Working in Movement

My interest in Feldenkrais and other like-mined approaches to human functioning has less to do with movement per se and more to do with their quite noticeable effects on the autonomic nervous system. That is, they can calm you down, often quite dramatically. With that in mind, I Googled for the term "autonomic motor response," the degree to which a person shows emotional reactivity to stress.

Most of the stuff that turned up was medical, of course. One interesting one was a NASA-funded study at Morehouse University. Though this study does not include movement education, it does offer autogenic therapy. Autogenic involves becoming aware of and gently influencing bodily sensations. From the website:

AFTE is a combined application of several physiolgical and perceptual training techniques that include Autogenic Therapy, and biofeedback. Autogenic Therapy is a self-regulatory technique that has been shown to have wide effects on autonomic reactivity. This training method involves the use of self- suggestion exercises that are designed to induce bodily sensations (e.g., warmth in the hands) that are highly correlated with specific physiological responses such as peripheral vasodilatation. When these exercises are practiced in series, the result is a relaxed (i.e., parasympathetic-like) physiological profile within the subject that prevents the emergence of behavioral and physiological reactions to stress. Biofeedback consists of providing the subject with augmented sensory information about ongoing activity levels of some physiological response (e.g., heart rate on digital panel meter), and rewarding him whenever such levels fluctuate in a direction selected by the trainer (i.e., heart rate fluctuates above baseline). The result is that the subject can eventually maintain these changed levels for longer periods of time. Physiological control is enhanced with repetition and practice.