Why do humans like rocking back and forth?
Basically, it's a coping mechanism to help regulate your nervous system, ease your emotions, and provide comfort. Similarly, this is why people rock their babies when they're upset. Studies show that a back-and-forth motion helps stimulate vestibular senses, helping the brain manage pain and stress.
The Science Behind Rocking for Anxiety Relief
As a result, rocking can produce a calming effect by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which counteracts stress and anxiety by promoting relaxation.
Hyposensitivity: The person rocks back and forth or side to side to stimulate an otherwise under active nervous system. Hypersensitivity: The person engages in rocking to seek relief from sensory overload. Endorphins: The person rocks habitually to relieve extreme stress.
Why do kids rock back and forth? Rhythmic rocking is a self-soothing behavior that comforts children and helps them feel calm — especially during naps or at nighttime.
Relaxing Rocking: The movement of rocking your body in a chair releases endorphins, which help to boost your mood and reduce stress. Sleep Well: Scientists have discovered that rocking boosts sleep-related brainwaves, helping you to sleep deeper in your deep NHR3 stage of the sleep cycle.
The findings were compelling: Even in people who typically sleep well, rocking helped them to fall asleep sooner. It also helped them achieve non-REM sleep, which means improved quality of sleep, and they had fewer disturbances, which allowed for longer and deeper sleep.
Two new studies published today in Current Biology suggest our brains are evolutionarily programmed to respond to rocking. The research shows in both humans and mice, rocking to sleep may have significant health benefits such as better quality of sleep and even improved long-term memory formation.
All people benefit from rocking. Research shows that the rocking motion engages the parasympathetic nervous system and releases endorphins to self-regulate the brain state. Physiological benefits include improved concentration, enhanced ability to problem-solve, and enriched overall cognitive processing.
Rocking had a soothing effect. In one study published in the journal Current Biology, it is posited that “the sensory stimulation associated with a swinging motion exerts a synchronizing action in the brain that reinforces endogenous sleep rhythms,” which may explain why rocking induces that relaxed feeling.
Everyone experiences postural sway to some degree. But in some cases, greater postural sway can be an indication of poor balance and coordination. It may be related to natural aging, neuromuscular disorders, anxiety, or ADHD ( 1 , 4 , 5 ).
Why does my 13 year old rock back and forth?
Lots of children love to rock back and forth. Most often this is just normal behavior; however, occasionally it can be associated with specific problems, such as autism. To distinguish between normal rocking and abnormal behavior, you can look at the rocking specifically and your child's behavior in general.
It's a self soothing behavior that many people do unconsciously without even being aware of it. They do it because it makes them feel comfortable, as it did when they were infants. People may also do this when they are anxious and need to calm themselves or relieve stress.
Babies and children may rock their bodies or move their heads to help them return to sleep after waking or if they are unable to fall asleep. These motions may be similar to those they had experienced in the womb, before being born, or to the feeling of being rocked to sleep by a parent.
The number of calories burned by rocking back and forth varies depending on factors such as intensity, duration, body weight, and metabolism. On average, it can range from 50 to 150 calories per hour.
It possible an adult developed this style of soothing themselves to sleep when the adult was quite young. It could also be a self-soothing mechanism that helps them to fall asleep soundly. In other words it may be comforting to the adult.
Sleep researchers have found that being gently rocked in bed helps healthy adults sleep like babies, as they fall asleep faster, sleep more deeply and rouse less. They also found that rocking leads to changes in brain wave patterns, and might have beneficial effects for memory as well.
It has been found that touch calms our nervous center and slows down our heartbeat. Human touch also lowers blood pressure as well as cortisol, our stress hormone. It also triggers the release of oxytocin, a hormone known for promoting emotional bonding to others.
The motion from rocking can relieve the urge to move while facilitating concentration and attentiveness, enhancing the ability to learn.
Bottom line: Rocking is an age-old method proven to help soothe babies to sleep that continues to work today. And the pediatrician-designed SNOO offers that rocking babies crave while also giving them a safe place to sleep.
Electroencephalography data showed that rhythmic rocking movements helped synchronize certain neural oscillations, known as sleep oscillations, in the brain's thalamocortical networks—circuits important in sleep and memory consolidation.
Is rocking good for the heart?
Improves blood circulation
It also reduces inflammation, enhances heart health, and keeps you active. The benefits of a rocking chair include the optimal working of the circulatory system, which helps improve blood circulation.
As renowned author and researcher David Givens points out in his Nonverbal Dictionary, the rocking action back and forth or side to side (think of a mother rocking a baby to sleep) “stimulates the vestibular senses and is therefore soothing” in a very primitive, but effective way.
Falling asleep and staying asleep on their own is not only learned behavior, but a developmental achievement that each child reaches in their own time. By rocking your baby to sleep and practicing other healthy trust-building techniques you are contributing to the process of teaching your baby to self-soothe.
Rhythmic movement disorder (RMD), formerly termed jactatio capitis nocturna, refers to a group of actions characterized by stereotyped movements (rhythmic oscillation of the head or limbs; head-banging or body-rocking during sleep) seen most frequently in childhood. Its persistence into adulthood is not uncommon.
a stereotyped, self-stimulatory motor behavior in which the body rocks back and forth, often observed in children or adults with severe or profound intellectual developmental disorder, autism spectrum disorder, or stereotypic movement disorder. Also called body rocking.
