound? Warmth or coolness? Strong or subtle scents? Firm or light touch?

Experience your breath

Breath practices can become very sophisticated. Yoga gives us an enormous science of pranayama, and different breathing practices are used for different purposes. But before manipulating the breath, learn to observe it.

Where does your breath move?

Can you feel the ribs expand?

Does the abdomen move?

Do you hold the breath while concentrating?

Can you breathe comfortably through the nose?

When you lie down at night, is the breath fast or slow?

This information is more valuable than immediately forcing yourself into a technique.

For evening, I generally prefer breathing that is quiet and unforced. Allowing the exhalation to become somewhat longer can be useful, provided there is no strain.

The important word is allowing. Breath is one of the places where people can try so hard to relax that they create another form of effort.

Rest and stimulation are different experiences

Sometimes we say we are resting when what we mean is that we have stopped moving.

You can be physically still and very stimulated. A phone makes this obvious. The body is sitting on a sofa while the mind moves through dozens of images, conversations, ideas and emotional responses.

When you are "resting", ask yourself: what is the experience you are creating?

There are evenings when music is exactly what I want. There are times when conversation is nourishing. There are times when silence feels better. Practice learning the difference.

Ayurveda asks us to become sensitive to qualities. Is there too much movement? Too much heaviness? Too much heat? Too much stimulation? Once you begin thinking this way, you don't need somebody else to prescribe every detail of your evening. You begin to intuit your own self.

Respect for transitions

One of the things traditional cultures understood very well was transition: mornings, evenings, meals, seasons, all had associated practices. Modern life has made many things wonderfully convenient, but convenience can remove transitions. There is value in putting some of those boundaries back, not because the past was better, but because the body still lives in time and still has its own rhythms to honor.

A good ritual does not need to be complicated, but it does deserve your full attention. The honoring of self is what truly brings us to rest.