Clasp hands for the new normal

 “When are things going to return to normal?” This question was posed by a friend of mine this morning as we talked on yet another video call about the new world of lockdown. This led me to reflect on what ‘normal’ is, and whether all forms of ‘normal’ are worth getting back to?

There have been many examples throughout history when normal has been severely disrupted to the extent that it was never reconfigured after the disruption. Events such as the suffragette movement, The First World War, The Great Depression, The Second World War, the late 1960s and early 70s cultural and social revolutions, 9/11, and the financial crash of 2008 are just some examples.

Although these events were painful and tragic for many, looking back on them it's easy to see that some people benefited from them.

It is too early to tell what positive changes to our lifestyles may emerge as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and yet I'm starting to sense tentative signs of the new normal which might be beneficial and worth embedding within the collective post-pandemic ‘muscle memory’.

For example, I'd be surprised if everyone who worked in an office before the lockdown and now finds they are working reasonably well from home will want to return to commuting to the office five days a week. It may be that one or two or even three of the normal working days are best kept as homeworking days, as less time travelling, better sleep, and greater focus on tasks in hand are just some of the benefits that friends of mine, who are now forced to work from home, are starting to report.

One of the biggest barriers to anything new becoming part of a new normal is the defence mechanism our bodies have to experiencing anything we haven't regularly experienced before. There is a very simple exercise that illustrates this graphically. 

Take a moment to clasp your hands together. Now look down and see which thumb is on top - is it your left thumb over your right thumb? Or your right thumb over left? Or it may be that when you instinctively clasp your hands together, you have your thumbs side by side? No matter.

Now take your hands apart and re-clasp with them by intertwining your fingers the other way, placing your thumbs the opposite way to how you first placed them: left over right if it was previously right over left, and one thumb over the other if you did it with both thumbs side by side. How does this feel? For most it feels uncomfortable, unnatural. I've had many people in workshops where I've done this exercise say, “This isn't right, this isn't me!” So, what's going on here? 

To behavioural psychologists, clasping our hands, folding our arms, crossing our legs, are all forms of what they describe as ‘resting behaviour’, things we do with our limbs or hands when we're not using them. Observational studies have shown that this isn't to do with left or right handedness, otherwise all left-handed people would have their left thumbs on top of their right, and when this exercise is done in groups it is demonstrably not the case. Behavioural psychologists have concluded, that when we are young we unconsciously play around with folding our arms, crossing our legs, clasping our hands, etc and after a while we find our own way of doing such things, and the more we do it one way the more comfortable it becomes and the more we repeat it that way. 

Simply put every action I practice and every response to a sound such as my name creates a connection between neurons in my brain, and the more I hear the sound of my name, the more often I clasp my hands in a certain way, or do anything in a certain way, the more those neurons connecting in that pattern create what's called a neuronal pathway, a groove that is visible under an electron microscope, particularly with habitual responses formed over years. 

When I do anything that my brain does not recognise, it sends a signal to pump a little bit of the ‘flight or fight’ chemical, adrenaline, around my body, which slightly raises my heart rate, changes my breathing, and may even produce a little bit of tension, all in readiness to engage with or run away from the new experience. 

However, if you were to sit with your hands clasped in the opposite way to your natural inclination for up to 10 minutes a day, for around 28 days straight, your brain will create a new neuronal pathway and the new will acquire the status of new normal.

I suspect that many of the uncomfortable things this lockdown is forcing us to experience may result in establishing new and potentially positive habits such as slowing down, connecting more honestly with friends and family (albeit by virtual means at present), and reassessing what is important in life and what is not. If these form part of the new normal in our post-Covid way of life, then it would be another example of progress coming out of adversity.