126: Your Sensory Health Matters with Virginia Spielmann, Ph.D.
Sensory health goes far beyond discomfort with a scratchy fabric or loud noises. If you are not familiar with sensory health, this episode will be full of new concepts and revelations for you. You WILL realize how important sensory health is for each of us! My guest is Virginia Spielmann, an occupational therapist who did a TEDx Talk on this topic. She explains sensory health, why it’s important, and how it matters in every area of life. Join us to learn more!
Show Highlights:
Virginia’s background and journey to her work today
Sensory health: “how” we feel, what we do with it, and why it connects to everything about our psychological well-being
Understanding sensory health as the bridge between mental and physical health
Active lifestyles and exercise don’t look the same for everyone.
Differences in sensory processing
How we unintentionally gaslight our kids’ sensory reactions
The importance of being curious as a parent
Finding a balance between accommodating and exposure/growth
Understanding systematic desensitization
Comfort AND challenge—not comfort OR challenge
The #1 intervention for improved mental health? Dance and other forms of big play
An overview of the STAR Institute’s programs, services, and events
Resources and Links:
Connect with Virginia Spielmann and the STAR Institute: Website and TEDx Talk
Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.
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KC Davis 0:04
Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle. Care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and today I have Virginia Spielman in the recording studio with me. She did a TED talk called your sensory health matters. Here's why, Virginia, thank you so much for being here.
Virginia Spielmann 0:19
Such a pleasure. Thank you so much, of course. So before
KC Davis 0:24
we get into I have so many questions. My first question is like, what do you mean by sensory health? But even before we get to the first question, why don't you tell us why this is an area of interest and a little bit of your background. I
Virginia Spielmann 0:38
am British occupational therapist by training? Well, I wasn't trained to be British, I guess I was, but I started in my journey in the UK, and very quickly within the field of occupational therapy, found this specialist area about sensory integration, which is really simply put, the science of how we feel, what we feel, and then what we do with it. And it's connected to everything. It's this bizarre piece of information that should be common knowledge, and yet it has this sort of strange mystery about it. I suppose people who are neurodivergent often have differences in how they feel and what they feel and what they do with it. And of course, it varies tremendously from person to person anyway, irrespective of where you fall in the bell curve. So it was something I discovered very early in my journey as an occupational therapist, and captured my fascination and attention. I so I studied at undergraduate level, did my dissertation on it and looked at it, have looked at it since then, sort of studied it since then, and my masters, my PhD, yeah, and it's still slightly shrouded in mystery. You know, we still only get taught about five senses at school, and it's just a huge part of psychological well being. There's, it's hard to find aspects of life that aren't touched by this, and it's so poorly understood. So it's captured my fascination for a long time. Of course, it's not just cognitive, though. It's also because I am neurodivergent. I discovered a few years ago, much to many people's complete, unsurprised and differences myself in how I sense and feel things. And so you sort of start off thinking interesting and academic and intellectual, and then you go, well, it's also about me. I'm learning about me. So, yeah, that's sort of a journey of self discovery buried in there somewhere as well.
KC Davis 3:01
I feel like we're always the last person to be surprised by discovering that we're neurodivergent in some way. And I like when you talked about you had this small reference just then where you said, and you know, it's not just neurodivergent people, like everyone can experience, sort of like a range of the way that they interact with their senses. And I always find it helpful to like keep reminding especially audiences, that like, the point of the term like neurodiversity isn't that there's this like, hard line between like, neurodivergent people and neurotypical people, but that like within the realm of just peopleing, it's normal for even a quote, unquote, neurotypical person, or, let's just say, like a non autistic, non ADHD person, to have differences in a spectrum of how they experience the world from a sensory perspective. And I think that that is you're kind of one of the first people that I've heard talk about that to a broader audience, other than just, you know, someone who's neuro divergent. And so let's start there. Like, what do you consider sensory health?
Virginia Spielmann 4:16
Yeah, I love everything you just said, I mean, and also remembering that the spectrum is, you know, not a linear it's not a binary line from black to white with it's this three dimensional spectrum of, you know, color and variation. And you know what we sort of have, of course, you know, reduced how we view being human down. It's we have this very reductive perception, and we have this idea that there's one right way to be human, and there's, do you know, I just it's probably the worst quote in the world, but it always pops in my head Morgan Freeman in that awful Robin Hood movie with. Evan Costner, and the child calls to him, why did God paint your face? And he says, Because Allah loves wondrous variety. And for some reason that stuck with me as just very profound statement. And you know, it's a beautiful thing about being human, that we are so different and we show up so differently, and we perceive things so differently, and yet we're always looking for the binary, even with health, right? We can have a one dimensional view of health, or maybe, you know, we are very evolved, and we think about physical health and mental health, which, you know, is still an argument and shouldn't be. But then you have this other aspect of how we feel, and I feel there's something about sensory health that is has huge overlap with embodiment. And you know, this drive to be in our bodies again, connect to the wisdom of our bodies, and the idea that, well, we can't just learn things in our brain. We need to have embodied experiences of things to really master them. There's that sensory piece for me, and it really almost bridges between mental health and physical health. This how we feel, what we feel, what we do in response to it. Sensory health is optimizing the processes that help you make sense of your day to day, make sense of what you sense. Make sense of your relationships. Make sense of moving around in space and in childhood, and I mean, in adulthood, hopefully we've mastered that a bit more, some of us, more than others. Well, it's
KC Davis 6:38
interesting. I feel like my met this age where my doctor is like, hey, like, if you've never really been like, a super active person, like a physically active person, he's like, now is the age where I need you to become one like this will be really important for your health, going your physical health, going forward. And one of the things that I've been thinking about my, like, lifelong hatred of exercise is that, like a lot of that is kind of a sensory aversion, like I am very temperature sensitive. I don't regulate heat very well. Once I get hot, it takes me a very, very long time to cool down. Like my husband laughs because I sleep on we have to have like a mattress cooler that circulates like 50 degree water underneath me. Otherwise, the body heat between my body and the mattress wakes me up. And listen, I've had like hormones tested. It's not like a hormone problem, but you know, for me, it's always like sweating and being hot and the feeling of movement when you're like, moving in an uncomfortable manner. I always used to joke that, like, exercise combines the three things I hate the most, which is being hot, being sweaty and being like, no, it's being hot, being bored and being in pain. Oh, no. Like, how can anyone like this? But I just think it's interesting that number one, when we think about physical activity, like our brain always just goes to exercise, and that's like one specific thing, right? But it occurs to me that perhaps I should be approaching this idea of like moving through space and moving one's body more from or with care to a sensory health perspective, and whether that could kind of change my approach. And I'm curious if you have thoughts on that
Virginia Spielmann 8:23
totally as you started sharing. You know, I have a kind of be in my bonnet about the way we think about exercise anyway, because we do tend to have a few formulaic approaches to healthy, active lifestyles that don't mesh with everybody. You know, a lot of neurodivergent people have resistance to exercise. And you know, any sort of heavy cardio load can be really detrimental to them. And you know, there's this excellent sort of trifecta that often accompanies neurodivergence, which is, is hypermobile Ehlers, danlos, mast cell activation syndrome and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or just under this umbrella term dysautonomia. And so, you know, there are reasons beyond it doesn't feel good that some we all need to find the activity, the active lifestyle ingredients that suit us. And so having nuance in these conversations is really, really helpful. You know, strength, focusing on strength, walking. You know, do there's ways and ways of doing Pilates and yoga and different things that don't cause distress and disorder, sensations of being disorganized and actually almost in conflict in your own body. And so adding, diversifying the way we think about what an active lifestyle looks like, you know, becomes really important, but there's still this. Thrive in research and research driven conversations to find the one right answer. We found it. We found what you need to do. Everybody benefits from this much cardio every day. Everybody benefits from, you know, and we've heard a million versions of that statement as the, you know, pop culture or the main media outlets try to report what research is looking at, but there's always this urge to oversimplify, and I think, freedom to discover a million different ways that your active lifestyle could look, you know, it's gonna benefit everybody.
KC Davis 10:48
And you talk in your Ted, talk about how, you know, okay, so, yes, it's a diversity, but you can kind of fall on that spectrum, in a place that we would consider like a disordered way of sensory processing where, you know, it's not just, hey, there are certain things that feel good to me, certain things that irritate me, like, Oh, I'm a little sound sensitive. But like some people, can really have a difference in sensory processing that massively impacts their daily functioning. And I'm curious if you can talk about that for a little bit, because you would think like, oh, it'd be obvious if you knew that that's what was going on. But in my experience, it's not always obvious to people. Like, I'll be talking to someone about why they're struggling with cleaning, or why they're struggling with hygiene, and no one's ever really stopped to give them the permission to say, like, what is it about a shower that you hate and that you always procrastinate and after and they have to think about it for a while. And what's funny, it's like, you'll get people that'll say, oh, it's kind of boring, or there's too many steps, or, you know, I just it's like, I don't have enough time, so I have to choose that or eating. But there's always a subsection of people that will say things like the temperature change between being hot in the shower and being cold afterwards is so miserable, or the feeling of my hair being wet against my skin makes me want to crawl out of my skin. And these are big reactions, but it's like no one's ever given them permission to actually get curious about what the aversion is and legitimize the aversion. Because, you know, I think probably most of us had that experience of being a kid and being like, Oh, my shoes uncomfortable, and you're in, you know, a parent being like, get over it. Okay. Just we have to go. So talk to me for a minute about like, how might somebody maybe even recognize, like, Oh, wait. You mean everyone isn't feeling it like this, right?
Virginia Spielmann 12:46
Well, I think, you know, you hit on a lot of things there. You know, first of all, I would say there is, or I don't want to use the word spectrum, but you know, there is this. You could think of it as a progression, I suppose, of differences in sensory integration and processing. Like we all experience sensation uniquely and similarly. And then there are some people whose experience is quite noticeably different, if you know what you're looking for, but can be accommodated within the environment with a bit of flexibility, with some strategies they find adaptive ways of coping. And then there are people for whom it really is a physical difference in their body that sort of influences many, many other aspects of well being, so very, very much wired to your emotional well being. And it's always going to be that way, and really they need very specialist supports. And then I would say there's even another layer of people who have such profound differences in sensory integration and processing that it's experienced as a profound physical disability all the time, every day. And to say it's not is really doing that population a disservice. But you know, some people, for some people, touch is painful, light touch is painful, but they've been told, you know, not to reject their grandma's kisses. And you know, like you said, like as children, we tend to have a sort of, oh, you're fine, just get on with it, attitude. And so the way we learn about what's painful and what's not is generally in those relationships with our caregivers in childhood, right? So as an infant, your stomach gurgles, you get a look of terror on your face, but your caregiver says it's okay. It's just your stomach. It's just your stomach, right? And you start to go, okay. That's what this sensation means. And then you know how adults tend to react when children get a very obvious injury. Oh, no, look. Oh owie. And they blow on it. And. They nurture it, and then you go, Oh, this is, this is a serious thing. I did need attention for this, right? You start to get coded in the database in a very specific and sensory is something we tend to gaslight a bit out of our kids, you know, like even temperatures as a you know, it's hard for caregivers to realize just because I'm cold. My child might not be, you know. And so we tell them to wear a coat based on how we feel temperature. We tell them to put the shoes on, because we know those shoes aren't going to harm them, but their nervous system might be saying, you know, DEF CON one, these shoes are a nightmare. We can't have these on all day, because it's going to feel like our feet are being damaged for the entire day, right? And then I'm going to spend the day in a state of DEF CON one. But I won't know that this is a unique experience to me, because you haven't told me that. Nobody's told me that, and so we tend to internalize that kind of gas lighting. It's unintentional, it's well meaning, and it goes into our into our reference book for safe, unsafe. You know, until someone, like an occupational therapist, hopefully, sort of digs into it and you realize, Wait, every time someone brushes past you in the cafeteria, you experience it as pain. That's pretty significant. This nine year old child who's been told you're a problem child and you have behavioral difficulties, we don't want you experiencing pain just to get your lunch. Let's, let's take a problem solving approach to this. Now imagine nine years of just thinking I have this, like, weird, defunct body, it's harder to be in space, and I'm failing. I'm just failing all the time. You know,
KC Davis 16:50
it gets a weakness. Everybody else is just stronger than me, or everybody else is tougher than me, and I think it's hard as a parent, because in some ways, like you said, like it's our job to right size their feelings for them, so I don't want to overreact to every maybe tiny little boo boo, so that they get the impression that it's a huge deal every time, right? But it's can be difficult as a parent to know, okay, what is the right size to react to this too, because, you know, we want our kids to have resilience, and we want our kids to have some measure of toughness and not be afraid of challenge and not be afraid of discomfort. But how you balance that?
Virginia Spielmann 17:32
Yeah, I think one of the main things there, though, that you really nailed it, just not sure you realized you did, but it's like your perception of the size of the problem, or the thing, isn't it actually in this moment, and so pausing and being curious so that you can be the detective who helps figure out, whoa, that does feel really bad for your body, doesn't it? Okay? Now we learn something about your body, or, you know, those sorts of things. And so having that moment of curiosity first, and I remember, you know, being a young parent. My kids are older now, you know, and realizing that when my son fell over, I needed to pause before rushing in to soothe, which communicated to him, oh my gosh, this is a potential catastrophe, and I needed to sort of see how he's going to react first. And I wish I'd known this about food as a young parent, right? Like, that's a huge one from a sensory perspective. And our second child we adopted and had been in an institution for the first 10 months. And, you know, when came home, he came home with this binder of his favorite foods, his schedule, all of these different things. I was in this mode of doing this perfectly. I was going to do this perfectly, and so I was going to follow the schedule. We're going to get his favorite foods. And I went, you know, above and beyond, and then I learned, I realized, but it took me a minute, this wasn't actually his schedule at all. It was the schedule of the sort of Ward he had lived in. And these weren't even his favorite foods. They were just what had been available in the ward, and he didn't like any of it. It was all off whack and spat out the food and all these things and but my drive was to very primitive sort of, I must feed him. I must keep him alive. I must. And so I had no sympathy, I had no curiosity for this infant. I wasn't able. It took me a bit too long. It took me a beat too long, and there are things I wish I hadn't felt the pressure to do, like get X amount of calories in him come hell or high water, right? And instead be curious and believe him when he gags, believe his body when it says, No, mate, that's. Not for me, you know. And then be curious, and then find the thing, do the thing, collaborate with him to figure out his foods.
KC Davis 20:08
I'm curious. As an occupational therapist, how do you think about the balance between I know they're not opposing, right, but this sort of balance between accommodating and sort of exposure and growth,
Virginia Spielmann 20:25
such an amazing and timely question. I cannot tell you. This is a huge debate within our field at the moment. You know, what is neuro diversity affirming practice as an OT do and when you want, if you're doing anything habilitative or sort of, you know, that might be called intervention or treatment. Is it that oppressive? Are you trying to change a person's neurology? And this is, I think, particularly star Institute, the nonprofit here that in Colorado that I run, and where we work on sensory health. It's something we almost talk about every week. But here's where we're at, all the accommodations. Take all the accommodations and really try and build flexibility into the world of each individual, because it benefits everyone. It benefits everyone in the classroom when there are standing desk options, when there are noise defenders and music options and chewing options. You know, we allow these things in adult learning, but not in our childhood learning settings. It's very strange, but it benefits everyone when we support bodies being in different states of arousal and try to optimize learning environment with a sensory health lens. It's good news. It doesn't just even benefit all the students. It benefits every body in that building. And your brain changes when you learn a new phone number. You know brain change is neuroplasticity is available all the way through the life. It's how we learn new skills. It's how we mature. And when there is this massive mismatch with the way, especially our childhood experiences and environments have been constructed and what neurodivergent bodies need, then there's a need for intervention. But the intervention is that experience isn't going to be organizing for this child, so we're going to provide a specialist experience, and we're going to try and create repeated multitude of experiences where this child, like has, develops mastery, develops bodily autonomy, learns they can move through space on their own terms without it being painful and uncomfortable. You know, they can cause effect in their body and in the world, and they can experience agency, and agency starts in the body. And if I just provide a child with accommodations in the most extreme form I would be putting infants in wheelchairs and depriving them of the learning to walk and become ambulant. Right? There's this very extreme version of accommodations that deprives people of the organized, nurturing, nourishing experiences they need to have optimal sensory health, bodily autonomy, motor mastery. So the philosophy behind what you do is kind of the drive there is, am I taking this approach and trying to make someone more fit in more Am I trying to help them be more appropriate. Am I trying to shape their behaviors? That's all my agenda. But if I'm about helping this person become their favorite selves in the world and develop as much bodily autonomy as they can and with listen to the wisdom of their own body, then the type of intervention I'm doing is very different, and it's, it's, it moves in a very different direction. And on top of all of that, there is this myth that sensory integration therapy is the same as systematic desensitization, and they're completely different approaches.
KC Davis 24:19
Okay, talk about that, because I've never heard of either of those, but I have a feeling that if you started to talk about it, I would probably recognize what you're talking about.
Virginia Spielmann 24:27
Yes, there's nothing. Actually, I haven't got a beef with systematic desensitization itself. I think when it's done by a trauma informed, very skilled therapist and the client has self selected to do it, it can be great. And so, you know, if I wanted to, I can't swim in the sea because I have a huge phobia of I can't see what's underneath me. There is definitely a shark that's going to eat me. And if I wanted to deal with that, if it was really important. Uh, for me and I chose to do some systematic desensitization. We would gradually expose me to the thing that I have this big nervous system reaction to, and at the same time expose me to some things that would calm and soothe my body. And we try and do it at such a pace it almost wouldn't trigger my fear response. It
KC Davis 25:24
kind of keeps you in that window of tolerance. Yeah,
Virginia Spielmann 25:27
and I don't know that many occupational therapists do it. I think it's normally psychologists and people like that that do it. And so the idea there, yeah, desensitization is this gradual exposure to sensory stimuli, and so it is aiming to change what's happening in your neurology and your nervous system. It operates on the principles of habituation, which is the nervous system's ability to diminish responses to stimuli that's familiar and non threatening. So you know, the first time the buzzy bee comes into your space, you orient to it. You have a little bit of a protective reaction to it, like, is this a bee or a fly? Am I about to get stung, or is this just an irritant? And then for some people, they are able to notice it's something innocuous, and almost immediately filter it out. They habituate to it very easily, and then they selectively attend to the important stimuli in the room. People with differences in sensory modulation might not ever completely filter it out, but and it can be quite effortful for them to do so, because that habituation doesn't come as easily. I
KC Davis 26:44
said it's like being nose blind. Like, you know, how sometimes you'll walk into a room and you'll smell something, but if you spend enough time in that room, you actually, like, can't smell it anymore. Yes, you've had, yeah, you become nose blind to it. And it's interesting the idea that, like, we do that with our other senses, like, you know, you can have something in your clothing that, like, doesn't feel quite comfortable that day, right? But if I go about my business, I'll just kind of habituate to it, or I'll go, like, sensory blind to it, and I just won't think about it, right? But for some people, they can't do yes,
Virginia Spielmann 27:21
yes, and that is what desensitization is trying to leverage. So there's this gradual exposure. The familiar is heavily COVID as non threatening. You want to get familiar with it. You can imagine, like maybe being scared of dogs. You know, this would be maybe an approach that would be recommended, because, as if it's successful, as there's this gradual exposure over time, starting in those low intensity levels and gradually increasing, the nervous system and the brain adapts and is less responsive, less reactive, And the distress just isn't experienced in that somatic Body, Whole body level.
KC Davis 28:04
I remember listening to someone make a Tiktok once, and I think it was Caitlin Powell, but she's autistic. And she was talking about kind of that same example of, sometimes I put on a shirt and it just feels wrong. It feels wrong, and I'll change it, I'll change it and I'll change it and I'll change it. And she was talking about how she was working with her therapist on sort of desensitizing to some of these things. And I loved the way she talked about it, because it wasn't super black and white. She's like, you know, on the one hand, like, I don't want to stay at home for an hour doing it change after change after change after change after change, just kind of like trying to find what feels right, but at the same time, you know, saying we'll deal with it, you know, figure it out, go on. Just go through your day like I won't habituate to it. So, but one of the things that she did was she was like, the step I'm at with my therapist is that I bring a second sweater with me, so I don't change the sweater. I bring a second sweater with me, and I go about my day. And as she was doing that, she was like, you know, there are some days where I will just forget about it and but if I don't, I'm totally allowed to go and, like, change the second sweater. But it kind of reminds me of what you're talking about, where it's like this. And again, she as an adult, and she opted into that. And it's not this sort of like pressure of like, get over it. Take this with you. And I think we sometimes have this idea that comfort and challenge are opposites when it comes to either our own sensory stuff or our kids sensory stuff, where it's like, okay, the option is either comfort that the discomfort so it's okay, and let's get an accommodation, and let's make it better, or challenge it, which is like, keep going, you know, push through, suck it up. And, you know, I think, I think we would all be better by thinking about comfort and challenge. Is not having to be separate. It in sort of like moving forward, because it is true that, like, if you over shelter, like, I think we can get so focused on comfort that we do ourselves a disservice, even from a sensory perspective, you know, but at the same time, you know, you can't just throw someone, throw yourself in the deep end and say, hopefully I'll figure it out, you know? And so it really is kind of like weaving the thread.
Virginia Spielmann 30:27
I love that, yeah. And then I mean, and then what you've got with sensory integration therapy is trying to support the natural development of the nervous system by providing the just right experiences, if it's done right, that's what it should look like, and it should look like play in childhood. We do do it with adults here, and it can look a bit more like trial and error, and sometimes if it looks a bit like CrossFit. And you know, you're building this sensory lifestyle with the adults. But you know, with our sort of under 18 population, we're really wanting to optimize the natural development of the nervous system by providing the right experiences for that brain and body through play. So there's definitely, you know with what we want to see is the development of what we want to see, what we imagine we would see if we could look at the brain, would be the development of beautiful neural connections that support this person's mastery and autonomy in their own body. I can move through space the way I want. I can make a plan. I have ideas of how to move my body, and I can make it happen, and I'm going to do it again, and I'm experiencing success and joy and play again and again and again. And so these neural pathways are becoming highways, and it's so efficient. And you know, maybe even we might see some neural pathways become discarded that weren't serving us before. They're not the same thing. Desensitization and the sensory integration therapy are quite different. But I think because people talk about the treatment plan, the intervention, the program, sensory integration therapy, and it's also been done poorly, so so very often, that it's sort of been bucketed as another oppressive approach that's about changing the person to fit in, versus self actualization of the individual.
KC Davis 32:33
Yeah, I feel like I'm thinking back through some of those interventions that that I've heard of as a parent, and it feels like the desensitization ones have an intervention that's, like, pretty clearly linked to whatever the issue is. If that makes sense, like, oh, we have trouble with touching. Okay. Well, here's a brush. We're gonna brush the skin and desensitize whereas, like, I felt like, whenever OTS were doing more integration stuff, I would find myself being like, Okay, you want her to, like, swing on the swing. So that is more emotionally, right? And you're just like, what do these things have to do with each other? And they'd be like, trust us. We want her to, you know, cross the midlines. We want her to put these, you know, we want her to move these body, her body in this certain way. And so that's kind of always how those buckets happened in my head, where it was like, decent, I can't say, you know, I'm talking about that bucket was always like, like, you said, like, okay, the goal is to get in the water and we'll fart, we'll start with a little water, and then more water, and then more water. And it's always like, very connected. And then there was this whole other bucket of interventions that I was like, I mean, I guess I just trust you, because this doesn't make any like intuitive sense, how learning to stand on our head was going to help us. You know, with our picky eating or whatever it is,
Virginia Spielmann 33:49
that's a common, I think, challenge that we face as a field, and we have to do better parent education and caregiver education like this, knowledge can't, shouldn't be so mysterious, you know, like, Why does playing and big movements and cross body movements and excited play? Why does, like, I had one of the OTS here yesterday running around the building in a silly hat with the child chasing him, and the mother not far behind in her own silly hat, you know, and the work they're doing is on this child's emotional regulation. You know, she can be very invested in controlling the agenda in the classroom, and can get sort of very controlling with her peers. And, you know, how does us running around the building in silly hats even remotely? How do we join the dots with what's going on in the classroom? And I can what we need as therapists who can answer that question
KC Davis 34:47
is that only for kids like do we stop ever being at a developmental level where that big, excited whole body play like rewires the brain in good ways, because. I don't know the last time I've done that as an adult, yeah,
Virginia Spielmann 35:02
no. I mean, I love to get adults playing. It's just way harder. But, you know, I think, you know, and I play Dungeons and Dragons, that's one of my ways of doing it. And I love going to, you know, the packs conventions, where they've got all the cosplay and the games and the board games. And I think adult play is incredibly important for you know, why isn't your doctor asking you if you play as well as asking you if you have an active lifestyle? Well,
KC Davis 35:29
you know? What it reminds me of is that study they did about various interventions for depression, and it was like cognitive behavioral therapy, this type of therapy, this type of therapy, and then just random activities, exercise, dance, things like that, and SSRIs, I'm talking all of it. And I saw this post, and it was like, the interesting thing is not that, like dancing was the best form of exercise for depression, it was that dancing ranked better than every single intervention, including medication, including therapy, include, literally, including every clinically based, evidence based therapy. The number one intervention that seemed to have the biggest impact was dance. And I can't help but think, yes, there's probably kind of a I don't mean spiritual in a religious sense. I just mean like, in a play sense, of like, Oh, it's good for your mental health to be light and playful and whatever. But I can't help but think how much of that has to do with what you're talking about with this sensory health, where it's like, I know my daughter is better regulated when she has the room to run and spin and jump and do these things and that that like really talks to her nervous system. But I can't help but wonder, like, it's not like we hit 18 and all of a sudden childhood's over, and our bodies don't need that anymore. And maybe there really is something to that about these like gross motor movements and sensory integration and sensory sensitivity and mental health, and that's what it reminds me of. And I wonder if, like, when, you know, when you talk about sensory health, and when I hear the term sensory health, I think my initial thoughts were quite basic, quite Oh, you know, Is there too much sound? Is that bothering me? Do I need some headphones? Do I write and I find myself as I'm talking to you, realizing like, Oh my God. Like sensory health isn't just about like, what in my environment irritates me or overwhelms me, it's about like, Have I fed my vestibular system today, and is that connected to my self defeating thoughts and my toxic behaviors that I want to change well.
Virginia Spielmann 37:44
And you know what I was thinking while you were sharing about that study, the dance thing wasn't skilled dance, right? There's no you didn't mention, yeah, how great these dances were. And I'm pretty sure there would have been tremendous variety, right? But, and I think that's one of the things that holds us back, right as adults, right? Like, I won't do dance as my hobby as an adult, because that's a bit sad, isn't it, I'm not a professional dancer. It's gonna be
KC Davis 38:13
me and a bunch of six year olds going to dance class the level one class.
Virginia Spielmann 38:17
Yeah, and, actually, yes, go to dance class at 45 like, you know, find the thing, play the game. You
KC Davis 38:26
know, that was my so I have a theater degree. And when you get to your last there's this one class. And the big project of the year is called the wildness project. And you are tasked to go out and do something wild, something totally taboo, something that really pushes you out of your comfort zone. And what's so funny is that, like a lot of people would use that project to go do something like going and doing mushrooms was always like a big thing that people would do with it, or they'd go and you were allowed to do like you could come in and talk about that. You did not care if you broke laws or did any of that. I had a friend that sat for a nude painting, like she volunteered in the art department to sit for a nude painting, like all these things. And of course, here I am right, and I'm like, Okay, I have, like, a few years of sobriety, actually, at that point. And I'm like, I've already done all of this wild shit that you guys are doing. So my wildness project was to take an entry level ballet class at like a studio, because it terrified me to do so I felt so awkward, so uncomfortable, and that was, like, my version of pushing myself. But anyways, that's neither here nor there. I just think, like, totally plugs in with what you're saying, which is like, Yep, I
Virginia Spielmann 39:37
think that's spot on. We just, you know, and we design our lifestyles in this very adult way as well, where we move for an hour in the gym, and we sit for eight hours at work and we talk about our emotions in this space, and we've siloed these things out in. Such a way that we're really not cultivating sensory health, quite the opposite. So, yeah, I think, and, you know, there's so I love the idea of this dance thing, because in dance, there's sensation, motion, emotion, there's, you know, you stretch your nervous system, because you you know, there are moments of dance that are fast and maybe, you know, powerful and impactful, and then there can be quiet, and there's so much range. Yeah, I think that concept, AZ didn't talk about self actualization, the founder of sensory integration therapy, she talked about self organization. And you know that I'm in my body, I'm functioning well, you know? I'm in flow. Things feel good. I feel nourished. I'm self organized. We don't think about that.
KC Davis 40:53
Those are actually the terms that I've used, and I never heard anybody use those terms that I would talk about, like when I am struggling to communicate something that I'm experiencing, and then, like, I'll be in a situation where it just seems like everything inside of me kind of like, lines up, like aligns, and all of a sudden I have the words right. Or those are the words I use. I'm like, it feels like everything kind of organized for a moment, or if I experience something that, kind of like, throws me off, and then I can't, quite like, kind of get it back together. That's the term that I resonate the most with, which, like, that was a very disorganizing event. And so I love those terms. That's
Virginia Spielmann 41:34
so cool. I haven't heard someone sort of use them. Think that's the way they were intended to be used in sensory integration as well. You know, that's what integration. What is integration? It's that everything's aligned, everything's working together. I'm in an optimal state of function right now, you know. And then that I'm an inch taller than when I'm disorganized. Bring it right and, you know. And then when you focus on that, and that's what drives the work that you do. It changes everything about how you deliver your therapeutic supports and right goals, and, you know, all of those pieces, and it becomes about helping children be classroom citizens, because they get it, because they want to, and because they have something tremendous to contribute, and the class would, you know, would miss out if they didn't, rather than, you know, fitting in and being convenient students who look the same as everyone else, which is not, you know, helpful for anyone? Yeah.
KC Davis 42:36
Well, Virginia, thank you so much for your time. Can you go ahead and plug your organization if you wanted to learn more about it?
Virginia Spielmann 42:45
Yeah. Star Institute is a non profit based in Centennial, Colorado. Our website is sensory health, dot O, R, G, and we do research, provide education, and also provide therapeutic programming all the way through the lifespan. People travel from around the world to us for programs. We run conferences and events all the way throughout the year for allied health professionals, educators, caregivers and neurodivergent individuals who want to learn more. We really love sharing what we do, because we really want it to stop being a mystery. Our vision is sensory health for the nation, state and the world. I said that the wrong way around sensory Health for the state, the nation and the world. And yeah. So what we, you know, we have this sort of idea that people will know enough about this stuff that over coffee, talking about something, you know, I've been on the struggle bus for a couple of weeks. And, you know, I'm talking about why I'm on the struggle bus. And my friend says, Have you thought about and up comes some concept related to sensory health, right? You know, really liberating us to tune back into our bodies and to find our flow and what it feels like to be self organized.
KC Davis 44:03
Thank you so much. You.