Moving together
Did you know that synchronised movement with others is actually really good for your health and wellbeing?
Synchronised movement helps us to feel connected to others and build social bonds which aid our survival. We are biologically hard wired to live in social groups. We are not solitary animals like Western, individualist societies would like you to believe. We survive better together, bringing our own strengths and skills to the table to create one strong, cohesive group. We naturally do not want to be on our own or risk being ostracised from our social groups. This is why we biologically feel emotions like guilt or shame - to get us to change our behaviour to be ‘accepted’ by the wider group. Our nervous system wants us to survive and to connect or belong.
Our nervous systems rely on each other to know if we’re safe (or not) and we have the ability to co-regulate with each other - either calming each other down or winding each other up to prepare for fight or flight. So when we spend time with people that are feeling calm and regulated (like in a yoga class) it rubs off. Some researchers feel that synchronicity between kin may have been selected during the course of our evolution to enable us to bond with large numbers of people at once, allowing that sense of connection and belonging to give us a survival advantage. Group membership brings us protection, security, more access to food and more mating opportunities.
Some research has shown that synchronised movement can even increase our tolerance to pain. Movement even at low exertion - like yoga, especially synchronised movement, can release endorphins which in turn can in increase our pain thresholds. One study found that as long as people saw that other people were doing the same movement at the same time as them, their pain thresholds went up.
Moving and deeply breathing with other people can help increase our empathy and compassionate others and to ourselves too. It can make us more able to trust people and feel a sense of unity within our social groups. These bonds can show us that the people we are around are just like us, and this sense of compassion has been so essential to human evolution and survival. Research suggests that even tapping along to music in sync with someone else can make you feel more connected.
Moving together, even just as a pair, can help us feel part of something bigger than ourselves. Feeling similar to one another weakens the individual concept of ourselves and others. A teaching from yogic philosophy, Hinduism and Buddhism is ‘non-dualism’ — there are never two separate things - only one. In Sanskrit it is called ‘advaita’ meaning ‘not two [but one]’. There is no difference between the subject and the object, they are both the same. We cannot separate the individual things/people from the group, the whole. So with synchronised movement non dualism comes into play. How do you separate your own experiences from that of your partner or neighbour? They’re the same, we’re the same. How do we know where we end and the next person begins? We don’t — we are just one body moving and breathing together.
Yoga is a fantastic practice of synchronised breath and movement together in a group. If you’re interested in joining a supportive yoga community then look no further.
You can join me in person every Tuesday evening at the Town Hall in Painswick, nr Stroud
- CLICK HERE for more information
You can also join me online via my Breathe & Balance membership for twice weekly video live streamed yoga content (or watch on demand anytime)
- CLICK HERE for more information