How to Listen to Your Body and Restore Balance

Unlock the secrets of your body in this episode as we delve into the intriguing messages sent by your nervous system. Learn how to recognize and respond to the signs of nervous system dysregulation and the simple yet transformative changes you can implement today for your wellbeing. Our engaging discussion covers essential topics like the impact of the fight-or-flight response, the importance of the vagus nerve, and effective techniques to restore your natural state of calm.

Discover valuable techniques such as deep, belly breathing to activate your body's healing processes and make your way back to balance. We also touch on the vital role of social connections in nurturing emotional wellness, showing that human interaction can significantly mitigate stress and anxiety.

By the end of this episode, you’ll be equipped with actionable insights and advice to help you reclaim your calm and take charge of your health journey. Essential for anyone feeling overwhelmed or anxious, this enlightening conversation will empower you to tune into your body and rediscover peace. Don’t miss this opportunity – subscribe, share, and try out the free tools we offer in the show notes!

Chapters

• 5:59 Understanding Nervous System Dysregulation
• 32:48 Simple Strategies for Restoring Balance
• 1:00:49 Breathing Techniques to Activate the Vagus Nerve

Transcript

Emily : 0:02

Your body is constantly talking to you, but are you listening? Today, we'll break down the signs of the nervous system dysregulation and the simple shifts that we can help you feel safe and control again.

Emily : 0:18

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. Your body is constantly sending you signals about your nervous system, but how are you paying attention? Today, we're going to break down the signs of dysregulation and explore simple ways to bring yourself back into balance.

Emily : 1:11

So first off, you might be wondering what is nervous system dysregulation? So just in a brief bit, it's how the autonomic nervous system works. The autonomic nervous system has two main branches the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic nervous system, that is our fight or flight action. It's when we're scared so scared and sympathetic both. That S's. It kind of helps you remember. But it is activated when you're stressed or you're preparing your body to respond to danger by views of threat. So when your body feels as being threatened, it starts saying okay, let's increase your heart rate, let's tense your muscles, get them ready to run or fight, be prepared. And at the same time your mind starts sharpening its focus. You can really just pay attention to what's going on, but it's usually paying attention to the problem. It's paying attention to the problem. It's guarding itself. It wants to make sure that it can feel safe when it doesn't feel like it's in a safe situation. Now the parasympathetic nervous system. The second part is our rest and digest. It helps you relax, recover. It helps you restore your balance by slowing down your heart rate and you can breathe slower, deeper, and this in turn helps improve your digestion and promotes that overall calmness feeling.

Emily : 3:03

And this is where we start using the vagus nerve. It's where we're saying, okay, we're kind of in that fight or flight response. Now let's help our system calm down, get out of that guarded feeling, so that our body can just rest, digest and be happy. It just wants to calm down. It doesn't need to be on guard all the time, but I do need to make a note that this dysregulation isn't bad per se. It is more of a survival response. It's a really good thing we have it. We just don't need it to get stuck in that mode, and that's where I see a lot of my clients that come in with high anxiety. That's where they get stuck in that cycle of stress, tense muscles, and then the tense muscles feed their stress and it kind of gets that cycle and that's what we really focus on to interrupt that, that feeding cycle. So that is what I want to share with you is just how that vagus nerve is such a key and an easy one, a simple, easy, pain-free way to bring our body back to being calm.

Emily : 4:31

So now that we know a bit about the sympathetic nerve system and the fight or flight and the shutdown, let's discuss the signs. So this is what really got me interested in the beginning, when I was digging more into about the vagus nerve. What caught my attention is that it connects so many dots and explained why some people were really stressed out and guarded and while other clients that I was working with really just like shut down and it would take them moments to respond to a question, and so the two really are different. They're still in that that scared feeling, but it's just a different way how they respond. It's how their body just says okay, which degree do we need to take it? So even though they're both activated by the sympathetic nervous system, they still present differently. So the fight or flight signs would be feeling anxious or restless, kind of on the edge. You've got the racing thoughts and the difficulty of focusing on things that aren't urgent in your mind. So you might have all these underlying feelings and fears and then therefore have a harder time focusing things that your body doesn't put priority on. Because again, your brain says let's make sure you're safe. And if it doesn't, if it's not in that realm of worrying about you keeping safe, it might just push it away. So it's not going to put urgency on resting because it's not sure if it's safe. And so this is where we start getting easily irritated at little things reactive. Irritated at little things reactive. We get tension in our body with like jaw clenching or tight shoulders, even stomach issues. All of that is part of the fight or flight. But the shutdown part, which is part of the dorsal vagal response, it has the fatigue, the low energy, kind of like the, the checked out, I can't, I can't even respond. It has that kind of sign. It's where they start feeling numb or disconnected from emotions. Because it just gets so overwhelming the brain just goes that's enough done, just shut down because it's too much.

Emily : 7:22

Your brain does put priority on things. Um, a good example of this of the brain putting priority is let's pretend you of the brain putting priority is let's pretend you, you know, get a paper cut on your finger Now that's, you know, not enjoyable and it gets your attention. But if you were to slam your hand in a door, the other hand your brain's going to focus on that hand, not the paper cut. So it really just says, hey, which one needs the most attention, which one's most critical for us to survive? And that is after a while it just says let's put these in priority, let's put these in priority. And if it gets too much and too heavy, your brain just says you know what? Just, we're just going to pause and ignore it.

Emily : 8:26

Kind of like when you slam your hand in the door, sometimes it's such an adrenaline rush you don't even feel the pain until a few moments later. Like you know, it should hurt. But when you first slam it it's such an intense feeling that it doesn't even process. And that's kind of what happens when we're just too bombarded. It's too heavy of a feeling. We just need to shut down because that's the only way the body's like we need to rest and you're not resting, so we're just going to make you. And that is where we start avoiding people and procrastinate, because it's again another thing that our body's just like nope, we've got too much on our hands. Right now we're just going to take ourselves and we're going to hide, because, again, the body or the brain wants to keep us safe and until it feels safe, it's going to protect it in any way that it can.

Emily : 9:29

So how do we shift back into regulating to where we can go from protective and survival to that rest and digest, deep belly breathing to get that full lung expansion, diaphragm extension, because that's where we're really going to get that oxygen in. It helps tone our vagus nerve because, again, the vagus nerve is part of our breathing and when we're in that fight or flight we often breathe with our shoulders so we can get those really short breaths and they're not very full of oxygen because they're just short. We're just breathing with our upper traps, but when we breathe with our diaphragm it helps get our lungs full of oxygen and that in turn will help us slow down. That oxygen is going to help relax your muscles and you will start feeling calmer. You can also incorporate some gentle movement. So if you just want to do a nice little walk, a little brisk walk Again, we're not going to run like we're in danger, but a nice calm walk is really really helpful. It helps clear your brain and it says okay, we're strolling, and strolling means that nobody's chasing us, so we're fine.

Emily : 11:09

If you are experiencing that shutdown mode where life just feels too heavy, the, in my opinion, one of the best ones to activate that vagus nerve is to call a friend. You know it's start getting that social engagement, because with social engagement we realize that that vagus nerve is working really well. We feel better when we have someone to talk to. So if you have a friend, or even if you have a pet, and you just start making that eye contact with them, it helps you feel that all is well and it helps you getting out of that feeling of the doom and gloom and not sure of what the world is going to present itself when you make those connections. It helps just like ease that up. And it's just such a good feeling when you have a friend just to talk to and relate to and if they have you know experiences where they shut down. You know it's really just helping each other and bringing that community feeling. And we're humans, we're meant to interact with one another. So that's probably one of my favorite ones.

Emily : 12:31

But sometimes it's overwhelming, we don't even want to do that. So we can do gentle movement again, but this time it's going to be more rocking, more soothing type of motions. You can do some stretching and let's just say you're even in your bed and you're not even willing to get out, where you can do that, even just like wiggling your toes and your fingers. That helps just activate some motion in you and it starts feeling better Again. It's just you have some control of it and it will start that that domino effect to where you can start feeling like, okay, I wiggled, now I can get out of bed and maybe I can shower. Or if I can't do that, I can call my friend, I can lift up my phone, give my friend a call. So all those little things. We just need little steps to make it feel better. It's just that snowball effect, little little things. We are not looking for big things, just simple steps, because there may be times that you're just in the thick of it of either that fight or flight or the shutdown and you don't know what the step is.

Emily : 14:00

My recommendation, then, is to focus on your breathing. It's a good go-to Again. It tones the vagus nerve, it slows everything down, so your brain goes okay, we're not being chased, we're not in a panic Oxygen getting all over. Your're not in a panic Oxygen getting all over your body is always a plus Getting those nutrients moving within your body. And it's easy to do. It's free, it's painless, these are just simple things. It's painless, these are just simple things.

Emily : 14:36

And if you can't remember breathe out, just do a slow, deep breath out, because you're automatically going to breathe in. Your body's going to require that. So if you take a slow, deep breath out, you're going to bring in that air. So at minimum, if you're having just a really, really hard day, just breathe out and again that breathing in will happen, and then you can focus on am I belly breathing If I put my hand on my tummy? Does my hand go up and down. If not, you might be breathing with your upper traps in your chest, but we really do want that belly breathing. To get that full expansion of your diaphragm and that's just one way to tell is if your hand goes up and down off of your belly when you breathe in and out. So just do that for a few minutes and regroup, say does this make me feel better? Is there another thing that I can do and get the ball rolling from then? And if you can't, then just keep breathing. If anything, you'll just take a nice little nap which goes back into that rest and digest the calm state, and that's always when a nap is always a win, in my opinion.

Emily : 16:00

So just remember that when you get into this fight or flight, or even the shutdown, it's your body's way of protecting you, or even the shutdown it's your body's way of protecting you. So you might need to do some journaling to say why is my body reacting at so extremes without being able to get out by itself? What is my body protecting me from? And then adjust life from there. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard, but you know your body is it in If it's telling you to shut down or to get ready for a fight or run. Your body is using those cues. So the more you recognize it, the more you can adjust these little shifts. Sometimes we might not always be able to change our surroundings, but we can change how we react to that.

Emily : 16:55

I know it's kind of said a lot, but there's a lot of truth to it, because you can just do these simple little things and nobody notices. That's the best part. Like nobody notices if you know you take a few minutes, go to the bathroom and breathe. They're like, well, she's just in the bathroom, no big deal. Meanwhile you know that you're just helping your nervous system settle down so you don't become reactive, so you can just enjoy the day. Take those few breathers and it's just trying it out. That's the best part is that we can. We can test all these things. We can try them and see which one feels best to us, because my go-to might not be exactly what your go-to is and that's why it's so great having all these different options.

Emily : 17:47

But breathing is one that I recommend just because that is necessary for life. It's easy, it's automatic, but how we breathe, we can influence that. So today, just try practicing that belly breath, see how it feels and when it feels really good, recognize that, because your body needs more recognition of what feels good, because it's always on that guard and stay. It's always making sure you're going to survive. So when you say it's okay, let's just breathe, it's typically really enjoys it and it's going to start moving that direction as more of a default the more you practice it. So thank you for spending some of your day with me. I really appreciate it. Remember to breathe and do at least one thing today that makes you happy. 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.