On Well-Being
John Chambers Christopher, Ph.D.
Human well-being and the ability to flourish is only possible when we feel safe and secure in the world. When this basic need to feel safe is not met, our sympathetic nervous system is activated, and we default to and inhabit a “fight or flight” stress response. In flight-fight, anything not essential for immediate survival is turned off—this includes the immune system, the digestive system, the human growth and reproductive systems. When these systems are turned off for too long, or are turned on and off too frequently, they break down, leading to the illnesses of modernity: diabetes, heart disease, infertility, obesity, anxiety, depression, autoimmune diseases, sleep disorders, and on.
This activated stress response can lead to detrimental changes in the structure of the brain and negatively impact emotional regulation, attention, concentration, and memory. Psychologically, when in the stress response, we preconsciously sense our very survival is at stake, and in this activated state, the natural state of being open, relaxed, and receptive is not available to us. Instead, we are vigilant and tense, psychologically defensive and contracted. In this state we identify with a narrow view of ourselves; we are less likely to think in terms of “us” and “we” and more in terms of “me” and “mine.” Preoccupied by our own survival, we shut down and are unable to be present to our in-the-moment experience as it presents itself, and broader, to life, others, and ourselves. This resulting perceived lack of safety also contributes to emotional reactivity and distorted perceptions, both of which interfere with our ability to live ethically, as hyperarousal can impair judgment.
Additionally, while in this vigilant state, we automatically focus on threats and cannot afford to attend to our inner sensations. Thus, our natural state of dwelling in the body and receiving its feedback is foreclosed. But this cuts us off from the roots of emotional sensitivity, compassion, and the experience of a common humanity.
The stress response to insecurity and trauma is essential to our survival. But if we leave it activated chronically, as too many of us do, then it, 1) contributes to physical and mental illness, 2) interferes with our openness and sensitivity to what is happening in the moment, and, 3) decreases performance, learning, and creativity. What we know about the deleterious impact of living in this habitual state of hyperarousal could naturally explain our lack of well-being in current American society, including high levels of physical disease, stress, anxiety, depression, anger, apathy, loneliness, insecurity, lack of connection, and more.
Our Need for Safety
Earliest experiences of safety and security occur in the womb. As children, experiences like trauma or other conditions where we lack basic safety and security have been found to compromise physical and mental health. Parents and caretakers who are able to provide attunement to our needs, physical safety and emotional sensitivity have children that are healthier. Tragically, the more adverse childhood experiences we have, the more we struggle socially, behaviorally, and psychologically, and have poor health.
But parents and caretakers can only provide security and safety if they themselves feel safe and secure. And they can only feel safe and secure if their social and natural environments provide safety and security.
Society & Safety
Where we are in the socio-economic hierarchy matters. As such, it is the most important determinant of our health and longevity; more so than individual behaviors like whether we exercise, how we eat, and whether we smoke or drink. The now classic Whitehall study found that the lower in the work hierarchy British civil servants were, the worse their health and the shorter their life span. Because they live in the U.K., they all have access to the same health care. We can make sense of these results by noticing that the further we, like most animals, are from the top, the less safe we feel. What follows is more sympathetic nervous system activation, and more time spent in stress response. Those at the top of the social hierarchy have more power, influence and resources. They tend to feel more safe and secure, have less flight-fight activation, and consequently have better health and live longer.
Societies in which the gap between the wealthy and the poor is substantial also have poorer overall health. People who do not have safe neighborhoods and housing, enough food, access to nature, and social policies that provide support, need to be more vigilant. Their sympathetic nervous system remains activated longer, and overall health and well-being is compromised. Sadly, this often begins in childhood.
Another source of vulnerability and insecurity is racism. Even at the level of micro-aggressions, racism keeps those who are its target in a vigilant state, leading to adverse long-term health outcomes. Consequently, white Americans, have better health and live longer than ethnic minorities in the U.S.
Taking all of this into account, it is not surprising that the U.S., which has the highest gap between the “have’s” and the “have not’s” in the industrial world, was ranked 31st in life expectancy by the World Health Organization in 2015. This embarrassing statistic looks even worse when we consider that we spend two and a half times more on health care than most developed nations. Clearly there are many culprits, but it’s hard not to conclude that perhaps we’ve created a society in which far too many people spend too much time feeling vulnerable, and thus, stuck in a flight-flight state. And we’re paying for it, with not only our wallets, but our lives.
Creating Safety
On the bright side, a considerable amount of medical and psychological research now indicates that mindfulness training—a secular adaptation of contemplative and meditative disciplines—can help us better deal with stress and its destructive impact on our well-being. Mindfulness-based interventions have been extensively researched in hundreds of randomized control trials and thousands of publications have been found to be highly effective in helping people with a wide variety of physical and psychological conditions.
Mindfulness cultivates the capacity to become aware of, tolerate, and accept our present moment experience. At the same time, becoming mindful helps us gain control over our autonomic nervous system and reduce the amount of time we spend in a sympathetic nervous system state. On the physical level, this decreases the amount of time the immune system, and other systems in the body, are turned off or dysregulated.
On a neuropsychological level, mindfulness training develops attentional control, emotional regulation, metacognition and executive function. It also cultivates interoception or awareness of internal sensations—which is a first step in emotional literacy. Experientially, mindfulness training cultivates a kind of inner strength, security, and resilience by teaching us how to tolerate and accept our experience.
Mindfulness is especially helpful in working with difficult emotions. It helps us find a middle ground, between denial and suppression, on the one side, and acting out, on the other. Mindfulness helps us learn to bravely face, and discover, that we can survive the “dark emotions” and painful experiences that life inevitably brings. This leads to true resilience as we come to face these difficult experiences and events with less sympathetic nervous system activation. Through mindfulness we can work more consciously and intentionally with the stress, loneliness, frustration, and insecurity that run rampant in our society. Becoming more conscious and intentional, we are less likely to act out destructively against ourselves and others.
We Must Do More
But we must also strive to provide all people with conditions of safety and security. Mindfulness, by itself, can help us better cope with the challenges of life. But if these challenges are structural—like racism and gross inequality—then mindfulness is potentially helping people better tolerate social conditions that are unjust and inherently intolerable. Hence it is essential to address the underlying conditions that give rise to unhealthy stress, and not just treat the symptoms.
If the state of our nervous system depends on our sense of safety and security, then it makes sense to evaluate our society and our lives in terms of the degree of safety and security that is present or absent. In this way “safety and security” provide a metric—a way of assessing the conditions that lead to health and well-being. Using safety and security as a yardstick, we can evaluate social policies and programs to see whether they create conditions that facilitate our ability to regulate our inner world and nervous system. Perhaps as a nation we might then reconsider how we have collectively responded to such issues as universal health care, family leave, and homelessness.
Ultimately we need to both address the societal conditions that exacerbate stress and teach skills like mindfulness to help children and adults minimize the amount of time they are in flight-fight. We also need to educate people to see that stress related illness and distress is largely not the fault of the individual. We would then be working from both ends: the social and the individual. It is easy to imagine that this would reduce our health care costs and help us live longer and healthier lives in which we can more deeply care about each other.