The Mind-Body Couple

Blended States of the Nervous System Part 1: Balancing the Nervous System and Overcoming Chronic Pain/Symptoms Through Play

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 86

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Imagine discovering a path to healing chronic pain/symptoms and  trauma that involves something as simple and joyful as play. Join us, Tanner and Anne, as we embark on an insightful journey through the intricate workings of the autonomic nervous system and its vital role in well-being. Our series kicks off with a lighthearted exploration of the ventral vagal, sympathetic, and dorsal vagal states, adorned with personal tales and a sprinkle of humor. We reveal how balancing these states can lead to profound recovery and why an occasional ping pong match can be both healing and stressful.

As we share our commitment to embracing playfulness and sticking to a plan, we also reflect on the challenges faced by trauma survivors in reclaiming a playful spirit. Discover strategies to gently invite play into your life, even when it feels daunting. Our anecdotes offer relatable insight, paving the way for a newfound appreciation of the playful side of healing.

Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson are therapists who treat neuroplastic pain and mind-body symptoms. They are also married! In his 20s, Tanner overcame chronic pain and a fibromyalgia diagnosis by learning his symptoms were occurring due to learned brain pathways and nervous system dysregulation. Post-healing, Tanner and Anne have dedicated their lives to developing effective treatment and education for neuroplastic pain and symptoms. Listen and learn how to assess your own chronic pain and symptoms, gain tools to retrain the brain and nervous system, and make gradual changes in your life and health!


The Mind-Body Couple podcast is owned by Pain Psychotherapy Canada Inc. This podcast is produced by Alex Klassen, who is one of the wonderful therapists at our agency in Calgary, Alberta. https://www.painpsychotherapy.ca/


Tanner, Anne, and Alex also run the MBody Community, which is an in-depth online course that provides step-by-step guidance for assessing, treating, and resolving mind-body pain and symptoms. https://www.mbodycommunity.com


Also check out Tanner's YouTube channel for more free education and practices: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Fl6WaFHnh4ponuexaMbFQ


And follow us for daily education posts on Instagram: @painpsychotherapy


Discl...

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the MindBodyCouple podcast.

Speaker 2:

I'm Tanner Murtaugh and I'm Anne Hampson. This podcast is dedicated to helping you unlearn chronic pain and symptoms. If you need support with your healing, you can book in for a consultation with one of our therapists at painpsychotherapyca or purchase our online course at embodycommunitycom to access in-depth education, somatic practices, recovery tools and an interactive community focused on healing. Links in the description of each episode Hi everybody, welcome back to the podcast Hello everyone. Thank you for that intro, tanner. I know for people listening this is the second time now we've done this intro.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2:

The first time we had like an awkward silence, as me and am are looking at each other, being like who talks next?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so we are redoing this, but tanner's decided to keep his hello everyone. Intro yeah, mixing it up, yeah yeah, tanner's gonna try that throughout different podcasts, so be aware that uh, subtly, he's going to make the intro different.

Speaker 2:

A little bit different each time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I also have to say I'm happy to be back on the podcast right now because I know Paul took my place last week and that made my heart hurt a little bit, in the sense that he was fulfilling my spot here on the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he's my work brother, yeah.

Speaker 1:

If you listened to the podcast last week, they talk a lot about how much he and Tanner are alike in their pain and symptom stories.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we are very similar and you know, Paul was great, but I'm glad you're back, Anne.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, I'm glad to be back and I hope our listeners at least some of them are happy. I'm back, anne. Thank you, I'm glad to be back and I hope our listeners at least some of them are happy. I'm back too. I understand if you felt a connection with Paul too, though.

Speaker 2:

Imagine like after this episode, we just get all these comments being like bring Paul back.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, if you feel that way, understand. I might be a bit hurt if I read all those comments, though, so I'm just saying that out there.

Speaker 2:

Be kind in the comments section.

Speaker 1:

Be kind, that's right, but we want to get into our topic today and so we are doing part one of blended states of the nervous system. You need to practice being able to heal chronic pain and illness.

Speaker 2:

This is a four-part series.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

We're going to not do in order. We're going to slowly release this over the next few months, and it's an essential one, I think. When we talk about states of the nervous system, I want to give people just a refresher. I know the words are jargony. They're made by a neuroscientist, not by a therapist.

Speaker 2:

And so people get a bit lost. But when we understand the autonomic nervous system, often when I first teach it to clients I explain it as these three neat and tidy separate states. So we have ventral vagal, which is really where we feel safe. We feel connected, calm, at ease, productive. I think this is really where people would pay to be Like. This is a great state to hang out in.

Speaker 1:

Totally. I think this is everyone's in some way goal and I think as we keep talking about it, we'll learn that you can't always be in this state, but a lot of people they want to learn how to get more ventral, vagal state.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we want to give again. I always tell my clients the same really dry joke that you could be in therapy for 50 years, you're never going to always be here. Like that is not going to happen and we aren't built like that as a human. But at the same time, we want to give people more access.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And with the blended states we're about to talk to, they always have an element of ventral which makes them a very useful blended states to be in. Next, we have your sympathetic system.

Speaker 1:

And I think this one a lot of people would relate to really being in most of the time, especially when we're struggling with chronic pain and symptoms.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is. For many years this was my home base.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it was your home base. It can still be your home base.

Speaker 2:

Tanner, if I'm not careful, I can, it's.

Speaker 1:

Today it might be your home base. We're doing some Christmas setup. I feel like you're going to go into sympathetic zone right away.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we've had some rough Christmas setups with the kids in the past. So sympathetic, here's. The thing is, it's not all negative Because it often gets associated with fire, flight, you know, fear, anger kind of states. But at the beginning of going in sympathetic, you're just mobilized. Like I always explain to people, like even right now, ann, you and I, there is some sympathetic energy. Yes, I can promise you all this would be such a boring podcast if there wasn't a little bit of mobilized energy where me and Ann are bantering back and forth. So we need that. We need the sympathetic energy to be there. But for a lot of people that just nose dive into fight or flight right away, they're not even like mobilized.

Speaker 1:

And I think I've noticed that sometimes when I'm talking to people they go into the sympathetic energy. It's not necessarily wrong or bad or negative like you're saying, like it's just kind of part of day to day. But then that's right. It gets kind of out of control. It gets paired with fight or flight or anxiety, say, or spiral type thinking, and then it can go over the edge.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and lastly, we have the dorsal vagal system. This is a very common state. Especially for a lot of people that have experienced trauma, going to a dorsal vagal place is really, really normal. Essentially, we start to become immobilized in this state. We start to feel frozen, numb, shut down, despair, hopeless, helpless. I think shame and guilt can really live in this dorsal place and a very common survival response that most of us, if not all of us, in my opinion, go into at points as a human being.

Speaker 1:

Now we know probably a lot of you guys that are following our podcast have been like. We've heard you talk about these states before, tanner. Why is it important to revisit it in today's podcast?

Speaker 2:

Well, we're going to talk about one of four blended states that are very essential and I love to give a refresher on this because you don't need to kill off the sympathetic or dorsal vagal energy. You don't. That's not possible. When we talk about chronic pain and symptoms, they often are triggered and perpetuated when you're in this prolonged state of sympathetic fight or flight or dorsal kind of shutdown. But I can promise you, at some point today I'm going to be in sympathetic with Christmas set up and our children.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

There's no doubt, yes, and I'm not going to have necessarily symptoms come up, hopefully, but usually I can go there and that's not the case. But when I was first recovering, I was just in this prolonged way of sympathetic or dorsal and, as a result, my chronic pain was perpetuated. Now the thing about these three states, as we're saying, is there's blends, useful blends, and we're going to talk about in this series, in each one of the episodes, a different blended state, all of them really essential to practice. We need to get access to them, we need to be able to shift to them with more ease, because they can help us heal our chronic pain and chronic symptoms.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think, along with access to them and shifting to them, it's important to start learning to recognize them. Am I in this blended state? What makes it a blended state? An understanding that is not like you're saying, not just the three, there's kind of a spectrum or mixes.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so today's blended state, the blended state of the day, oh, I like that.

Speaker 1:

That's good, right, that's pretty good.

Speaker 2:

That's great, can we? Name this podcast that the blended state of the day.

Speaker 1:

Play.

Speaker 2:

There you go.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I just announced it there.

Speaker 2:

There you go, so play, we're going to talk about play. You know a quote, or the way that Deb Dana and Dr Porges talk about it is play is a neural exercise that strengthens your ability to flexibly transition between activity and calm. And play is this blend. It's a blend of ventral, ventral vagal, where you feel some safety and connection, but then you also have the sympathetic system where you're mobilized. So it mixes. It mixes safety and connection with this mobilized energy.

Speaker 1:

And I think many of us listening can probably sit back and pinpoint a time where they're in this play state and felt what you're describing, Tanner.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Because you're kind of going back and forth. If you want to stay in a state of play, you can't just continuously become more and more mobilized. All that mobilization is going to cause a lot of dysregulation and probably kick into fight or flight. My great example because we're doing Christmas set up today is kids on Christmas morning.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, this is exactly it.

Speaker 2:

You wake up, you know we have this little ledge that they like railing, that they can look over, and they see all the presents. Yes, my son and my daughter are stoked, they're like excited, they're shaking.

Speaker 1:

They're shaking in sympathetic energy.

Speaker 2:

But they still play. Yes, you know they're being playful with us, they're being kind to us, they're so in sympathetic energy, but they still play. Yes, you know they're being playful with us, they're being kind to us, they're so thankful Santa came and they go down, they start playing. But with kids they're still learning this. As adults, we're still learning it too, and what happens is they get more and more mobilized and more and more mobilized and eventually it just like causes, like emotional breakdown, to take place.

Speaker 1:

And I think many people that have kids know what you're talking about and like witness this.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and this happens to us as adults as well, where we start to become playful and then it becomes sympathetic.

Speaker 1:

Do you have an example where that's happened for you, tanner, as an adult?

Speaker 2:

yeah. So I'm trying to think of like now I'm really good in the state of play overall. When I was first healing it was difficult. Yeah, plays a difficult state and you know even things like playing volleyball or playing ping pong or doing some type of sport. I would get excited so much that I would start to become very dysregulated and fight or flight.

Speaker 1:

I actually remember this. Can we share with them a little bit about your ping pong tournaments in Mexico? I think this is a pretty good segue because it was at our honeymoon.

Speaker 2:

It was.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're on our honeymoon and I think you're really just learning this approach still, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like I was. I'm trying to think I was maybe like two or three months into using it, so I wasn't fully healed yet. Yeah, but I was really starting to become a bit more active. And one thing about me is I love ping pong.

Speaker 1:

Totally, totally, and he's pretty. You're pretty good at it, tanner. Thank you. Yeah, you really wanted me to say that. Like, share that with people.

Speaker 2:

Great, yeah, great pride in my ping pong playing ability.

Speaker 1:

And so we stayed at an all-inclusive resort and they had a ping pong table and they had ping pong tournaments.

Speaker 2:

Every day.

Speaker 1:

Every day and I remember you were very excited to find this out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it was also an element of graded exposure because I hadn't done jagged movements or whipped my arm around or run after the ball, like these were new things. But I went for it and to be honest, it went pretty well, like my body, like it was a big kind of healing win to some degree, where I was like all of a sudden able to use my body and I didn't feel much pain and the fear of movement really reduced. But as the ping pong tournaments went on and on day after day I started to get worried about them. I started to like put all this pressure on them and then all of a sudden play was no longer enjoyable. Right, I was agitated, I was kind of fearful.

Speaker 2:

You know, the first couple of days were great, but day after day and that's the thing is like when we talk about blended states it's not like, oh yeah, just go play, just go do that. Because the reality is play is a very difficult state for a lot of people to access. When we've experienced trauma, attachment, injuries, bullying, neglect, abuse in relationships, injuries, bullying, neglect, abuse in relationships, you know any sympathetic kind of mobilized energy it can feel really overwhelming and dysregulating and people have like distrust or abuse in relationships, which can essentially, if you're playing with someone else, it amplifies signals of danger and quiets these signals of safety.

Speaker 1:

Which is frustrating because when we think of play in its sense of the word, we hope that it brings safety, enjoyment, connection, right. Yes, and it can be confusing when we can't access that piece of the play.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think it's being compassionate with yourselves, Like if you're listening to this, and for some people they can access play really easily. It works great for them and that's wonderful. Like all these Blended States and this four-part series, some of them will be easier for you than others. Play was a hard one for me because I get so like once that sympathetic, mobilized energy comes on, I can nosedive into fight or flight so quick.

Speaker 2:

It was a hard one to practice being in when you started to recognize that that was happening for you, tanner, was that a bit of a turning point, when you would notice that yes, because I really had to practice, you know, being playful mobilizing but still trying to have one foot back in like a safe mobilizing, but still trying to have one foot back in like a safe, connected state, so like keeping my breathing slow or just pausing for a few minutes and then returning to play, like I think that's what we're kind of practicing. I've ran little experiments on our kids.

Speaker 1:

This is you have, oh yeah this is right like this, is the first for me to know this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm always. Yeah, this is what I do in my spare time.

Speaker 1:

Our poor kids. This is like the pains of growing up with therapist parents, I think.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we're like these experiments, we're trying these like things. And Our daughter, she seems to. With play she has an easier time pulling back. So, like she has an easier time, like if she's starting to get dysregulated, she'll go sit on the couch and relax for a bit.

Speaker 2:

Our son, very similar to me, he'll just go and go and go and you know I've done it with, like you've heard on our podcast, these dance parties that we do. I've done it based on song, like how many songs could my son play with until it starts to become an argument with someone? Or until he's, like you know, battling, or all of a sudden, like you can tell he's really anxious, and usually right now we're at about two and a half songs. So we got like are you increasing it?

Speaker 1:

I'm increasing it, so I'm doing the exposure. Are you increasing it? I'm increasing it, so I'm doing the exposure I'm doing exposure Good okay.

Speaker 2:

You know, even for myself, like I'm very similar to him and so like we need to learn this as kids, and if we didn't learn it as kids, we're not going to know how to do it as adults. Right, like play is a learned skill, like I think it's thinking about it in terms of some of that. Like I think it's thinking about it in terms of some of that, and so I always suggest to people it's kind of like light, silly movements can really support you in accessing a state of play, and at first you're almost going to need to put the behavior in before you almost feel it. Like the doing happens before the feeling. Like if someone's been in like deep depression, kind of dorsal, shut down, like it. It is going to be a practice of like giving yourself exposure in little pieces, these brief exposures to being playful, and if you're someone who struggles more with fight or flight, it's like you need to give yourself those little bursts of exposure, almost like I'm doing with our son. And so now comes the activity for all of you.

Speaker 2:

This is. You know, this is something we do on the podcast a lot. We give people little activities. This is a fun activity, though.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so well, of course, because it's about play Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Some of our activities people are like I'm not doing that and I totally get that yeah totally.

Speaker 1:

It's whatever you do or don't like to incorporate into your time.

Speaker 2:

These are optional, so each day you want to engage in you know five to 10 minutes of play. You need to go slow here. As we talk about the healing window, how much sensation of play can you tolerate before you completely go find in fight, or fight or completely shut down?

Speaker 1:

And if that happens, that's okay. Again, it's building that awareness and that curiosity of what's going on when I access play.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then you just widen the exposure a bit, you widen the healing window. All of a sudden, maybe you're doing 12 minutes of play a day and increasing from there. There's different types of play people can utilize as well. There's social play involving two or more people. This is, you know, any relationship. I say people, but it could also be with an animal. Yeah, me and our dog, darlala, did a little bit of playing before this what does your play look like she? Does this game where she, like you know, jumps on the couch.

Speaker 2:

You know I'm talking about and like she like, she likes to do like these little nips, and she's like playing and she likes to like wrestle like she rolls around.

Speaker 1:

She rolls around.

Speaker 2:

She's like she's having a great time yeah and so that's more kind of this social play.

Speaker 1:

There's movement play, moving your body, dance, sports, yoga, dance parties yeah, and I think it's really common for a lot of people to not engage in movement play. Really, it's like we're moving to walk to our car, we're moving to get somewhere, or yeah, but not in a playful way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think it's hard because movement can be viewed as dangerous by a lot of people who have chronic pain, chronic symptoms, and so you're doing exposure to both. You're doing exposure to play, but you're also doing exposure to movement.

Speaker 1:

And I love this because this is a great way to change your relationship with both with your body, with pain and symptoms, with movement play.

Speaker 2:

If this is a little side note, this could be a whole podcast. I love the end of podcasts. I'm like, oh, this could be a whole other podcast. What I see people do is like they're trying to do the great exposure in a moving morph, but it's so serious. Yeah, I relate to it where it's just like it's so serious and intense and people are working towards things they don't even like doing. Yes, If that's happening, incorporating an element of play could be really, really beneficial.

Speaker 1:

Right, because you want to keep it this kind of light curiosity.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we got more object play video games, board games, puzzles, some type of object you're using yeah, and we have creative play get inspired, write a story, do a craft, play music, draw or paint. Yeah, last weekend, me and my son, um, this is actually a type of play he can tolerate. Much better is creative play. Yes, he's much. He's really good at it. Actually, like we sat and did, like, um, watercolor pencil crayons, we did that for like an hour and he was stoked on it.

Speaker 1:

It was exciting, but it's it's just a form of, like, creative play and I know for you with art tanners, similar to the ping pong story. It's taken you a while to be able to do that without fully nose diving.

Speaker 2:

Yeah I essentially as I'm playing and this is what I practice and this is almost what I'm doing with our son as well, as I'm tracking basically my nervous system as I do it, and then I have to be really honest of like I need to stop now yes, stopping doesn't mean stopping for the whole time.

Speaker 1:

it can maybe mean pause and going back to it, but listening to that is important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like with the dance party songs. As soon as I start to see that sympathetic energy in our son, it's like okay, let's stop. Have a breather, like get a snack.

Speaker 1:

So how are you going to apply this then to today, with Christmas set up?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we got to think.

Speaker 1:

That's an example. So you shared with people kind of what to do. How are we going to do that for today?

Speaker 2:

it's interesting because people probably think this was mapped out but like we didn't think about the christmas setup until we started recording and now it's like the most relevant example yes, and we really have to think about it, because I think already we're.

Speaker 2:

We wanted to be playful, but I think we're a bit nervous, to be honest I say I say we almost like we don't tell our kids this, but we set a timer like 20 minutes, okay, and then we get a snack timer of 20 minutes and then it's like, oh, like our daughter has to go practice being on the potty, like we we intentionally give these breaks from like the Christmas chaos.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that I think that's a good idea, tanner, because as that energy keeps kind of mounting, mounting, mounting, that will give time to shift, yeah, and kind of slow a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Look at us. This is great.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, do you think we're going to follow this plan?

Speaker 2:

Oh, we're following it Okay. Good, we're following it yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, think we're gonna follow this plan. Oh we're following.

Speaker 2:

Okay, good, we're following it, yeah. Yeah, you seem really intense about that, though I'm ready to go, okay, well. Well, maybe we'll keep you guys updated on how it went, so thank, you everyone for listening.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening.

Speaker 2:

Go practice being playful.

Speaker 1:

Yes, you got this yeah take care take care, take care.