The connection with others during our bowling league promotes powerful chemistry for our well-being. Oxytocin, a chemical typically linked to warm, fuzzy feelings, is shown in some research to lower stress and anxiety. Oxytocin has the power to regulate our emotional responses and pro-social behaviors, including trust, empathy, gazing, positive memories, processing of bonding cues, and positive communication. This chemistry is necessary for our Veterans as they battle symptoms of PTSD, and transition from warrior to Veteran.
Bowling structures social interactions to allow for our Veterans to ease into skills such as boundary setting, introspection, perspective taking, frustration tolerance, and interpersonal communication. Every week our Veterans bowl with a different team than the previous week. They are often paired together or even on a team to create inter-dependency, or familiarity with a set of other Veterans. There become opportunities for the Veteran to interact with the two in their team, or the six between the two teams, or movement to other lanes to interact with many.