Our Reflexes:
The Hidden Path from Baby to Adult

Our childhood reflexes serve as a pre-programmed map — a blueprint — for our nervous system to follow as it grows, and we grow with it. Long before our thinking brain takes conscious control of our movements, these automated responses, which have triggers in all our senses, are the pathways for movement development. They are early physical rehearsals that ensure we, as babies, can interact with our world, build muscle strength, and protect and nurture ourselves without needing to stop and think about how to do it. When working well, these patterns smoothly perform their developmental jobs and then settle into the background, giving the higher conscious brain a stable foundation to build upon.

We can see this blueprint in action through common, everyday examples. The Automatic Gait reflex, for instance, produces rhythmic stepping motions when a newborn's feet touch a surface, mapping out the coordination system for walking long before the baby can stand on their own. That's on top of at least eight key reflexes that coordinate to shape the early actions of seeing, reaching, rolling, and crawling — with lasting effects on later mobility, exploration, vision, and even our adventurous spirit.

Similarly, the Robinson Hands Grasp reflex uses basic palm pressure to close a baby's fingers, automatically building the baseline hand strength that later becomes a relaxed pencil grip, tool use, and self-help skills like zipping a jacket. Even our relationship with gravity is mapped out early on: the Landau reflex prompts a face-down baby to lift their head, chest, and limbs like an airplane, giving the back its first real workout against gravity to support later running and jumping.

The blueprint also outlines how our body manages core survival, protection, and daily stress. The Fear Paralysis Reflex acts as an early physical protection switch, causing the body to briefly freeze and orient to a sudden, overwhelming event before fear is even fully processed. When this reflex integrates properly, the freeze is over in a flash, and the body returns instantly to steady breathing, moving, and connecting with others. On a wider scale, the Core Tendon Guard reflex acts as a physical shield — rounding the shoulders inward to protect the front of the body ("Red Light"), or rigidly bracing the spine backward ("Green Light") — helping us physically navigate moments that call for real protection. These two reflexes worked in tandem to save our 16-year-old son's life when he froze and pulled back and up before accidentally stepping in front of a tram. These reflexes reacted before his brain processed the danger.

When the natural progression of our reflex blueprint is disrupted, or a reflex fails to settle properly, the nervous system loses its steady baseline. Without healthy integration, the conscious brain can't easily take the wheel, and the automated lower switchboard stays active. The body is then forced to constantly compensate, turning ordinary daily environments into a source of continuous physical strain, exhaustion, or hyper-alertness. When a pattern is underactive or unsettled, the foundational coordination rules are missing, and the body defaults to rigid, clunky, or chaotic physical strategies just to stay upright.

The practical consequences of an unsettled blueprint show up as clear, visible patterns in everyday life. If the Tonic Labyrinthine Reflex stays active, posture can swing to extremes — rigidly stiff and overly braced, or floppy and slumped — while balance becomes noticeably shakier in the dark. An unsettled Foot Tendon Guard reflex can drive a persistent pattern of toe-walking, and landings from a jump can look loud, stiff, and poorly absorbed. Sensory focus can be affected too: an active Pavlov (Orientation) reflex means the brain has a harder time tuning out the world, pulling attention back to a ticking clock or a shifting shadow instead of settling into a task.

Ultimately, our reflexes are not random, involuntary twitches. They are the building blocks that shape our physical coordination, emotional engagement, and sense of boundaries. They teach the nervous system how to process gravity, balance, connection, and safety from the ground up. Supporting this foundational blueprint, and allowing it to settle fully, is what frees the higher conscious brain to take charge — and lets us move, communicate, and navigate the world with genuine ease and confidence.

See Some Fun Reflexes in Action

Real, everyday moments — a dad and baby practicing Hands Supporting and Landau together, and a toddler's Pavlov (Orientation) reflex firing at the sight of a train.