Guided Regulation Practice for Anxiety

Episode 13

Today’s going to be a little bit different, instead of our normal educational chat this is going to be a guided experiential episode that you can come to when you’re feeling activated to find some support in getting more regulated through various somatic exercises. If you’re listening in the car or while doing something else, hit pause and come back to this episode then you can be more fully present with the guided exercises. Hit play to join me for this guided regulation practice!

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Transcript

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Amanda Armstrong  00:00

Welcome to regulate, and rewire and anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong. And I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now let's dive in. 

Amanda Armstrong  00:27

Welcome, everyone, today's episode is going to be a little bit different. So instead of our normal educational chats, this is actually going to be a guided experiential nervous system regulation sequence for when you are feeling activated, maybe that's anxious, angry, you've got spiraling thoughts, and you can't seem to stop them. So if you are listening to this episode, while you are in a car or doing something else, I would invite you right now to hit pause and come back when you either a are feeling activated and need some support in becoming more regulated. Or maybe when you are regulated, and you just want to experience this guided somatic practice. 

Amanda Armstrong  01:10

So like I said, instead of having just a normal chat and a conversation, this is actually going to invite you to do some of these somatic exercises with me. And for those of you who don't know, I actually lead a monthly attunement session. So this is a one hour guided nervous system regulation and trauma release class that a I would love for you to join me in and you can find that information on my website at riseaswe.com/attunement. I have formatted today's episode as a mini shorter version of what you might experience in those sessions. And what I'm going to do today is I'm going to start with a little bit of information, and then jump right into the guided practice. 

Amanda Armstrong  02:01

So the goal of my monthly attunement sessions and this guided practice today are one to allow you to simply be here to hit play and follow along. And hopefully for these exercises to guide you into a deeper felt sense of safety in your body. So that you can feel a little bit more connected, present regulated and settled. And another purpose is to get you simple exposure and experience with various somatic exercises. So as you go through this practice, I want to invite you to note the ones that feel most settling and supportive for you. And then consider integrating them more often into your daily life. 

Amanda Armstrong  02:45

So in a few minutes, I am going to guide you through a series of somatic exercises that are aimed at supporting your nervous system when it is in an activated state. So supporting your nervous system in down regulating, discharging some of the excess activated and stress or survival energy so that you can feel more calm, regulated, present and in control. Now, different practices work better, or feel more or less supportive for different people based on their unique nervous system needs. So this is where I want to and need to give you unconditional permission to stop, change or vary from the guidance that I'm giving you in any way. An important part of somatic work is learning to listen to your body and to follow its lead. So if there's any particular practice, that doesn't feel good, don't do it. And you can either go back to the last exercise that did feel regulating for you, or just simply pause to shake it out or take a few breaths to re ground. So everything that I'm going to offer you in this guided practice is a simple invitation. If it feels supportive, I'll invite you to continue. If it doesn't simply let that exercise pass and join back in when there's something that feels like a better fit for you. 

Amanda Armstrong  04:05

So these exercises will be a mix of somatic movement, vagus nerve activation, and breath all focused on settling and shifting your body's physiology to help calm and support your psychology, your mind. And these exercises can be done in a sequence like they're going to be presented today as this guided practice. They each can also be done individually. So if you notice today that the neck massage or the heel drops felt particularly settling for you. Take note of that so that you can proactively build those practices into your day or turn to those tools reactively when you're having moments of stress or anxiety and the last thing that I'll mention, that's really important so so turn those listening ears back on. 

Amanda Armstrong  04:58

Before guiding you in this practice it Here's how you can know if a particular exercise or this series is helpful for you. So as you go through each and every one of these exercises pay attention to some of these signs that an exercise is regulating, and supportive for your nervous system. So if you feel just an overall settling or calming in the body, allowing yourself to feel more present or grounded, then take note that was helpful. Some other signs that practices are soothing and helpful in regulating the nervous system is that your breath becomes more steady, a little bit deeper and slower, you might notice that your heart rate slows down that the muscles in your face or the tension in your body starts to soften. You may notice that your gaze, your visual field becomes more peripheral or widens. 

Amanda Armstrong  05:56

When we're in a stress response, we get really tunnel visioned. So if you start to feel less tunnel vision more oriented to the space around you, that's a great sign. There might be some shaking or tingling. If you notice during a particular exercise that you yawn, sigh or swallow, those are all indicators that your vagus nerve has been activated and that you've gotten a little bit of a nervous system reset. So those are some of the most obvious ones when you yawn desire swallow. That's a quick note, ooh, my nervous system likes what I'm doing. 

Amanda Armstrong  06:28

And then any signs of your digestion turning on. So our state of regulation is often referred to as our rest and digest state. So if you feel your stomach gurgling, maybe you have gas and urge to use the bathroom, even burping, those can also be signs that your whole system is feeling more settled, which is optimizing and turning your digestion back on. So just a quick recap, because I know I mentioned a lot of those, you know, an exercise is regulating and supportive for your system. If you feel just a general overall calming and settling, your breath becomes more steady, deep and slow, your heart rate slows down tension in your face or your body starts to soften, your gaze becomes a little bit more wide, maybe some shaking or tingling, that yawn, sigh or swallow, and then any signs of digestion. 

Amanda Armstrong  07:24

So before we begin, I want you to take just a moment and look around your space. For this practice, we will start standing with just a few exercises to help you shake out and discharge some of the anxiety and activation that might be in your system right now. And then we're going to move into a seated position with the option of either lying flat on the floor, or reclining against a wall or your chair at the very end. So just getting into a place where you can feel relaxed, supported and present. And taking note of where you want to stand, where you want to sit. And if at the end you do want to lay is your space conducive for that. 

Amanda Armstrong  08:07

So we're going to start standing. And so just allowing your feet to go where they naturally go about hip distance apart. And maybe you start to gently sway from side to side, just bringing some motion, some mobility into your body. And now we're going to add some somatic shaking. So shaking is a way that our body naturally discharges unneeded stress or survival energy. And we see this not just in humans, but also across many other mammals in the animal world. So maybe starting with your hands, maybe just shaking your hands like you're trying to flick some water off of them. If this feels good, you can stay here or maybe hanging your arms at your side and inviting your whole arm or your shoulders to get in on some of the shaking. Maybe your hips or your legs start to shake too. There's no right or wrong way to do this. Just inviting some movement and some shaking into your body. Giving it the room and the space and the practice to just use up and discharge any unneeded anxiety or activation in your system. And we'll be here for just a few more seconds, shaking it out how ever you'd like and then allowing that shaking to settle. 

Amanda Armstrong  09:34

We're going to come in to an exercise called heel drops. So slowly lifting onto your tippy toes and then dropping back down onto your heels. You might notice a little bit of a thud as you hit the floor. So slowly coming onto your toes and then lowering onto your heels coming up, dropped down. Up dropped down and up, dropped down finding a pace or rhythm that feels suited for you. Noticing again, that thud as you hit the ground, the sensation of grounding, maybe a vibration moving up through your body as you do these heel drops. And again, an invitation to alter the pace or intensity of these heel drops however you'd like to, we're going to be here with these rhythmic heel drops for about 10 More seconds.

Amanda Armstrong  10:51

Now allowing both your feet to just be flat on the floor. Again, inviting a gentle swaying motion from side to side. And your eyes can be open or closed. As you gently sway side to side. Maybe you want to spread your legs out a little bit more to give yourself a wider base. If you're feeling any struggle with balance, we want to feel stable as we sway side to side. And just simply notice if this rhythmic and repetitive motion of swaying feels settling at all for your system.

Amanda Armstrong  11:32

A lot of times, this will tap into some implicit memory we have of being sued this way as a young child or baby, and about 10 more seconds here. 

Amanda Armstrong  11:49

And now shifting into that comfortable seated position. So wherever you're going to be the most comfortable, maybe that's your bed, a couch, the Chair, I'm personally sitting on the floor a lot of times before these practices. So just take a minute to get settled in a comfortable seated position where you feel supported. allowing your body to shift move, stretch in any way that feels good for you as you switch from standing to seated. 

Amanda Armstrong  12:21

And just a quick note that at no point in this practice, are we trying to force stillness. So some of you who might have experience with, you know, maybe a more formal meditation practice where the goal is to like sit super Zen and still, if at any point you feel like you want to move, follow that urge by letting your body be the guide. Again, so much of the somatic work is by tuning in and listening to your body and following those impulses. 

Amanda Armstrong  12:50

So here in this seated position, we're going to start by simply tuning in to how you are currently feeling to get a baseline to help you judge the effectiveness of the exercises that will follow. So slowly, letting any movement settle. Eyes can be open or closed for this. Just taking a few breaths to turn your attention and bring your awareness into your body. Breathing in and out. bringing that awareness and attention into your body. Just taking a moment to know and explore how does it feel in your body right now? Do you feel calm and settled? Maybe in that green zone of regulation? You feel activated, anxious, maybe it's still a little uncomfortable to try to sit still. There's some agitation notice your heart rate. Maybe you even feel a little bit more numb flat or shut down. Not judging anything that you're noticing, just simply noticing. What are the sensations? What does it feel like to be in your body right now? And if you had to answer the question, What state Am I currently in?

Amanda Armstrong  14:14

What state are you in? That green regulated state? Still feeling a little yellow and activated? Or maybe that red shutdown place? And then taking a moment to shift your awareness into your mind? What does it feel like to be there? Are your thoughts calm and clear? Are they racing kind of jumping from one place to the next maybe you're having a hard time even focusing on this guided practice, either because your brain is racing or maybe because it feels a little numb and flat to be in your mind right now. Things feel a little distant. And again, not judging. Just simply noticing what it's like to be in your mind right now.

Amanda Armstrong  15:03

Now go ahead and let go of that awareness practice. And if your eyes are closed option to flutter them open, and we're going to take three physiological sighs together next. So this breath practice is a double inhale through the nose with an extended exhale out the mouth. And this breath practice is one of the most effective ways to bring our mind and body into a relaxed state. This leverages our physiology in a really powerful way by maximizing all have little sacs in our lungs. With that extended exhale, it really just shifts the gear and turns on our relaxation response. So I am going to demo two of these breaths for you. And then I'm going to have you join me in taking three more consecutive breaths, just one to three of these breaths repeated research has shown brings your level of autonomic arousal down significantly. So this breath again is a double inhale in your nose followed by an extended exhale at your mouth. 

Amanda Armstrong  16:32

Noticing if you experienced any settling. And now we're going to allow our eyes to just look around the room. Slowly scanning from one object to the next, allowing your eyes your head your neck to move freely. This visual orienting exercise helps to open up your vision field, which again can become really narrow when you're in this activated or anxious state. It also helps us just to orient to the space around us which promotes a greater sense of safety for our nervous system. So again, just looking around your room, noticing colors and textures and then slowly scanning to the next object to the next place on the wall. And just gently taking it in.

Amanda Armstrong  17:26

Moving your eyes in more of a horizontal pattern so gently from left to right or right to left. Taking note of any shifting, settling or yawning that might be happening in your body as you do this exercise. Letting your eyes your head your neck find some stillness. 

Amanda Armstrong  17:55

And this next exercise is going to help to orient ourselves to our body. So you're going to take your right hand and place it underneath your left armpit on the side of your ribs. And then your left hand is going to come across your body and you're going to set it on either your right bicep or your right shoulder in this kind of self hug posture. Just taking a few breaths here. This is a somatic containment exercise that helps your brain connect to your body. And this sense of being contained right you're holding the edges of your body and feel really soothing and settling. Just allowing yourself to take a few more breaths here. I also notice sometimes I sway when I get into this posture.

Amanda Armstrong  18:45

There's no right or wrong. Continuing to hold the self hug while I explain what we're going to do next. 

Amanda Armstrong  18:53

For the next few exercises that we are going to do are specifically aimed at stimulating the vagus nerve. This is one of the most important it is probably the most important nerve when it comes to nervous system regulation. It's our longest cranial nerve and this nerve innervates most of our major organs and 80% of its function is to activate our parasympathetic nervous system, that relaxation response in our body. So allowing your hands to be released from that hug. We're going to start with a gentle ear massage. So taking your right pointer finger and placing it in the little bowl of your right ear, just outside the opening of your ear canal. And you're going to start to make just some gentle circles or maybe some side to side movement. And the focus here is not on applying pressure, but on just kind of gently moving your skin in a circular way motion, more back and forth.

Amanda Armstrong  20:04

And while doing this air massage, you have the option to also have your thumb, maybe gently massaging or rubbing the back of your ear or where your ear connects to your head. And as you do this gentle air massage again, just noticing if there's any settling happening for you here. This air massage is almost always guaranteed to get me one or two yawns when one or two of those nervous system resets.

Amanda Armstrong  20:39

And now we're going to move down to a gentle neck massage. So staying on this right side with your right hand, if you turn your head to the left, there's this chunky muscle that pops up, starting right behind your ear and kind of continuing down to your collarbone. And this is called your sternocleidomastoid muscle, say that 10 times fast, and the vagus nerve runs very near here. So gently massaging this muscle, maybe pinching it between your index finger or your thumb slowly moving in a downward and upward motion, or maybe you just decide to kind of rub up and down this muscle. However you want to provide some tactile sensation, a gentle massage again, remembering the goal here is not to do anything that feels like a deep tissue massage, we are using gentle to moderate pressure moving up and down or side to side along this neck muscle. I know for me, this almost always sends kind of a tingling sensation down my body

Amanda Armstrong  21:57

All right, we're now going to repeat both of those on the left side. So taking your left pointer finger, placing it in that bowl of your ear and making those gentle circles or back and forth motions again option to place your thumb at the back of your ear for some gentle rubbing here. Then whenever you feel ready, coming down, turning your head to the right finding that neck muscle and repeating that gentle massage, this time on the left side of your neck. Again, maybe pinching slowly down and up picking your thumb or your fingers gently rubbing up and down this muscle. Applying just some surface level movement of the skin. Gentle pressure on the muscle manually activates our vagus nerve which promotes our body's relaxation response. Let's go ahead and finish up that practice.

Amanda Armstrong  23:15

We're now going to come into some breath work. We'll start with just some breath awareness and then move into an extended exhale, practice. So take one hand and place it flat on the center of your chest over your heart space. Taking your other hand and placing it on your belly somewhere between the bottom of your ribs and above your belly button. And as you inhale in through your nose, focus on bringing your air down into your belly or that lower ribcage area as you inhale feeling that your belly rise underneath that lower hand. And as you exhale out your mouth or nose, feeling that belly slowly lower. So oftentimes, when we're stressed, we have short shallow breaths that get trapped up in our chest. And right now we're just trying to slow and deepen our breath into these diaphragmatic breaths, feeling our belly rise and lower underneath that lower hand.

Amanda Armstrong  24:21

And you can choose to keep your hands here for the extended exhale, practice or if you feel like you're able to get your breath lower, you have that awareness you can just let your hands fall in your lap however it feels comfortable. And we're going to shift into a minute or so of extended exhales. This simply means that we are stretching our exhale out longer than our inhale, which helps to slow our heart rate. For the first few breaths, I'm going to count four seconds in and six seconds out for you. And then I'll let you use the remainder of that time to extend your exhales out however long feels best Are you letting all the air out of your lungs, breathing in 234 and out 654321 inhale, two to three, or exhale, five, or three to one, continuing this extended exhale, practice on your own option to have eyes open or closed.

Amanda Armstrong  25:40

Maybe extending that exhale for an eight count or a 10 count, or maybe you drop the count altogether and just focus on calm inhales through your nose and slow extended exhales out your mouth. Kicking just a few more breaths here. And allowing your breath to just come back to its normal natural rhythm. Fluttering those eyes open if they're close. And to finish this practice, I want to invite you if you aren't there already to get into a really supportive position. So this could be laying flat on the floor or your bed. Or it can be simply sitting reclined. leaned back feeling fully supported by your chair, your wall, your headboard, the couch, taking a moment to get into a fully supported seated or lying position. And once you're there, if it feels safe to do so, gently close your eyes. Taking a moment to bring your awareness to the contact points where your body touches the surface below. Noticing where your feet are in contact with the bed or the ground below you and your legs. Hips, lower back, upper back, head and with these final few breaths, allowing yourself with every exhale to release and sink a little deeper into the surface below you.

Amanda Armstrong  27:33

Noting these contact points, surrendering into this sensation of being held supported and safe. Gently breathing in and as you exhale, releasing any other tension and sinking a little deeper, a little heavier into the surface below you.

Amanda Armstrong  28:16

Taking just two more breaths here. Thinking releasing, letting go and when you feel ready, definitely fluttering those eyes open. slowly, very slowly. Getting yourself back up, reorienting looking around your space. And just taking a moment to check back in. 

Amanda Armstrong  28:56

How does it feel in your body? What is it like to be up in your mind and noting if there has been a shift for you. If you're feeling any less anxious, angry activated. If you're feeling any more present calmer, grounded even just 1%. 

Amanda Armstrong  29:18

I hope this guided somatic nervous system regulating practice have felt supportive for you. And again, helping you shift out of feeling anxious and activated even just a little bit. And I want to invite you to come back to this practice or any of these individual exercises that felt supportive for you. 

Amanda Armstrong  29:39

I would also love to invite you to my monthly attunement sessions. Like I said, these are hour long, guided practices, they always start with some education. Then we go into that guided practice. And one of my favorite parts is that I have an optional an invitation Live q&a. So this is an opportunity for you to get some personalized support or to get your questions answered in a personal way from me that might be outside my membership or our one on one coaching program. This is a great way to get practice with these exercises to also just come into a safe co regulated space once a month, and to get some support. So you can find more information about our next attunement session on my website, if you go to rise as we.com/attunement and if it is your first time taking that class, if you enter the code a tune in at checkout, you'll get 40% off. So you can come and try and see if this is something that would be beneficial to add to your mental health monthly toolkit. 

Amanda Armstrong  30:47

So again, thank you for being here. I hope this was supportive for you come back to it anytime you need it, and I'll see you next time. 

Amanda Armstrong  30:57

Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside Rhys, my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the shownotes. Again, thanks so much for being here. And I'll see you next time.