95. Values and your Vagus Nerve

"We all start not knowing what to do."

-Anne McKevitt. 

If you don't know what to do right now, it's okay, you can figure it out. 

Transcript

We all start not knowing what to do. And this is a quote from Anne McKevitt. And so if you don't know what to do right now, it's okay, you can figure it out. 

This episode is all about how to use your values to know what to do. Welcome to the modern creative woman. This is a place where you can cultivate your creativity using art and science, and allow yourself the space to grow in truly unexpected ways. 

I want to let you know about what the March class will be. It's all about archetypes. And archetypes are a important part of psychology. Carl Jung. It's an important part of every book you've ever read, every movie you've ever seen. And these images of what we think something is, should be, or could be play out in our lives all the time. Understanding archetypes will help you better understand your favorite theatre as well as current politics. The powerful way that we can use archetypes has been shown for. All of humankind. And the work that we'll be doing this month inside is focused on using archetypes to better understand yourself and others in your community. And we will be using art. Of course, we'll be using mindfulness. And I think best of all, you'll be able to apply the information in your everyday life just to feel better and to understand more of what's happening. You will be forever changed and see the world differently. When you start using archetypes to experience what's happening, I really want to encourage you to support small and local businesses. And the modern creative woman is, of course, a small woman owned business. The advantage of supporting this particular business is that you get so much more out of it than you put in, and the idea of investing in yourself right now is essential. There is a lot going on that we need to really take the time to understand ourselves and take really good care of ourselves. And so by joining in for our monthly classes, it's three each month. And what you get is an incredible college level lecture About art and science and creativity. And you get three of those every month. You get the community and of course, you get an amazing workbook. We make art in the classes and you do writing and art in between the classes. It is my dream program. It's the work that I've always wanted to offer and it's available at an incredible price. It's three classes for the month. It's only $97. It's a very small investment for the amount of value that you're getting. If you join for the whole year, you can save a little bit as well. You only pay for ten months. It is the most powerful program that I have ever been a part of, and I'm bringing you the 30 years of experience that I have as an art therapist so that you can use your creativity, tap into what's naturally there, and develop that creativity that will truly give you the space for self-compassion, self-love, and be it better able to connect with the people you care about and your communities. You can find the link in the show notes, and I really want to encourage you to be a part this month. If you've been waiting for something, here it is. Now is the time. Today we're going to talk about how you can really tap into your values. As a way of knowing what you want to do, how you want to make a contribution, and how you want to really express what's important to you in the world. And I'm also going to share a really cool study. I found it's a randomized control study, and it's one of the most interesting, well explained articles that I've come across about how you can change your mood by strengthening your vagus nerve. So we'll get into that. But first let's start with values. I love Merriam-Webster dictionary oh so much. We had a rabbit named Merriam-Webster. So I want to start off using the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of values. Now the idea comes into kind of two categories. One is a monetary worth of something. Uh, it might be about the fair return around goods, something like that. But there's also another way of thinking of values. And that is something like your principles and what you find intrinsically valuable or desirable. In other words, what's most important to you? What is something that you're willing to stand for and you're willing to take action on? In acceptance and commitment therapy. Purpose is in the evidence based practice of acceptance and commitment. The idea of values really has two components. One is identifying what is most important to you. If somebody woke you up in the middle of the night and said, what really matters, what would you say? If there were people, places, attitudes and beliefs that you would take with you no matter where you go. Those are values. What's important to you is so personal. And oftentimes we think of values as things that we inherit from our parents or from society. Values are unique to you. Everyone has a different way of understanding what matters to them and expressing it, and it changes. Often. It will change. Perhaps in a decade you might not be a parent and then become a parent, and suddenly that value of parenting will be with you for the rest of your life. There may be times when you're in a particular relationship, and it has a lot of value for you, and you contribute a lot of value, and that person passes away and you don't lose the value that you placed in that relationship. What you have remaining is your values and what's important. Values are unique to you. Now, the second part of this in acceptance and commitment is all about how you choose to express your values. And it doesn't have to be these big, grand gestures about what's important to you. It's usually small, meaningful expectations about your own behavior, and they aren't coming from a place of guilt. They're not because you think you should. They are. I do this because it's the right thing for me to do right now. And when we are able to take action on our values, we feel good. When we can get our thoughts and our feelings and our actions all in alignment, moving in the same direction. We are incredibly powerful and we have great capacity to contribute in a whole different way. And it starts to point us in the direction of the things that we want to do and need to do, so that we can feel truly good about our purpose. And when I think of purpose, what I mean is values plus your committed action. How you demonstrate that. Some examples might include the value of safe driving. We all stop at a red light or a stop sign, and a much more complex level. We're talking about how we want to be in relationships, and what's a value for you might not be a value to someone else. How you kind of set up your relationship and the agreed upon, either consciously or unconsciously. Um. Relationship that you create together depends on what you bring to it and how you want to behave, how you want to act in that relationship. Values have nothing to do with what the other person does or says, or how they respond to you. They are about you taking action because it's important. For example, you might speak up about an injustice and maybe you don't expect that it will change, but you know that if you don't speak up that you're being changed by that silence. This is really important right now that we're able to express our values and what's important to us in really meaningful ways. You have values in many, many areas in your family relationships, in your intimate relationships, in your career, your employment, your friendships. What you do for recreation and fun is dependent on what you value. Your leisure time, your spirituality, your health, your well-being, and your creativity are all created by you based on what's important to you. And there can be times when we've been following along a path and it doesn't seem that interesting, exciting, or engaging anymore. That means it's just time to revisit our values, have some reflection time, and take a look at what you're doing that really matters to you. Think of values as your compass. Values are a compass because they provide direction that you want to move towards. You'll never reach your values. They're not something that you can just check off. Done. I reached my value of being a kind and loving partner. Now I don't have to worry about it anymore. Nope, that's not how it works. Values guide us, point us in the direction you can go round and around the world going west and never reach west. It's simply a direction your value is not reflected in your to do list that you can check it off and suddenly you're done with it. I worked with many people at the university who were doing a total career transition and coming back to school to be an art therapist, and I worked with many who were shifting slightly, going from art into art therapy. And any time that you've made a shift in your life, changed jobs, or moved, it was based on a value that you found to be important for yourself in that moment. And also going forward. Values are very forward thinking. They are not trying to get you to do something right away in this moment. Hurry, hurry. Values are the long game. They help you plan and predict. They hope you know what it is that you want to do, and they simplify things in incredible ways. So when the time comes, you know what's important to you. There is over 40 years of research showing that values really help us get a handle on where we want to go in life. They inform our decisions and how we choose to live. And the research shows that taking action on what we feel is important makes us feel better. All of these decades of research in the field of psychology show that it improves our lives in really powerful ways. And of course, we know that when we act on our values, it reduces our suffering and of course, mental health challenges as well. I used to co facilitate art therapy acceptance and commitment therapy groups at the VA hospital. And over and over, people turned a corner when they focused on their values. And being able to create art about your values is really important. Have you written about and reflected on what's important to you lately? If not, now is the time. Your values as a citizen may be really important right now. Your values as a parent and being optimistic and encouraging for your kids. Your value as an artist to express yourself. To put emotion and thought into a piece of artwork so that you can share it either with just yourself or with other people. All of these are really, really important values right now. And sometimes there feels like a very big risk when we move towards our values. And I think that's a big reason why a lot of people don't. Now, it might be a perceived risk, like they would feel uncomfortable or it could be a much bigger risk. Where speaking up for yourself or others can come with much bigger potential external consequence. However, values are persistent and remember, we feel better when we take action that is congruent with our values. We feel worse when we take action that is not in line with our values or we take no action. We also feel worse if we keep thinking about it. Oh, I'll make action later. I'll think about it. I don't want to do it yet. There is an incredible incentive to taking action on your values. It makes you feel better, which in turn makes everybody else around you feel a little better. When you feel better, your community feels better. Sometimes we take action on behalf of others who can't. There are meaningful ways that you can take action that feels just like a little bit of a stretch. It's okay if you're thinking, I can't take big action. I don't want to be on a stage. I don't want to do grand things. That's not what values guide you to do. Values will help you know what to do and guide you in whatever direction will make you feel better. Values do not make you feel worse. You might be nervous, but they're not going to make you feel terrible and awful. They're going to inspire you. So if you're feeling a little nervous, if you're feeling a little nervous about taking action on your values, I found some incredibly powerful research that allows you to feel better in the moment. Now, values help us feel good in the long run, and over time, we increase our commitment to our values every time we take action on it. It's this really wonderful, self rewarding, self fulfilling experience to move towards your values. You inspire yourself. You inspire others. You take more action and pretty soon you're doing more than you ever could have imagined before. However, sometimes we need a little bit quicker relief. And powerful studies have found one quick way to change your mood, and it is through controlled breathing. And in particular, it's controlled breathing that has a longer exhale than inhale. So we're not talking box breathing I'm talking. Breath in for four. Breath out for eight. This kind of controlled strategy can change your mood in five minutes. I originally found this study because I like to use what I was taught in school about scientific method. And so I'm here always teaching about mindfulness and to continue feeling good about that and that I'm teaching the best of what's available. I'm always looking for what might be better, or I'm looking always for studies that show mindfulness isn't doing as much as we think. And that is the hallmark of scientific rigor and scientific inquiry. In research studies, scientists have a hypothesis. They think something might work to reduce your anxiety. But what they're testing is the opposite. They're testing the idea that this will not help you at all, and they look for the alternative to their belief, and they search for research that proves themself wrong. That is the hallmark of good quality research and inquiry. And what I found was really great. I'm a huge fan of this kind of critical thinking and critical analysis for what I value in academia. It keeps me culturally humble and scholarly. Humble. Let's get into this study. First of all, we're going to look at the rigor of the journal that this article is published in. The journal is called Cell Reports Medicine, and it's considered a really excellent journal, and it is known for high standards and rigorous peer reviewed process before it accepts a study to be published. And it really focuses on publishing things that are very impactful in biomedical research. The article that I'm going to tell you about is called Brief Structured Respiration Practices Enhance Mood and Reduce Physiological Arousal, and it comes from Baumann et al. In 2023, it looked at mindfulness compared to controlled breathing. And it wondered what might make a bigger impact on mood in a short term study. And as I mentioned before, mindfulness is part of making contact with the present moment. And all of the work that I teach is designed to move you in a direction, and it somehow, paradoxically, allows us to suffer less because we're not looking at the suffering. We're looking at what's important. So mindfulness is not designed to improve your mood per se. And it's not the goal of mindfulness meditation. It's different than a guided imagery that might be intended to change how you feel. Mindfulness is to just make contact with how you're feeling, and this study wanted to look at what could possibly improve more mindfulness or controlled breathing. So we're looking at a standard practice of mindfulness as compared to five minutes a day. For 30 days. They looked at 140 people. And everybody that finished these 140 participated for a month. So why are we studying controlled breathing at all? Now? It is really important. And now we've all heard about you know, we should take a deep breath to relax. You can do it now. It feels good. But controlled breathing directly influences our respiration rate. And breathing in this intentional way causes immediate physiological and psychological calming effects. And it does that by increasing vagal tone during slow respiration. Remember I said like four counts in 7 or 8 counts out. That's the slow expiration, the exhale. That was the longest longest exhale showed the most benefit. So before I get into the results I want to take a step back and define the vagus nerve and what they're really looking at. And we hear a lot about this in um, science in the last maybe 20 years. And it's something that's been studied for a long time. The vagus nerve is originating in your brainstem, and it extends downward, goes through your neck, through your chest or your abdomen. And it's the longest cranial nerve. And it has both sensory and motor fibers. So it's not just perceiving things. It's doing things. And it's what it's doing is all about your parasympathetic nervous system. And remember that's the rest and digest. It helps us feel good. Calm down. The bagel tone. The tone of that vagus nerve is important because it regulates a really important bodily functions like your heart rate, your digestion, of course your blood pressure. Even your immune system is impacted by vagal tone and high vagal tone. Indicates strong active vagus nerve and that is associated with good health and good mental health. Interesting, right? A low vagal tone or a less active vagus nerve is linked to all kinds of health problems like stress, anxiety, high blood pressure, heart disease, and digestive problems. Which begs the next question how do we improve our vagal tone? We all need this. Yeah. Okay. There are a series of things that will improve your vagal tone. I'm going to talk about five. One is deep breathing. So do a deep breath right now. The second one is meditation and mindfulness. Right. Making contact with the present moment. The third one is regular physical activity. And that means aerobic activity. 20 minutes a day at least is the recommended practice plus 2 or 3 sessions of strength training every week. So you gotta do it. It's good for your mental health. It's good for your physical health. The fourth one is brief exposure to cold like at the end of your shower. Cold water. Just as you're turning the hot shower off, do a cold rinse. It's really good for you. You can do a cold water splash of water on your face. That really helps. And then the last one is about social connection. You know, being a part of community, online community or in-person community. Okay, so now that you know about the vagus nerve and how to increase your vagal tone, which directly impacts your physical and mental health, let's come back to why they're comparing breathing to mindfulness. As I mentioned before, using the scientific method to compare already proven strategies mindfulness to other possible options is how we increase our confidence in the research. It's how we gain the ability to make new conclusions and make stronger and stronger recommendations to people. Again, using critical theory is how we improve the things we love. So of course, there's critical feminist theory, critical race theory. It's how we create a stronger and stronger understanding of what's happening in the world. So while mindfulness meditation decreases our sympathetic arousal in the long run. It is not the primary purpose or an expected. Effect that it would really change our mood in the short run. Now, mindfulness can involve controlled breathing, for sure, but mindfulness meditation is simply bringing attention to your breath for the purpose of increasing awareness. So that would be just noticing your breath, not trying to change or alter it in any way. Just noticing. Oh, maybe that was a shallow breath. Oh, there's a deeper breath. Maybe I'm holding my breath. It's just about awareness. But controlled breathing, on the other hand, is trying to change something out and lo and behold, it works. There's three approaches that the researchers looked at cyclic sighing, box breathing, and cyclic hyperventilation. I'll explain all those in a moment. But I'm excited about these results. Remember, the goal of this study was to see if people could improve their mood, lower their anxiety, lower their physiological arousal, you know, their breathing rate, heart rate, heart rate variability. The breathwork made a difference. Statistically significant difference, especially the exhale focused on cyclic sign. And that produced the greatest improvement in mood. And it reduced respiration rate as compared to the mindfulness strategies. So what does this all mean. Mindfulness is focused on present moment not changing your mood. It is a treatment model for lasting change. It has, you know of course roots in religious practice, spiritual practice obviously psychological practice. But the breathwork will help in the short term to improve our mood. This is really important. We need both, just like we need some long term financial investments. We need some short term spending accounts in our life. We are investing in our future. By practicing mindfulness. We're investing in that moment. We're increasing our enjoyment and satisfaction in life, and this controlled breathing helps us have a good mood. There are times we really need to turn it around and have a good mood. I want to explain the breathing exercises so that you can do them yourself. The first breathing exercise they studied was box breathing, and you all know this. You breathe in for equal count, say four, and then you hold for four, and you exhale for four, and then you hold for four. And the breath in is the exact same count as each hold and the exhale. And this was not statistically significant in improving mood. So this one we can do as a way to maintain. It's a great way to feel like to continue a good mood. Right. It's allowing you calmness, but it's not really giving that increase in mood. And um, the physiological changes that the other ones are. They looked at cyclic hyperventilation. So it would be something like breathe in for exhale two and hold for 10s. So it's breathe in, exhale half that count and then halt okay. So the one that I really want you to focus on is the physiological sign. And this is one that I learned a long time ago. I didn't know the name of it, and I really do think it works. So it's a count of 4 in 1, two, three, four. Hold for a second. And now a quick sip of air. And then exhale. 12345678. So breathe in. 41234. Hold quick. Extra. Fill up the rest of your lungs and exhale for 82345678. Do it one more time with me. Breathe in. 41234. Stop. Breathe in real quick. Now exhale. 8123456. Seven. Eight. Ah! Tell me what you think of this exercise. It stood out above the others. They attribute it to the extra long exhale. And that's the thing that sues us. Many times when we are anxious, we hold our breath. Many times, when we're in great concentration, we might hold our breath if we're worried. All the uncomfortable feelings can cause us to hold our breath, thereby increasing the discomfort. The discomfort comes from just kind of keeping too much of that old air in not exhaling it all out. It just doesn't feel good. And these are things you can do in the middle of a meeting. No one will ever know that you're doing the physiological sighing. You don't have to make it a sound. You can just look like you're sitting there, and it's been really great to just try it for five minutes. And I can absolutely tell a difference in how I feel if I do the breathing for five minutes, and it goes really quite fast because it takes a while to get through just one breath, so you're not doing that many. I really want to invite you to try it. I will drop the article in the show notes, and there's a visual that you can just scroll down. If you don't want to read the research, that's okay. Just have a look at the picture. And in the picture it shows you a little visual diagram of the breath. And I think it's pretty cool. And I would love to see the art you make about this. So you can imagine using your paint or your marker to track upward as you breathe in and down as you breathe out. And I have a art intervention about this in the Act Art therapy book. It's designed to be around mindfulness. But it uses the controlled breathing in combination, so definitely check that out. You can find it at your local bookseller. You don't have to order it from the big one. You can also find it on the Jessica Kingsley website. You can find act Art therapy on the website for the American Art Therapy Association library. Now, you might be wondering why I put values in conjunction with this really cool breathing exercise and the research on it. I'm hoping that I painted a picture for you. That's about the importance of accepting when we don't know what to do, and embarking on strategies that get us out of that kind of uncertainty or confusion or free state and values are proven ways to do that. And it not only helps you figure out what to do, it helps you feel better, and it helps you get your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions in alignment. And that's when we feel our very, very best. And I added the breathing exercise because there might be times where you're feeling pretty despondent or distressed, and it matters that you keep going, and it matters that you're able to focus on your values. And we need these short term self-care strategies to boost our mood. So remember, take excellent, excellent care of yourself. I really want to personally invite you inside the modern Creative Woman for the month of March. That link is in the show notes, and what I'm teaching about archetypes will transform how you think of things in both yourself and and what you see in the world. And I would love if you would drop a message. There is a link in the show notes where you can message me, and I would love to know one thing that is especially important to you in your values. What matters most to you in the world. And here's why I want you to share it with me. When we speak about it, we share with another person. The cognitive science shows that we can increase our commitment to it. We're more likely to act on it. So just drop it in there. Share with one person me. Tell your friends what matters to you as well, and that will also help you know more of what you want to do. And I hope you all stay healthy, safe and strong this week. Have a wonderful rest of your week! Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out when some men and I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level and want you to know you have options inside the membership, and if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me. Even if you just have some questions, go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the Modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Bakos. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month, all those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at Modern Creative Women. Com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.