Influence Your Nervous System: Journey to Tranquility

This episode focuses on the power of the autonomic nervous system and how we can influence it for better health. The discussion highlights breathing techniques, the role of the vagus nerve, and practical approaches to reduce stress and promote calm. 

• Explanation of the autonomic nervous system and its two branches 
• Discussion on the role of the vagus nerve in achieving balance 
• Techniques for recognizing and addressing anxiety 
• Importance of mindful breathing for relaxation 
• Activities for heart rate regulation and emotional balance 
• The positive impact of laughter on stress management 
• Ways to enhance digestion through mindful eating 
• Encouragement to take charge of personal wellness 

Thanks for listening to It Starts at Vegas! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you're ready to take the next step toward calm, grab my free Vagus Nerve Reset video in the show notes. It's a quick and easy way to start feeling better today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Unlocking the Power of the Vagus
• 5:32 Balancing the Autonomic Nervous System
• 20:37 Wellness Starting at the Vagus

Transcript

Emily: 0:00

Welcome to. It Starts at Vagus, the podcast where holistic health meets modern living. I'm Emily, your guide to unlocking the power of the vagus nerve, which is your body's ultimate key to calm, connection and overall well-being. Together, we'll explore simple ways to nourish your mind and body with natural remedies, actionable tips and empowering stories. Whether you're here to reduce stress, restore balance or take charge of your health, you're in the right place, because wellness doesn't just happen. It starts at Vagus. Let's dive in.

Emily: 0:35

Did you know that you have the power to be an influencer? And no, I'm not talking about dancing on TikTok, but I am talking about influencing your autonomic nervous system in your body.

Emily: 0:50

Now, that's kind of a mouthful we can talk about. We can shorten it down to just ANS. So the autonomic nervous system is called the ANS same thing. Well, it's just shorter and easier to talk about and doesn't get as confusing in your head because there's just all those words. So the ANS is our autonomic nervous system and it controls the automatic functions of our body, for example, like our heart rate, our heart rate. Many people kind of they automatically think that because it's an autonomic nervous system, because it's automatic in my body, I have no control of it and that really isn't true. It is and it isn't. We can't control, but we can influence. We can give it tools and we can do techniques to encourage a behavior one way or the other. For example, like the heart rate, that's going to be an automatic response. Your body says we need to keep beating your heart so that you stay alive. Big deal right. But we influence it. If we want it to go higher, we can start exercising and pump up that heart and get that heartbreak going. And yes, it's part of the ANS and it's automatically going to pump. But we have that influence of revving it up. And that revving it up we also need to calm it down Because when we rev it up, you're activating your sympathetic nervous system, which is part of the autonomic nervous system. So we're going to pause for a second. We'll come back to that.

Emily: 2:39

The autonomic nervous system it has two branches. It's got the sympathetic, which is you're scared, you're fight or flight, and then it has your parasympathetic, which is your rest and digest state. And that state of being is where we want to be, our main nervous system function, because we don't always want to be anxious, we don't always want to be scared. That inhibits the rest and digest. It inhibits recovery time.

Emily: 3:13

So if you go up, it's really best to learn how to calm back down, to go into that parasympathetic rest. So when you're working out and you run and you run and you're pumping everything up, your body goes okay, maybe there's something scary chasing us, we better get going. And then when you're done with your workout, you really do need to calm down. So that's why a lot of people choose stretching. Afterwards it becomes a slower process, so the heart can say, okay, we don't have to run, nothing is chasing us anymore. So again, when we have that high with that sympathetic rush, you need to come back down to that parasympathetic rush, and that's what we're going to talk about today down to that parasympathetic rush, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

Emily: 4:05

We're going to talk about how we can use the vagus nerve which is why it starts at vagus, because it is the captain, so say, for the parasympathetic system in our body and its role is to help create that calm and that balance in our life. And its role is to help create that calm and that balance in our life. So the autonomic nervous system, the ANS and the vagus nerve do influence each other, but you do have the power to recognize and adjust and see how you want to be. So let's say you're in a state of really anxious and you just can't get your mind to slow down and it's overwhelming you. If you take a moment to recognize that and then say, okay, what's in my toolkit to slow it down Automatically, I think let's just doodle automatically. I think let's just doodle, just get out a piece of paper and draw some swiggly lines and then draw some more swiggly lines and adjust. That wave kind of helps settle things down in your brain so that it can slow things down, so you can start thinking clearer. Now that's just one thing that you can do. So we want to just talk about all the different things the.

Emily: 5:32

When the sympathetic nervous system is activated and we're in that fight or scared mode, what it does to us is that it increases our heart rate, like we talked about with exercising. That's a good thing, but when the heart rate's up, so does that stress up, so does that stress. And then, because you're stressed, your body goes. We're going to put a pause on digestion, we're just going to take a break because something else is more important and sometimes you create this shallow breathing because you don't have the time to do a good deep breath. So when you're exercising, let's go back to the exercising example.

Emily: 6:22

Learning how to breathe while you exercise is very important. You don't want to keep the shallow type of breathing. You want to be able to breathe in through your nose and out the mouth, and that's a process. That's a process of slowing your breathing down while you're running so that it turns into an activity you enjoy and eventually, an activity that calms your mind down and that can become a tool to just clear your thoughts. To just clear your thoughts.

Emily: 7:01

But at the beginning, typically for many people, you have to craft the art of running because it can default to that scary sympathetic system rather quickly. Quickly, but opposite, when you get the parasympathetic nervous systems, that helps slower your heart rate, that allows you to do deeper breathing because you can be slower at it. You're no longer using your shoulders to breathe, you start using your diaphragm to breathe. You start using your diaphragm to breathe and your body goes okay, things have slowed down. Now we can digest our food because nothing's attacking us, and now that we know that it's safe, because your brain is all about your safety. That's its number one job and it will trump anything when it doesn't feel safe. So when it feels safe, it says all right, now it's time to work on the other projects, the projects that keep us alive overall, but in the moment can be turned off. But in the moment can be turned off and the body just kind of balances between the two. It's supposed to do that. We are supposed to be able to go in between.

Emily: 8:26

We don't want to always stay in the sympathetic fight or flight and we don't always want to stay in the parasympathetic which you're like. Well, why not? Why can't I just stay in that rest and digest which you're like? Well, why not? Why can't I just stay in that rest and digest? Well, there's lots of reasons. You have to be alert when you're driving. You have to be alert if you're taking care of little ones. Your body wants to protect you, so it has to kind of always have that. It's the sound, the alarm. You don't want to take out a smoke alarm in your house and you don't want to take out that sympathetic either. You want to have that rest and digest state our default, but you don't want to get rid of that fight or flight either, because it does keep us safe, does keep us safe.

Emily: 9:25

How we affect the autonomic nervous system is with the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve, I think, is just such a cool nerve because it's one of the nerves that we do have an influence on and it is the longest cranial nerve, so that's uh, cranium is out of the head and it connects to the brain and major organs and that can be like the stomach, the liver, the, um, intestines. So when you say I've got a bad feeling, a lot of that is your. It's the, the mind body connection, because your stomach goes ooh, that's a bad feeling, I have a bad feeling about this. And it's that connection between the gut and the brain, between the vagus nerve saying I'm not so sure about this, and they're just communicating. They're saying do we have time to digest right now or should we be freaking out? So that's where the vagus nerve kind of ties in all this together, because the vagus nerve is responsible for calming the body down and activating the two different systems the fight or flight or the rest and digest. It has that capability to figure out which one needs to be the main player of the game. But when we have chronic stress, the default turns into the sympathetic, where we're always scared, we know stomach pains or we're constipated or we can't think clearly and it's because the body's saying we're not sure about this situation, let's keep us in that scared fight or flight mode, that scared fight or flight mode, and that is why we're going to come in and we're going to break that cycle of saying no, you don't need to stay in that scared mode, we can calm down and say all is well, we are just fine. So having that high vocal vagal tone is associated with better emotional and physical health, because there is that body-mind connection, like I said, with the gut and having a bad feeling. And then how there's that connection between the heart even, and the vagal tone influences the heart. So it says do we need to pump more oxygen and blood to all areas of the body or can we evenly distribute it to where it needs to go?

Emily: 12:03

In that moment, let's talk about three ways that you can influence your autonomic nervous system. We'll talk about breathing techniques. We'll talk about the heart rate regulation and some digestion hacks. So diaphragm breathing very helpful. That is how we activate the parasympathetic system and you can do that with box breathing, which is inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds and then hold again for four seconds. So people say it kind of looks like a box, get all the different sides. You can also do the extended exhale breathing. So inhale for four seconds and then exhale for eight. That slowing of the breath tells our body, okay, nothing's coming after us and we're fine. If you don't have that amount of time or you're working or in a situation where you have to be shorter, you can go two inhale breaths, two really quick ones go and then slow out so quick. Two in one out out so quick, two in one out.

Emily: 13:36

Next, let's talk about how to regulate our heart. Now I said that we can do that through exercising, and when we want to increase that stress and increase our heart rate, then we can do the running and the fast activities. But if you want to bring it back down, you can do like Tai Chi. You can honestly like being mindful of the moment really helps me slow down. If I step back and I look at the situation, I can determine if I feel safe or not or if it's causing me stress.

Emily: 14:18

For example, I've got kids and when they were little the stress was higher sometimes because everything feels like it has to be done now, whether they're crying or I'm thinking of like potty training them. Potty training, there's a very timetable, you know there's a short window that works there and sometimes you know accidents happen. And to be able to say you know what they're learning and part of that learning is going to be making mistakes and instead of getting really angry I can take a step back. Take a step back. Remember that they are just two or three. Two or three is so small and they're only going to be two or three for a little bit. And when I think of that it really warms my heart because it's such a precious time in their life. And when they have that bathroom accident could I get mad? Absolutely.

Emily: 15:34

If you're trying to cook and things are just going crazy and chaotic and now you're burning supper because you have to clean up this mess, it's okay Overall. Yeah, that moment it's going to feel frustrating, but in the big picture it's not. Really Nobody's going to remember that that meal was burnt and to say this moment is such a small time in my life and to recognize that you get to take care of that kiddo and to teach them things. That's really where I'm like okay, this isn't as bad as I think it was, because before all the things were adding up in my head like bathroom accident supper and paper towels to clean up the mess and the soap to clean up the mess and then like bam, bam, bam supper, and like paper towels to clean up the mess and the soap to clean up the mess and then like bam, bam, bam bam. But if I just say you know what, that half a second where I take this is okay, or even, let's say, three seconds, if the urine's on the carpet it's already on there as long as you don't leave it there, that would be gross. But picking it up two seconds faster isn't going to really make a difference. But taking that two seconds to remind yourself it is okay, that helps everybody in the room and that's just one way that I like to help bring that heart rate down. That I like to help bring that heart rate down and it helps my emotional well-being and physical.

Emily: 17:24

And then laughter. Laughter boosts your vagal tone, it helps reduce the stress hormone like cortisol, and laughter just keeps that heart light and joyful and it doesn't keep it heavy and weighted down. So if you're struggling to figure out. Where can I create some happy little moments in my life? Laughter is an easy one to go to, find your favorite comedian and watch it at night. Have that nighttime happy so that when you go to sleep, your body can rejuvenate and recover easier and you will sleep better. And that's just. It's an easy little thing. Just laugh a little bit. Again, find your favorite comedian out there. There's a lot out there to choose from and they're a good, easy source.

Emily: 18:10

As for a digestion hack, how can we influence it? The easy one is slowing down, being mindful here it is again and to chew thoroughly and eat slowly. Because when we eat fast, the brain goes ooh, is this food going to be on? Is there something rushed that is somebody else going to take my food? And it starts thinking like, why are we eating so fast? Is there something that we need to be cautious of around us? But while we eat slower, the brain goes okay, calm back, enjoy your meal and, you know, enjoy a conversation with a friend. So that is something that really does slow down.

Emily: 19:00

Also, eating a meal with someone you like and enjoy to be around. That helps digestion too, because then you have that social interaction, that social engagement with the vagus nerve and that helps stimulate that rest and digest also. So if you have a good friend that you like to eat lunch with, that will help your nervous system and it's again, it's a great lunch. It's a great way to spend your lunch and it's again, it's a great lunch, it's a great way to spend your lunch. So, as you go throughout your day, try to recognize what your default is to stress and then pick a technique like slowing down in the moment or finding something to laugh, or finding a friend. And what if your friend's far away? Then give them a call. All those little things are going to help that autonomic nervous system, because that is the key to managing the stress, the health, your overall balance, your overall balance. And remember, just because it's automatic doesn't mean it's beyond our control, because it is to some degree. We can use that influence and the vagus nerve is a powerful tool to help that part of our autonomic nervous system, to help that part of our autonomic nervous system. So, as we wrap up, remember to breathe and to do the things that make you happy.

Emily: 20:37

Thanks for listening to. It Starts at Vagus. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you're ready to take the next step toward calm, grab my free Vagus Nerve Reset video in the show notes. It's a quick and easy way to start feeling better today. And until next time, remember, wellness starts at Vagus.