I’ve spent the better part of a decade teaching nervous system regulation to thousands of people, and I’ve realized that most of what I teach distills down to one word: unclench.

~~

Picture the moment you step into a cold shower.

If you’re anything like me, you brace against the icy water.

But once you’re in, perhaps you gradually let go of this clenching.

And surprisingly, it’s not as bad as expected.

Possibly even enjoyable.

~~

This essay is about the life-changing impact of applying that same unclenching move to the rest of your life, in increasingly subtle ways. I'm sharing this essay with the LessWrong community to seek feedback, suggestions for a more rigorous research agenda and because I believe that being clenched a significant bottlenecks to our reasoning & decision making capacity.

We’ll explore how clenching keeps us stuck, practices for letting go, the freedom that lies on the other side and what progress looks like.

1. The Pain of Clenching

In 2001, Scott Boswell was seven years into his professional cricket career, enjoying one of his best seasons yet and gearing up for the biggest match of his life: a cup final at Lord’s.

"It was," he told a journalist, "going to be one of the best days of my life."

The night before, his coach told him, “Don’t fuck up.” This buried into his mind, and during his first over (for American readers, this is like pitching in baseball) he noticed his muscles start to clench. His fingers became so tense that he wasn’t able to release the ball.

Cricketer Scott Boswell mid-delivery during the 2001 cup final at Lord's, visibly tense

The next over, he bowled wide. His muscles contracted tighter still, attempting to shut out humiliating jeers from the crowd.

He bowled wide again, and again, and again eight more times… his mouth was dry, he felt like he couldn’t move. By the end, he was barely able to walk three meters to pick up a water bottle and asked his teammate to fetch it. It was one of the worst bowling performances ever recorded on live television.

Boswell was sacked by his club days later, fell into a depression, turned to alcohol and spent the next ten years recovering.

This is an extreme case, and likely you’re not a professional athlete, but what has clenching (holding more tension in your body than necessary) cost you in your life?

I don’t mean just physical discomfort, but what opportunities have you squandered due to clenching?

I recall a student whose small intestine tightened like a ratchet as...

Arshak Aivazian

Arshak Aivazian