You’ve probably heard of triggers — phrases, occasions, or experiences that spark worry or anxiousness — however have you ever heard of their reverse? “Glimmers” are micromoments of pleasure that make you’re feeling protected and linked to your physique and the world round you.
The idea was launched by social employee Deb Dana, LCSW, in her 2018 e book The Polyvagal Principle in Remedy. “Glimmers,” she writes, “will help calm a nervous system in survival mode and produce a return of autonomic regulation.”
In different phrases, they’ll transfer you out of a pressured, triggered state and right into a calmer one.
You would possibly expertise a glimmer whenever you hear a music you like. Or whilst you’re out exploring nature. Maybe it’s seeing your canine wagging his tail whenever you come dwelling, receiving an extended hug from a cherished one, and even consuming an ideal piece of sushi. Something that provides you a comfy, peaceable feeling generally is a glimmer.
Liz Brinkman, RDN, a licensed intuitive-eating counselor in Phoenix, teaches the idea of glimmers to her sufferers who’ve developed patterns of disordered consuming. She finds glimmers helpful in her personal life as effectively and describes the sensation they elicit as a chilled heat in her coronary heart space. “My complete system feels a way of ease,” she says.
Although glimmers are ample, they’re extra evasive than triggers. That’s as a result of our brains are wired to repeatedly scan our environment for threats. “It’s a survival mechanism that’s constructed into our brains — the negativity bias,” explains Justine Grosso, PsyD, a holistic psychologist in Durham, N.C.
Sensing hazard may be harmful in its personal means: Once you really feel threatened, your physique releases adrenaline into the bloodstream, growing your blood stress. If the sense of risk lingers, cortisol ranges rise to maintain the physique on excessive alert. Over time, these results can contribute to different well being issues, together with gastrointestinal points and sleep issues.
“And when you’ve skilled trauma,” Grosso provides, “you’ll have developed a hypervigilance to risk and will even understand a risk when there isn’t one. That’s actually demanding on our bodies.”
However glimmers can counteract that stress response — and the extra glimmers we expertise, the better it’s for us to downshift once we’re triggered. That’s attributable to one thing known as “the window of tolerance,” Grosso says.
The window of tolerance is the house through which we’re in a position to efficiently regulate our feelings. Individuals with a historical past of trauma are inclined to have a slender window of tolerance and will dwell within the state of hyperarousal that Grosso describes.
Actively looking for glimmers widens the window of tolerance, coaching our brains to maintain a watch out for pleasure as a substitute of (or along with) hazard. This helps us construct a extra resilient nervous system, so we really feel triggered for a shorter period of time and the expertise turns into much less intense.
These resilience-building results final. “We’re banking constructive emotional experiences and nice sensations that signify security as a substitute of risk,” Grosso explains.
These are a number of the best methods to hunt and spot glimmers so you’ll be able to take of their calming results.
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GET SUPPORT
Once you first start looking for glimmers, it may be useful to have a glimmer-focused speak with a like-minded good friend or member of the family. In some instances, working with a therapist could possibly be the best strategy.
A therapist may be particularly useful for individuals with a historical past of trauma or PTSD, Brinkman notes. When she labored at a Veterans Affairs hospital, one of many therapists there would ask individuals to think about holding a pet. A sense of calm would come over them as they visualized petting the animal and feeling its purring or rhythmic respiratory.
“She invited them into an expertise they already had,” Brinkman says, “to see if they might entry that very same sense of calm inside themselves once more.”
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WRITE THEM DOWN
The E book of Delights, a collection of brief essays by award-winning poet Ross Homosexual, is an train in glimmer-seeking. Homosexual finds pleasure in little issues — pecans, an infinity scarf, poetry readings — and permits the reader to relish them as effectively. (Be taught extra about his 12 months of chronicling pleasure at “The E book of Delights.”)
Homosexual’s assortment additionally capabilities as a guidebook: Writing in a journal is a helpful approach to type out your ideas, serving to you winnow them all the way down to the center of any matter. On fortunate days, this might lead to a glimmer. Maintain an inventory of the moments that make you’re feeling calm and joyful, utilizing as a lot element as attainable when describing them so you’ll be able to simply entry the sensation later.
You may additionally attempt retaining a sensory pocket book. The important thing right here is to include as a lot of your senses as attainable. What was essentially the most glimmery factor you noticed, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard that day? Linger within the reminiscence to make certain you’re embodying the sensation as you recollect it. (Get extra suggestions for sharpening your senses at “Come to Your Senses: Sensory Retreats.”)
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TAKE AN AWE WALK
A research printed within the journal Emotion in 2022 investigated the emotional advantages of an “awe stroll” on wholesome older adults. Sixty contributors took weekly 15-minute outside walks for eight weeks. An experimental group was directed to note and expertise moments of awe (that are additionally glimmers) throughout their walks; a management group was not.
Those that took awe walks reported feeling better pleasure and different constructive feelings throughout their strolls. In addition they reported extra every day constructive feelings and fewer every day misery afterward. (Uncover extra methods to expertise awe at “ Expertise Extra Awe.”)
You would possibly take an awe stroll whereas forest bathing — a Japanese observe that entails totally immersing your senses in a quiet outside setting — for an additional dose of temper assist. (Find out how reconnecting with nature can provide a spread of well being advantages at “The Advantages of Forest Bathing.”)
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CREATE A RITUAL
Every night, Brinkman and her household talk about the glimmers they skilled that day. “I used to be speaking to one in all my sons the opposite evening,” she remembers, “and I requested him what the most effective a part of his day was. He mentioned, ‘I acquired this actually cool drink of water, and I may really feel it go all the way in which down my throat, into my abdomen, and it felt so good.’ That’s a glimmer.”
You may as well connect glimmer-looking for to an exercise you’re already doing. Attempt trying round your kitchen whereas your espresso brews within the morning: Is there artwork on the wall that delights you? Perhaps you discover the sunshine streaming by the window, or an eye catching array of inexperienced crops.
Or on the finish of the day, whilst you’re brushing your tooth, evaluate the day’s occasions and linger over any glimmers you’ll have encountered.
Reflecting on glimmers can impart the identical emotions of well-being as experiencing them within the second. That is very true whenever you’re in a position to recall the bodily and sensory particulars. Give your self the time and house to maneuver past the visible or aural reminiscence and attempt to really really feel it in your physique. “It’s the alternative of dissociating,” Brinkman explains. “As a substitute, I’m staying in relationship with my physique — feeling current and linked within the second.”
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KEEP IT REAL
Nothing is ideal, and pretending an expertise is ideal defeats the aim of glimmer-seeking. Discovering moments of pleasure doesn’t imply bypassing actuality. As a substitute, Grosso says, “it’s about changing into current to the total spectrum of what’s occurring within the current second.”
Glimmers may be paradoxical, in that they generally include a facet of grief. “As a result of glimmers ship the message to our mind that we’re protected now, we would grieve a time once we weren’t,” she explains. It may be painful to acknowledge that previous trauma, but it surely can be therapeutic to acknowledge it from a spot of calm and security.
