Stephen Porges: Countering the effects of social distancing

Social distancing and separation are a big part of what is needed to deal with the pandemic. In this short conversation, we talk about how to counter their effects: we still need to be sensitive to our nervous system’s need to socially engage and connect. Below the video, you will find a transcript. You can also get the transcript as a PDF. See also PDFs of translations into German, Italian, Spanish and Turkish. Transcript of the conversation (with timing of video): Serge Prengel (00:00): These are really difficult times. Stephen Porges (00:03): They certainly are. And there’s an irony going on because we have to avoid becoming infected. There’s no question that the Coronavirus is a health risk, especially to those of us who are more mature. It is real. The question is related to the way that we need to behave to reduce that risk through social isolation. And this strategy creates an amazing paradox for our nervous system and our needs to interact with other people because, as humans we have a powerful need is to connect and to co-regulate with others, but now we’re being told that this is not the right thing to do. There are priorities and the top priority is not to get infected, but there’s also a priority of understanding the needs of our nervous system… Serge Prengel (00:51): So, this is a counterintuitive situation where we cannot trust our instinct, evolutionary instinct, because we have to do something different. Not from coercion, but actually from understanding that social isolation is required at this point. Stephen Porges (01:08): I think that is a really concise way of explaining the paradox through which our nervous system is trying to navigate. And that is, we need to socially isolate. However, our nervous system says, Hey, that’s not the way we evolved, not the way we need to be. We need to co-regulate, so we need to be smart. (01:31): Now we need to know what the true priorities are. And the top priority of course, is to stay alive. But how can we mitigate that nervous system’s demand, request, and passion, to connect? And we have to find ways to connect! We have to do that through telephone and through video chat. They are really reasonably good, and email is okay, but the value of hearing someone’s voice or seeing someone’s face is a powerful reassuring cue of safety to our nervous system. So we have to reach out. It’s been remarkable over the past few days, because the world turned from a social to an isolated world within in a week. (02:09): A week ago, I was in New York city, it was elbow to elbow. I was talking at a crowded conference. And my comment was, I’ll give people hugs. I’ll shake their hands this month, but next month I will do something different. And within a few days, the world changed. And we realized that it wasn’t a fear of a virus that was really distal in time. It was here. We need to really take care of ourselves and to really monitor our bodies’ need to connect, to give others a hug, to smile, to be reassuring, to touch them on their shoulders or on their hands, to let them know that we’re here to support them and be with them. What I’ve noticed over the past few days is my very close friends have reached ou...