S10 E208 - The Mental Reset

Are anxiety and depression stealing your joy as you age? In this episode, Jennifer explains how to tap into your Vagus Nerve to consciously shift your body from stress and isolation into calm and purpose. Discover how God designed our bodies to heal and regulate themselves using simple, non-pharmaceutical, everyday tools.

Show Schedule:

Fridays: Deep dives into the emotional and spiritual components of aging (like today's episode!).

Tuesdays at 7 AM: Focuses on the educational aspects and insights of aging Key Takeaways:

The Brain-Body Connection: Depression and anxiety are neurological and hormonal, not just "in your head."

The 17-Second Rule: Emotions pass in 17 seconds if not reinforced. Simply naming your emotion reduces its power over your brain.

Anxiety is Misinterpreted Joy: The aging brain tries to predict an uncertain future, creating anxiety loops that you can interrupt.

Quick Vagus Nerve Tools: You can instantly calm your nervous system by humming, gargling in the morning, rocking, self-hugging, or doing extended exhales (inhale 4 seconds, exhale 6 seconds).

Spiritual Truth: God designed your body's healing mechanisms, and as long as you have breath, you have a purpose!

Resources & Contact:

Guest (Jennifer): mindinmotionperform.com | 248-670-3853 (Mention the podcast on her website for a special listener offer!)

Contact the Show: Call 248-651-5010 with questions, resource needs, or topic ideas.

Learn more : https://omny.fm/shows/next-steps-4-seniors-with-wendy-jones

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is Next Steps for Seniors with your host, Wendy Jones. Each week, Wendy brings resources and information to help guide you through those next steps with elderly parents and loved ones. If you have questions or topic suggestions, you can call us at 248-651-5010.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to Next Steps for Seniors Conversations on Aging. I am thrilled to have a guest in the studio today. You know, every Friday we talk about the emotional, spiritual components of aging. We've talked about guilt, we've talked about just so many things, right? We go through so many feelings and emotions and how we can get through that by leaning on God really as the answer. He is the answer. But I wanted today is going to be a little different because we're going to talk about retraining your brain and how we can help you with anxiety or depression, which are real things that can happen as we age. And not just as we age, really anytime, to be quite honest. So we have Jennifer with us today, and she is the owner of Mind and Motion Performance Training. And you have really learned a lot about how our brain is so powerful and what we can be doing on a daily basis right now to help with things like depression. And I would love you to just share with our audience, you know, we took we talked a little bit offline about the vagus nerve. Explain how that all works.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah. So um our nervous system, which is essentially your brain and all your nerves, they control everything that happens in your body, which God designed, right? God designed us to heal, God designed us to rebuild, He designed us to function. And we all have us within ourselves the ability to improve these things. So if you're feeling depressed, it's not just an emotional state, but it's also what's going on with your neurology and your endocrine system, your hormones. The nervous system is releasing and your endocrine system are releasing these hormones that make you more depressed. Maybe you have less serotonin or not enough dopamine. Um, so we can utilize your physical parts, such as the vagus nerve, to directly give input to your nervous system, which is then going to change how your endocrine system gives these inflammatory byproducts or hormones. So one of the things that you can use, you never notice people when they're happy, they're singing, they're humming, they're dancing, they're smiling. Yes, all of those things are utilizing the largest nerve in the body of the crani. So not of the body, but of the cranial nerves, it's your vagus nerve. It's also called your wandering nerve. It starts in your brainstem and it goes all the way into your gut. So there's two branches, um, your ventral branch, which is when we're happy and engaged and we're socially connected, and then your dorsal branch, which is when you're kind of shut down, and when you feel a little sadness or feel a little depressed, or feeling like, you know, what's what's the point? And we can why am I here? Why am I here?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

All thoughts that people have. Like what is my purpose? Why am I here? You know, I'm lonely. Isolation is a big thing as we age. So if you're thinking any of those things right now, this is for you.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yeah. So um, there's people who've talked about the polyvagal theory, and um, that's been uh talked about enormously, especially of late. And we can use that vagus nerve to help our nervous system change in between these states. So one of the wonderful things about feelings is that they don't last a long time. Thank goodness, right? Thank goodness, 17 seconds. If you can sit with that feeling, it will pass. And they say if you can name that feeling, say, I feel sad right now, just by naming it, that actually lessens the power that it has on your brain. Just naming it. I feel anxious right now, I feel happy right now. It doesn't have to just be the sad ones, right? It can be happy too. Joy. Because anxiety is really joy that you're nervous about. Your brain is predicting an unwanted future. That's what anxiety is about, especially as we get older. What's it gonna look like as I'm older? How's my body gonna change? What am I gonna be able to do? Can I stay in my own home? All those are anxiety thoughts, and that's your brain trying to predict the future that's uncertain. So you can address that by getting at this vagus nerve. Um, part of that is by humming. So I can have clients work on humming. If maybe we're trying to do something and they're afraid of falling doing it, we'll have them hum while they do it. We can have them gargle. So first thing in the morning, gargling is a great way to get at that vagus nerve. So that can help with starting your activating the nerve is what you're doing. Yes, okay. You're turning it on and you can turn that nerve on in different ways depending on kind of what you're feeling. If you're already excited and you're anxious, this might be where we don't um gargle, but maybe we cross our arms over our chest and we kind of give ourselves a little self-hug. That's a way of stimulating that vagus nerve when we rock side to side. What do we do for babies when we're putting them to sleep? Always rock. Always rock. Even uh when my daughter was grown, I was still rocking when I was standing in line because it's actually settling your nervous system. Well, it does. It kind of calms you down when you rock, to be honest. Yes. And that's because of the motion that's occurring with that vagus nerve. Okay, well, now we know. Yeah. So now we understand the science behind why those things that we've used for years, why they work the way that they do work. So you can start implementing them on your own. If you're feeling down, you know, you can do some deep breathing. Deep breathing is one of the quickest ways to stimulate your vagus nerve. What do they tell you when you're stressed out? Take a deep breath. And if we make our exhale longer than our inhale, we're actually firing our parasympathetic branch of our vagus nerve. If we go breathe real fast, maybe you're feeling down, you're like, I need to get some energy. Breathe real fast, right? Sniffing through your nose, right? That's going to facilitate your sympathetic nervous system, which is going to kind of get you up or get you moving. If you're kind of like, uh, you know, just kind of a little down mundane. Yep, you get those fast breaths, um, or Wim Hof breath, which is going to increase that um volume of that breath. Those are ways we stimulate that vagus nerve, which then can change your emotional state.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

I love this. I can't, I there's no words. So when you breathe, does it matter if you go in through your nose, out through your mouth, or does it it doesn't matter? Because this is something everyone should be doing.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

It there is a difference, yes. Um, depending on who you read, why you read it, why you're doing it. Um, there's many theories about which one is the best way. What I've noticed um is that uh making the exhale longer, especially if you're in kind of this agitated state, will help get that parasympathetic. So it might be breathe in for four seconds, into your nose, and then out for six seconds, out through your nose.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Okay. So in and out through your nose, in shorter, out longer. And that's something everyone can implement. And why are we not trying this? Correct. I mean, this is exactly God. I I just want to go back to God because He created us for a specific purpose. And you are here. If you have life, you have breath, you are here for a reason. Do not think for even one second, why are you here? You are here because God wants you here. And I just want to encourage our listeners if you're here, let's make the best of it. And if there's things we can do, if you're anxious, you can do a little bit of breathing. That all these things that she's talking about right now are tools in the toolbox. I want to just encourage you. You need these tools. This will help you. But most importantly, it is God who is there for you. It is God that brought me to Jennifer as an example for my dad. So you don't know what his super plan is, but guess what? He does. All we got to do is trust him and rely on it and know that there are answers and he answers our prayers. So, Jennifer, thank you. Thank you for caring about our seniors. Thank you for really opening up our our minds more than anything to the fact that there is alternatives. We do not need to live depressed on a regular basis. There's options. There is, we do not have to have be anxious all the time. Correct. So you're tuning into Next Steps for Seniors. Do share your website though, so our listeners can grab a hold of your information and reach out to you if they need some specific help on something.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

It is mindinmotionperform.com. And my number is 248-670-3853. And my name's Jennifer.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

And there is a one-time special if you click on the link on our website that you heard this podcast. Again, you're listening to Next Steps for Seniors Conversations on Africa.